Overview

For many, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has had the look and feel of a fluffy add-on; something to be done when extra money was in the bank or when a little extra brand value needed to be created. It has not been seen as an investment in products, processes and people that create sustainable businesses, or as a strategic counter-balance to the negative externalities that many expose themselves to when outsourcing production to another country. While consumers on the whole may not understand the complexity of a supply chain, or have a direct personal connection to the laborer who assembled their product, they do have a line, and they will increasingly walk away from firms that break the unwritten and written codes. This is a fact that some firms have lost sight of over the past 18 months as the global recession took hold.

Overview While ideas of greening transportation had consumers mainly focused on availability and performance of hybrid and electric cars last year, there was also growing pressure on brand-owners to reconfigure the transportation components of their supply chains. By the middle of 2008, the rise in price of a barrel of oil to over $150 meant manufacturers and transport and logistics service providers were no longer in a position to do nothing. Richard Brubaker looks at some of the current drivers, barriers, and methods employed by manufacturers and transport and logistics service providers to achieve greener supply chains

Overview With the recent news of a 25-year-old committing suicide at Foxconn over the possible theft of a new iPhone, the debate over the responsibility foreign firms have for the way suppliers manage labour was re-ignited. It is a decades-old issue, highlighted in the West through books such as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and high profile media stories such as the 1997 Nike labour scandal. It is an issue that continues to raise its head throughout many supply chains rooted in Asia.

Overview

As consumers increasingly vote for sustainable products with their wallets, brands are paying attention. For most consumer brands, responding properly requires a new mindset and complete overhaul of processes beginning with sustainable product design. Product design is the beginning point for transformation to sustainable business because the design of the product defines the system required to create the product.

The process by which a product is conceptualised and designed is crucial to determining the level of ‘green’ that product will ultimately have. The design will determine where materials are sourced; where the product is manufactured; how it is transported and distributed, and the method of its end-of-life disposal. It is not an overstatement to say that perhaps more than anywhere else, the conceptualisation and design stage is where the ultimate environmental footprint of a product is determined.

Overview

Buildings are the largest users and wasters of energy in supply chains. As part of the Supply Chain Asia Magazine CSR Series, Richard Brubaker demonstrates that by studying physical supply chain structures and the environments in which they exist, companies can make large efficiency and cost gains for both their businesses and the environment

Overview

This paper reviews the reasoning, structure, methods and paradigm of mainstream economics from the perspective of economic, social and environmental sustainable development, and draws conclusion that the core issue of economics should be equity and sustainability. The paper presents the systems of ecological economy, points out the theoretical flaws of the conventional economics and emphasizes the role of natural capital in sustainable development. The author proposes to evaluate reasonably the indispensable contribution that natural capital makes to the economic output and to reinvest in natural capital in order to achieve long2term economic and social sustainable development. These points of view are of theoretical and practical value to the building of resource2conserving and environment2friendly harmonious society in China.

This paper, available in Chinese language only, can be downloaded below

Overview

The environmental crisis that our modern society faces is a cultural crisis in essence. This crisis can not be solved only by technical and economic means, but instead, it needs a radical change of ideas. As a sustained cultural form that seeks a coordinated development between humans and nature, ecological culture must be based on holist philosophy and the values of ecology and view ecologist thinking pattern and deep-structure ecological awareness as its content core. The world outlook and methodology that the results of the studies of ecology have demonstrated have supplied a solid foundation for the building of the concept of an ecological culture.

This paper, available in Chinese language only, can be downloaded below

Overview

The concept of grassland agricultural sustainable development was forwarded，the possibility of the sustainable development of grasstand agriculture in China was analyzed，the feasible options of sustainable development of grassland agriculture in China were proposed，and the problems and corresponding measures were discussed in this paper．

This paper, available in Chinese language only, can be downloaded below

Overview

The adjustment of current agricultural production structure was discussed and sustainable development of pastoral industry was proposed for farming- pastoral zone of northern China by combining inter-disciplines of geographical, ecological and agricultural sciences.

This paper, available in Chinese language only, can be downloaded below

Overview

Within the global urban system, the statistical relationship between urban eco-environment(U E) and urban competitiveness(UC) (RUEC) is researched. Data showed that there is a statistically inverted-U relationship between UE and UC. Eco-environmental factor is put into the classification of industries, and gets six industrial types by two indexes viz. industries’eco-environmental demand and pressure. The statistical results showed that there is a strong relationship, for new industrial classification, between the changes of industrial structure and evolvement of UE. The drive mechanism of the evolvement of urban eco-environment, with human demand and global work division was analyzed.

The conclusion is that the development strategy, industrial policies of cities, and environmental policies for cities must be fit with their ranks among the global urban system. At the era of globalization, so far as the environmental policies, their rationality could not be assessed with the level of strictness, but it can enhance cities' competitiveness when they are fit with cities' capabilities to attract and control some sections of the industry's value-chain. None but these kinds of environmental policies can probably enhance theUC.