China

ISC began working in China with the belief that the U.S and China, the two largest emitters of greenhouse gasses, can also work together to lead the world in addressing climate disruption. Taking advantage of the best of U.S. and Chinese resources and expertise, our work in China will bring cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable environmental practices to two of country’s most industrial provinces, Guangdong and Jiangsu.

Our Guangdong Environmental Partnership program, launched in 2007, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve public health, and increase environmental accountability in Guangdong Province, China’s “factory to the world.” Our program works at three levels to spark a wave of change in environmental and energy-efficiency practices in communities across the province:

• Industry

  In order to boost environmental and safety standards in the many factories in Guangdong, ISC is launched an Environment, Health and Safety Academy to provide affordable, state-of-the-art training to 1800 factory managers per year to help them save energy, reduce harmful emissions, and improve worker health and safety conditions.

• Government

  We are strengthening the environmental enforcement tools of government by sharing international best practices to bolster information disclosure, citizen monitoring, risk communication, and resource efficiency.

• Communities and Schools

  To generate public commitment to using resources wisely, ISC is working with three communities and schools in Guangdong to implement energy efficiency projects in factories, schools, hospitals, and dwellings. Communities will reinvest energy savings in more energy efficiency projects. At the same time, we are developing courses on resource efficiency and environmental health for children ages 9-13 and involving the public, community and business leaders, and education administrators in their hands-on learning.

In the fall of 2009, we launched the US-China Partnership for Climate Action with our partner, the World Resources Institute. This program will leverage resources and best practices from both countries to achieve significant and lasting greenhouse gas reductions in two of China’s most industrialized provinces, Jiangsu and Guangdong.

Building on our existing work in Guangdong, our program targets the largest current source of emissions in China—the industrial and power sectors—and the fastest growing source of new emissions—urban cities:

• Industry

  To improve the capacity of energy-intensive industries to reduce their energy and carbon footprints, we are creating new greenhouse gas accounting tools to standardize meansurement in China. Through our existing Environment, Health and Safety Academy in Guandong and the launch of a second academy in Jiangsu, we will help factories make use of these new tools.

• Power Sector

  In 2008, half the increase in annual CO2 emissions worldwide could be attributed solely to the Chinese electric utility sector. With this in mind, we are targeting the electric power sector to remove key barriers and build incentives for increased energy efficiency and renewable energy use in the power sector and among end users.

• Cities

  We are working with Chinese cities to deepen and scale up successful clean energy models through peer-to-peer networking with U.S. counterparts through a Climate Leadership Academy, the first of which will focus on low-carbon planning and greenhouse gas accounting.

Our model is based on 12 years of work in Russia, among other countries, where we managed 721 projects that cleaned up polluted air and water, eliminated toxic waste, reduced energy consumption, and launched sustainable businesses. In addition, we helped 39 resource-strapped communities reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by more than 12,000 tons per year, and reinvest those savings back into the community.

The Environment, Health and Safety Academy

China's Guangdong province helped spur the nation's economic miracle and remains a powerful engine of growth, generating 11 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. With our partner, Lingnan (University) College, ISC has launched a new Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) Academy to expand the pool of qualified EHS managers serving factories in Guangdong Province.

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One Year After the Sichuan Earthquake

ISC is partnering with the Chinese nonprofit, the Institute for Civil Society, to help Sichuan communities plan for the long-term and address issues laid bare by the earthquake—even as they tackle the immediate job of reconstruction.

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