What Is China's "Circular Economy" Law?

Sept. 14, 2008
Was wondering where Charlie McElwee has been recently -- turns out, he and the Squire, Sanders & Dempsey team have been busy figuring out the implications (as well as an accurate translation) of the new Chinese "Circular Economy" law. From China ...

Was wondering where Charlie McElwee has been recently -- turns out, he and the Squire, Sanders & Dempsey team have been busy figuring out the implications (as well as an accurate translation) of the new Chinese "Circular Economy" law.

From China Environmental Law:

Developing a circular economy. . .requires making overall plans, making reasonable layouts, adjusting measures to local conditions and focusing on actual effect. The development of a circular economy shall be propelled by the government, led by the market, effected by enterprises and participated in by the public.

Article 15: Enterprises producing products or packages listed in the catalogue of articles subject to compulsory recycle must be responsible for recycling discarded products or packages.

Article 16: The state adopts a key supervision and administration system to key enterprises in the high energy or water consuming industries such as steel, non-ferrous metal, coal, electric power, petroleum processing, chemical industry, building materials, building construction, paper-making, printing and dyeing.

Article 21: . . .Enterprises in such industries as electric power, oil processing, chemical industry, steel, non-ferrous metal and building materials must replace fuel oil with clean energy. . ."


Theres much, much more there, and I recommend checking back to get Charlie's take.

From what I can tell, the law involves a similar mode of thinking to the idea of "verbund", a German word meaning "linked" or "integrated" to the maximum degree -- except on a Chinese scale and with China-level control.

However, it's interesting that much of the enforcement seems to be vested in the local governments (where many of these national-level laws go to die, or so I've heard).

About the Author

Brad Kenney Blog | Chief Marketing Officer

Brad Kenney is the former Technology Editor of IndustryWeek and now serves as director of the mobile/social platforms practice at R/GA, a global marketing/advertising firm in New York City.

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