Environmental Sustainability Challenges in China's Business Sector

This report delves into the environmental challenges faced by China, particularly focusing on the impact of pollution in industrial cities like Beijing. It highlights the detrimental effects of air pollution, the role of rapid economic growth and industrialization, and the increasing number of vehicles on the roads. The report emphasizes the importance of sustainability for businesses operating in China, given the country's rapid development and the need for better pollution control plans. It provides an overview of China's economic background, including its population, GDP, and industrial hub status. Furthermore, the report discusses the concept of sustainability and the Chinese government's efforts to address environmental issues through various measures such as reducing winter pollution, curtailing steel plants, and promoting public transport. The report also references the efforts of local authorities in Beijing to ensure sustainability, including alternating access for cars, planting greenery, and encouraging the use of bicycles.

Intercultural Business
Communication

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Introduction
China is facing many environment related issues in almost each of its industrial cities.
Pollution has become a curse in the cities like Beijing. Government of China has made many
policies and have implemented different types of measures to reduce this problem. Every year
hundreds thousands people in China are killed due to air pollution (Cheng, et al. 2013). Due
to this, sustainability challenges related to life of people have become bigger for China.
Economic growth in the past few decades and over exploitation of resources has been the
major issues for this challenge to become bigger. Along with this there are nearly 1200 new
vehicles is adding on road every day. The situation in the cities like Beijing becomes so
worse that people had to wear mask for living their life. Beijing attracts a large numbers of
companies hence the pollution is estimated to increase further. Since China is developing at
much faster rate hence sustainability is a bigger challenge for the company as more industries
are going to come in these cities. For this a better pollution control plan is required in the
industry.
Country’s background
China is the most population nation in the world. At the same time it is having the second
largest GDP in the world only behind USA. The per capita income of the country is also high.
This country has developed itself in an industrial hub. Companies are attracted here due to
lower production cost, larger market for business, strong financial and technological support
and one of the biggest political powers in the world economy right now (Matus, et al. 2012).
The phase of industrialisation in the last few decades has empowered their economy but at
the same time it has affected the life of the people due to excessive waste generated from the
industries.
Beijing is the world’s third most populous town in the country and it is also the capital of
China. This city has faced one of the worst forms of air pollution. Cola burning factories
contributes to the highest amount of smog in the city. This city is the global power city and is
centre for economy, finance, culture, business, politics, education, language, innovation and
technology, diplomacy and architecture. It is a headquarters for most of China’s largest-
owned companies and houses the largest numbers of Fortune Global 500 firms in the world
(Rohde and Muller, 2015).

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Sustainability
Sustainability is understood as the process of maintaining alterations in a balanced
environment, in which the misuse of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation
of technological development are done so as to meet human aspirations and requirements.
Sustainability is the key issue in the China and government is also trying to make efforts for
improving the condition. This country has made an action plan where they aim to reduce the
winter pollution in Beijing. In this, they are curtailing dozens of steel plants to shut down.
Beijing is attracting large numbers of young professionals. The local authorities at Beijing are
trying many things to ensure sustainability by alternating access for cars coming into its city
centre on the basis of number plates. They are planting greenery outside the city. The
government is working on new model where the larger numbers of workers will not have to
come in the central Beijing (Harrison, 2016). They are working on developing public
transport so that it can reduce private vehicles from the road. Mixed use and energy efficient
cluster is planned around public transport hubs. For residential areas they have a plan to put
more greenery by building parks. They have also made a rule that on the weekends people
will not drive fuel related vehicles rather they would use bi-cycles.

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REFERENCES
Cheng, Y., Engling, G., He, K.B., Duan, F.K., Ma, Y.L., Du, Z.Y., Liu, J.M., Zheng, M. and
Weber, R.J., 2013. Biomass burning contribution to Beijing aerosol. Atmospheric Chemistry
and Physics, 13(15), pp.7765-7781.
Harrison, M. 2016. Building a sustainable Beijing. [Online] Available at:
https://www.atkinsglobal.com/en-gb/angles/all-angles/building-a-sustainable-beijing.
[Accessed on 15th May 2019]
Matus, K., Nam, K.M., Selin, N.E., Lamsal, L.N., Reilly, J.M. and Paltsev, S., 2012. Health
damages from air pollution in China. Global environmental change, 22(1), pp.55-66.
Rohde, R.A. and Muller, R.A., 2015. Air pollution in China: mapping of concentrations and
sources. PloS one, 10(8), p.e0135749.