Friday, June 19, 2009

A Zero Emissions Mirage?

In view of the general, though not entirely accurate, perception of China as underdeveloped and lacking in environmental awareness, the existence of China-based companies, such as Emission Zero, which help other companies manage and reduce their carbon footprints was quite surprising.
At the moment their clients comprise of two small businesses in Shanghai---"a drop in the ocean" doesn't even begin to describe how small a profile that is in a country of 1.3 billion---and they've apparently been up for quite a few years already (their website says copyright 2006). And those businesses are niche ones (2,000 yuan a night is kind of expensive for a hotel). Maybe it's just a flash in the pan at the moment. But then it's hard to be sure ...their website may be surprisingly navigable compared to most Chinese ones, but when it comes to paucity of useful information it is perfectly on par. What on Earth does the London office do? Is the company in any way related to another of exactly the same name but headquartered in Birmingham? What exactly does the company do? (Apparently it sets up accounting systems to keep track of clients' carbon footprint and offsets, but it's never written out quite clearly).
So in the absence of further information, we conclude that it is a brief, but potentially unreliable flicker, of what may be coming.

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