China Environmental Labeling,Our best friend

What our friend looks like?

The story about China Environmental Labeling

The committee of China Environment Labeling is founded in the May, 1994, which is composed of the experts who come from the State Environment Protection Administration (SEPA) and General Administration of Quality Supervision Inspection and Quarantine the People’s of China (AQSIQ) [1], it can be seen as the only national organization for green product certification authority and award the China Environmental Labeling for the products.

Why our friend so credibility?
The characteristics of China Environmental Labeling

The characteristic of the China Environment Labeling is authority which makes the public trust it. As a well-known global ecological label, several things have been developed by China Environment Labeling to help it credibility.

Firstly, the experts come from SEPA and AQSIQ, who can be regarded as the highest level of environment protection around the world, they can determine what kind of products is deserve to receive the China Environment Labeling, and explain the reasons for the public.

And then, the company which received the China Environment Labeling should obey ISO14000 and ISO9000 international environment standards, and they should also be inspected every year to determine whether it have the qualification to keep the China Environment Labeling or not [2].

Last but not the least, the third party inspection institutions also be developed for determining of the China Environment Labeling, all the things mentioned above have made the China Environment Labeling to be a reliable label because of the authority, and it is also easy for the public to trust the production which have this kind of label.

How does other friends work in Hong Kong?

Hong Kong culture and history of the ecological labels

The Hong Kong citizens’ sense of environmental protection

With the air pollution and problem of waste treatment in worldwide, environment also becomes a social issue in Hong Kong. More and more Hong Kong citizens have the environmental awareness. From the publishing perspective, in 1998, the words “environmental protection” only mentioned once per 2 days. Therefore, the frequency increased 12 times until 2008 [3].

（Source: http://www.foe.org.hk/uploaded_files/16062007Anniversery/10years%20chi.jpg [4]）

However, with the growing attention, there is no evidence show that Hong Kong people’s behaviors and practices are changed as equal. Lacking of personal consciousness of environment protection, citizens tend to wait for government or some environmental organizations to hold relevant activities. According to the data from Green Council, the increase of per capital residential water and electricity consumption is 15.62% and 18.15%, while the increase of population in Hong Kong is only 5.89% [5]. 

The Hong Kong citizens’ purchasing customs

As a commercial center, Hong Kong is portrayed as a consumption city. Both government and consumer market prefer to regard consumption encouragement as a good way to develop economy rather than mention the negative impact of ecological problem and social value behind the economic growth. With the concept of over-consumption and shallow understanding of environmental protection, Hong Kong citizens do not have the environmental preference during shopping.

What’s more, products made in China are widely used in Hong Kong people’s daily life. Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, has import kinds of consumption from Mainland China. Due to high cost in labor market and limited resources, Hong Kong is heavily relying on other countries to satisfy its consumption needs. So it is very common for Hong Kong citizens to buy imported products, especially those made in China (58.7 billion dollars in 2012 [6]), during the purchasing process.

The practice of other Hong Kong ecologic label

 

In Hong Kong, the well-known ecological labels have long-term history, which includes the Hong Kong Eco-label, Hong Kong Water-saving Label, Hong Kong Energy Label and so on [7]. These labels have their own history and details application and operation process. Like the Hong Kong Eco-label, it is a kind of evincive label which marks on the products or the packaging of the products and can prove that the products, not only in good quality but also confirming to the certain environmental requirements in the process of producing, use and recycle, are superior to the parallel products on energy conservation and less poison and damage to environment. Hong Kong Eco-label is a type of product certification that validates if the environmental performance of the product confirms to the relevant technical standard about environmental protection. And the Hong Kong Eco-label would like to participate in the global environment cooperation organization not only because of the terrible environment problems in east, but also they want to absorb the advanced technology and ideas from the western side.

Other NGO working in HK and what the influence they are

There are a lot of environmental protection organizations in Hong Kong, like WWF Hong Kong, Friends of the Earth, the Conservancy Association, Society for Protection of the Harbour and so on. Undoubtedly, these non-government organizations had organized a lot of meaningful activities, which includes about out-door activities and operating with government and enterprises activities and most of them reached a positive result giving a far-reaching influence to Hong Kong and improving citizens’ sense of environmental protection.

For example, the plastic bag pricing plan, which is held by the whole Hong Kong environmental organization and accepted by the local government, has become one of the most effective and successful environmental protection activities, including local citizen investigation, enterprise encouragement and cooperation, award ceremony, student education, and so on. And the result was very remarkable, the amount of plastic bag usage from 2572 per person annually reduced to 162 per person annually now [8].

Why we need this friend in Hong Kong?

