Just after the Opening Ceremony, the UNEP announced that China’s Yao Ming will be its first Environmental Champion.

In the press conference, Yao had this to say about his new role:

“As a sportsman, I believe sport has a major role to play in promoting environmental issues,” Yao said in a statement. “I will work with young people across the world and try to inspire them to plant trees, use energy-efficient light bulbs, harvest rain water and become environmental champions in their own communities.

With previous campaigns against shark fin soup and the protection of exotic speacies, it is clear that Yao ming looks to stick with the environment as his issue, and personally I think that will only add further to his cause to protect the environment.

Free condoms have been offered to athletes in the games since Barcelona in 1992. Provided by the China Reproductive Health Industry Association, this is the first time the Olympic condoms have been made in China and quality checks have been carried out to certify the condoms meet international standards.

As CSR advocates in China, that sounds great

Researchers and residents have given a guarded welcome to a government regulation to curb pollution of the Songhua River, which took effect on Friday.

It gives Jilin provincial and city authorities the power to suspend the production of polluting factories.

They also face fines of between 100,000 (US$14,600) and 200,000 yuan for failure to meet environmental protection requirements.

“Sheer punishment is not enough. Factories need to be made aware of the harmful effects of pollution. Education is one way,” Bing Zheng, president of Jilin provincial academy of social sciences, said (Chinagate)

Actually, I would have said that it is the other way around. Education is not enough and factories need to be punished more oftena nd more severely. Anyway, good news that local governments are getting more power to solve environmental problems. Whether they will or not is another matter.

Last Wednesday, the folks behind Nest brought together their 2nd panel discussion on on sustainable design, and it was a nice evening where the audience learned about why the designers took the paths they did.

Speaking first was of Lin Wen (Bonita) of Brown Rice who spoke of the path she took to not just starting Brown Rice, but she also spoke of all the good things she has done through it

Next was Jamy Yang of Y Town , and unfortunately do to the poor quality of the video I was not able to capture this portion in full, but for this design shop they were motivated not just by designing something new and cool.  Finding ways of using existing materials and finding ways of reducing materials when they designed was one way they look to design products to serve multiple functions and to have longer lifelines as a way to reduce waste.

The final speaker, Rachel Speth - Cofounder Bambuhome and Nest, spoke about her path from a member of Nike’s design team, to their environmental team, to her decision to leave the corporate life to start Bambu home 5 years ago with her husband. Modest to the nth degree, Rachel spoke about the process of developing the products, the process of creating her products, and how they continually look to reduce waste/ reuse materials/ and operate as cleanly as possible (transportation is an area they struggle with).

Next month, on the last Wednesday, Nest will be holding their third and final event and I suggest you check it out. Typically they announce through their Facebook page, but you will also see an announcement here.

To visit Nest (Shanghai’s first artison co-op), go to the website. you will find profiles of their 9 artisen (several of which we have interviewed as part of our video series).

Last summer, China was in the middle of a labor shift. The third and final draft of the labor policy was under consideration, McDonald’s and Yum were suspected of paying college stagg below market rate, and a slave labor scandal had just passed.

It was a perfect storm of event that 12 months later can be seen as another one of China’s turning points. China’s only labor union got a huge boost, enforcement of labor violations increased (a boost to labor), and even labor lawyers were promoted to the front of the line as well at the time.

No doubt, it is still a time where things can be touch and go, but progress is coming in a number of steps.

Two of the most recent examples that show some of the forward progress can be found in the recent news that Wal-Mart has agreed to collective bargaining with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). It was a well covered event (Businessweek, Forbes, the Economist, China Daily, and others), and through these negottiations was an agreement to raise wages 8% this year and next,

However, for me, a more interesting story was in the financial times this week.  Chinese factory workers gain recognition for their grievances chronicles the labor movement that had traditionally be seen as outside the lines, but in the last year has made progress in their efforts to defend others abused at the workplace.

Stories we know well, the role of associations - much like the role of environmental NGOs and volunteering groups after 5.12 - have gained support at the central level from leaders who have come to understand that these needs have to be addressed and at the citizen level by those who are beginning to develop a sense of the costs associated with economic development.

from my perspective, I view both of the examples about as strong steps forward.  They are steps that should not be over celebrated, rather they should be seen as a foundation for the next steps, the steps that will lead down a path where NGOs, the community, and agencies all work as one to then take the next steps forward.

