Mission Briefs: Beijing

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UNEP Sustainable Consumption and Production chief Arab Hoballah met with Chinese officials in Beijing to discuss UNEP’s contribution to the post-earthquake recovery efforts June 12-13.

In meetings with Chinese housing and environmental ministries, Arab reiterated UNEP’s commitment to provide technical assistance on issues related to sustainable building in the reconstruction period.

Environment ministry officials said reconstruction planning would be finished in mid-July, and policy recommendations for reconstruction completed in mid-September. The Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection recognized UNEP’s particular expertise in reconstruction and sustainable building.
Their enlistment of UNEP’s support is contingent on results of ongoing assessments.

Arab also had the opportunity to lead a high level industry briefing on sustainable building, construction and reconstruction. Mr. Zhang Yue, founder and CEO of UNEP-SBCI member Broad Air Conditioning, co-chaired the meeting with UNEP. We greatly appreciates Broad’s continued support of our efforts in China.

Meeting participants included researchers, members of the media, and representatives from NGOs and the public and private sectors. They agreed the post-earthquake recovery effort was a good opportunity to foster sustainable reconstruction, using local materials, involving the local population and integrating environmental and social best practices.

Thanks also to SBCI Members Serge Newman of Somfy and Alice Morterol of CSTB China, who together with Mark Clifford of the Asia Business Council contributed presentations on their organisations work in Asia.

Those in attendance also noted an increased willingness by Chinese investors and builders to “go green.”
These stakeholders are therefore looking for partners to help them achieve these objectives.

Following Arab’s visit, the Chinese environment ministry requested UNEP’s partnership in organizing a four-day workshop on post-earthquake reconstruction in the environmental sector. One of the four topics that will be covered during the workshop is environmental supervision and management of temporary settlement and rebuilding area.