Photo via People's Daily

A new green trend is sweeping across China’s manufacture industry, which has been burdened with tonnes of waste.

The nation’s manufacturing industry has promoted economic development, but it has also brought enormous damage to the environment. More than 70% of global environmental pollution is from the manufacturing industry, which generates about 6.2 billion tons of waste per year. As a manufacturing giant, China has been committed to green transformation and upgrading of manufacturing in recent years.

Green manufacturing will minimize the negative impact on the environment during the entire stages of design, including manufacturing, packaging, use, and disposal, while also maximizing resource utilization and overall benefits, professor Liu Fei from Chongqing University said.

At present, China’s green manufacturing system mainly involves green factories, green products, green industrial parks, and green supply chains. In November 2018, the third batch of green manufacturing lists was released, featuring 391 green factories, 480 green design products, 34 green parks, and 21 prominent green supply-chain management enterprises.

Among the latest enlisted enterprises, Changchun Fengyue Company of FAW-Toyota Motor Co. Ltd., for example, has continuously upgraded equipment and technology for energy saving and environmental protection.

It has successively implemented 94 energy conservation and emission reduction projects, such as coating heat energy recycling and transformation, heating and air conditioning control system transformation, and water reuse, with accumulated investment of 20.12 million yuan. Such recycling and reuse technology can in turn save loads of money for enterprises.

Now, one-third of the daily 1,000 tonnes of waste water from the enterprise can be reused and recycled within its compound.

Local governments have been following in the trend with various kinds of support. In central China’s Henan province – where many manufacturing enterprises are located, those enlisted green factories and industrial parks could receive some 2 million yuan in subsidies.

Moreover, green supply-chain, a relative new concept that arose in recent years, is a modern management model that takes environmental impact and resource utilization efficiency into account throughout the supply chain, from suppliers and manufacturers to dealers and end-users. Many manufacturing companies have achieved good economic and social benefits through the development of green supply chain.

In Shunde, southern China’s Guangdong province, green supply chain is a widely accepted concept, especially after some upper stream manufacturers got affected by their downstream suppliers that failed to stay in line with the environmental protection standards.

“We have now realized that we are all in this together. We win or lose together. In fact, by becoming green, we can find our new profit growth opportunity,” said a person in charge at the home appliance manufacturer Kelon.