Maybe that is a bit utopian in thought, but in my experience in China.. that is the way that things have gone in other developing sectors of civil society in China, and it is perhaps the most stable/ sustainable way forward.  There are surely going to be flareups that occur short term, but ove rhte medium and long term we will see a real movement towards better labor conditions.

Since starting this project, I have enjoyed highlighting many of the Scientific American article on China’s environment, and in the run up to the Beijing games they have released a large number of articles in their print and digital versions.

• The Price of Gas in China
• Can Coal and Clean Air Coexist in China?
• Sunrise on China’s First Carbon-Neutral City
• Back to the Future: Harnessing the Power of the Yangtze River
• China’s Big Push for Renewable Energy
• Is China’s Pollution Poisoning Its Children?
• After the Quake: Helping China Clean Up Their Environment

Each of these is well written, offer some nicely packaged commentary that I enjoyed, and hope you will as well

U.S. technology giants Microsoft Corp, Google Inc and Yahoo Inc, in talks with other Internet companies and human-rights groups, have reached an agreement on a voluntary code of conduct for activities in China and other restrictive countries….The voluntary code will spell out “principles of freedom of expression and privacy” in countries where governments seek users’ private information or block access to certain websites…. The code will be completed later this year.

Interesting news, this, as the human rights elements of censorship has dropped off the agenda recently (note that after Yahoo gave some details of one of the users of one of its services leading to that user being arrested, Yahoo established a fund to assist victims of internet censorship).

We will have to see what the code looks like, and more importantly, whether other technology companies (such as Cisco) join up to it (or if they create their own). It will also be interesting to read different analysts opinions of why this has been achieved, i.e. which pressure point was most telling: the NGOs, the government, the shareholders, the public? A combination of all I imagine, and I am sure the NGOs will be claiming victory (though, in all likelihood, the code will not be good enough for the NGOs, or the NGOs will still demand more, or investigate instances of the code not being followed -just generally be unsatisfied with it, since these 3 companies are easy PR targets).

It is definitely a case of the 3 creating a code to keep any more restrictive legislation from being created. Whether they will be successful or not, will also, i hazard a guess, depend on the details in the code, and whether it placates enough people in the US government!

Last year, UNEP released a report of Beijing’s progress towards a Green Olympics. The report is comprehensive, though the press release is a more manageable (and still relatively detailed) read. Overall it seems Beijing has done an excellent job, though the focus has been, typically, more on a) tangible and physical improvements (i.e. less on the awareness raising) and b) dealing with problems, rather than preventing them (i.e. treating waste, rather than really trying to reduce waste). The press release (which I recommend reading) summarises:

Remaining Concerns include Air Pollution; Offsetting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Public Awareness and Need to Boost Public Transport Use

Significant strides are being made to ‘green’ the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, a report issued today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says.

The hosting of the Games is also proving to be a catalyst for accelerating environmental improvements across the city as Beijing strives to balance rapid, often double-digit economic growth with health and environmental protection.

“The more than $12 billion spent by the Municipal Government and Government of China, appears to have been well spent-and will be even more well spent if the lessons learnt and measures adopted are picked up by municipalities across the country so as to leave a real and lasting nationwide legacy,” he added.

Indeed, if many of the innovative practices can be scaled up, the effect could be tremendous. One will have to see if, post-Olympics, the Olympic brand can still be used to help!

Humans are slow to react to anything that is not an imminent threat, so says Dan Gilbert in his piece on why we have not reacted to global warming as quickly as we should.

It is a brilliant piece. One I suggest everyone watch.  and one you should all pass on.

If you cannot view the above, you can go to the Pop!Cast page directly.

The Asia society has just launched their own Beijing Air quality site, and one of the pieces of this site is called room with a view where they have a year worth of pictures of Beijing’s skyline.  It is a fascinating collage.

Outside of that there is also a detailed page on Beijing’s Blue Sky days (incl a breakdown of what a blue sky day is and how they measure it)