Why small and medium chemical companies continue to pose severe environmental risks in rural China

Abstract

a b s t r a c tIn China, rural chemical SMEs are often believed to still largely operate below the sustainability radar. This paper investigates to what extent and how chemical SMEs are already experiencing pressure to improve their environmental performance, using an in-depth case study in Jasmine County, Hebei province. The results show that local residents had rather low trust in the environmental improvement promises made by the enterprises and the local government, and disagreed with the proposed improvement plans. Although the power of local residents to influence decision making remained limited, the chemical SMEs started to feel increasing pressures to clean up their business, from governments, local communities and civil society, and international value chain stakeholders. Notwithstanding these mounting pressures chemical SME's environmental behavior and performance has not changed radically for the better. The strong economic ties between local county governments and chemical SMEs continue to be a major barrier for stringent environmental regulation.

Impacts of soil and water pollution on food safety and health risks in China

“…These rivers support a high density of population and are also prime locations for a wide range of industries with comparatively cheap water, labor and transportation. Many industrial parks are located in these areas (He et al, 2014). Large amounts of industrial, agricultural and domestic waste water have been discharged into the rivers and lakes.…”

Transparency and information disclosure in China's environmental governance

“…But this strong position of the central government as trustful environmental information provider is less clear when it comes to sustainable and healthy food, where scientific experts seem to be a more trusted source of information [43 ,45,46,67]. Consistently, environmental information from local governmental authorities is much less trusted, as is shown in numerous case studies [19,54 ].…”

“…Studies on mandatory or voluntary environmental and corporate social responsibility information disclosure by companies focus on either stock-listed companies [25,26,27 ], on local case studies [19,28,29], on specific industrial sectors [25], on substances such as greenhouse gas reporting [30], on investors [2, 31 ], or on industry samples according to size or pollution levels [32]. Together these studies show that information disclosure levels are related to organizational characteristics of industries (larger companies, foreign or state-owned companies and companies in polluting sectors disclose environmental information better) and to activities of other stakeholders (e.g.…”

Assessing Risks at a Former Chemical Facility, Nanjing City, China: An Early Test of the New Remediation Guidelines for Waste Sites in China

“…Like many nations, China has begun to recognize the need to investigate former manufacturing sites and remediate them so they can be returned to productive use [1]. In China's case, this is particularly important because many former manufacturing sites are quickly becoming isolated within large, newly developed or developing residential areas [2].…”