The necessity and feasibility about the China Environmental Labeling using in Hong Kong

(Source: Trade between Hong Kong and the mainland of China, Hong Kong Monthly Digest of Statistics, 2013 [9])

In the beginning, as we can see in the preview tables, the product import from Mainland China has placed a significant role of the import trade in Hong Kong, which percentage has kept over 40% from 2003 to 2012. And it seems that the percentage is improving gradually. It proves that Hong Kong citizens have formed the customs about purchasing Chinese product for a long time. And we know that the standard between Mainland China and Hong Kong are different, where the follower is stricter. With the China Environmental Labeling developing rapidly, the qualification process becomes stricter than ever before, it should go out of Mainland China and be shown to the whole world, where Hong Kong is a good place for the first step.

Secondly, issues of environmental protection in Hong Kong are being talked much, which we can see the environmental protection organizations are strongly encouraged by the society, government and citizens and the citizen have positive sense of taking actions to environmental protection. With the enthusiastic sense of environmental protection, it will become a suitable place to practice the China Environmental Labeling for the mainland product, which may become a sustainable success.

Thirdly, the culture between mainland China and Hong Kong is becoming more similar than before. Language, value, live style or even senses of environmental protection are similar, where Mainland China is going through an international development road.

Last but not least, both of China Environmental Labeling and Hong Kong ecological label have the same goal about communicating with other ecological labels in the world and setting criteria for and certify products and services with lower environmental burdens and impacts than comparable products/services with the same function. So it is feasibility for Hong Kong to connect the mainland ecological label and Hong Kong ecological label, which beneficial for the trade between Hong Kong and Mainland China and be advantage for improving the quality of product.

How can we invite our friend to help Hong Kong citizens?

The strategies about broadcasting China ecological labels

Government & Corporate encouragement and application

The indicated that establish a As we can see, in other be a well-known ecological label in Hong Kong, China Environmental Labeling should cooperate with Hong Kong government and corporates, encouraging them to apply China Environmental Labeling and using it for the product importing in Mainland China. Conger (1998) indicated that an effective persuader should establish credibility at the first step by expertise and relationship development. And as the international qualification of ISO14020, ISO14021 and ISO14024, China Environmental Labeling has proved its authority and credibility through historical successes in environment protection and when the product from Mainland China has been qualified by it, Hong Kong government will be encouraged to apply this label, which will be beneficial for more good quality products and environmentally friendly products importing from Mainland China. Also, the cooperation with Hong Kong government would enhance the image of China Environmental Labeling to become more acceptable and reliable in Hong Kong citizens’ mind. And the other hands, corporate will be more concentrated in improving the product quality. For both Hong Kong imported products and corporates from Mainland China, this would be a win-win strategy.

Out-door publicity and citizen activities and investigation

In order to broadcast the China Environmental Labeling, another strategy which is out-door publicity and citizen activities and investigation should be used to achieve the goal. Garvin and Roberto (2005) mentioned that leaders must pay close attention to employees’ emotions and work hard to preserve a receptive climate for change. Because the public in Hong Kong would like to participate in the out-door activities, especially the environmental protection ones, it seems to be much easier to raise concern and gain popularity by holding publicities in outside. From what have been mentioned above, the activities which hold by other NGO have already attracted many people, and help them to be understand by more and more people. If we keep the out-door activities and investigation as interesting as others, provide the activities such as China Environmental Labeling Marathon, or the storytelling about knowledge of China Environment Labeling to prepare people for change needs to evoke the future and conjure up a direction for getting there, but without being too precise (Denning, 2004), it can help the China Environmental Labeling to be famous around the Hong Kong. 

Cooperating to the whole world and communicating with other eco-label

It will be more efficient to combine the different criteria of ecological label between Mainland China and Hong Kong in terms of the reinforced contact economic and trading activities and similar culture. As we mentioned above, both Mainland China and Hong Kong have ecological labels, but the standards are not the same. It means that a product entitled with Chinese Environmental Labeling cannot be the environmentally friendly one in Hong Kong because of without local ecological certification. In other words, if a product wants to be regarded as eco-friendly no matter in Mainland China and Hong Kong, it should be examined by two sides. So it is more efficient to build a uniform standard to reduce the repeated checkouts to make Chinese Environmental Labeling have the same effect as Hong Kong ecological labels in Hong Kong market. Furthermore, Hong Kong residents could have broader choices when choosing a green product under the same effect of ecological labels. After the former education and publicity strategies, people who have deeper consciousness of environment protection may prefer to choose environmentally-friendly products during shopping. When they want to purchase a eco-friendly product, they can choose the one with either Chinese Environmental Labeling or local certification because of the same criteria.

Video

The video will be effective to help us reach the goal, First of all, we put the logo of China Environmental Labeling at the beginning of the video, with the help of the description, people will understand what the China Environmental Labeling is, and then, we make the comparison between the landscape of mainland China, it can make the audience understand that after the China Environmental Labeling are widely used in the products, the environment become better and better, after that, we use some scenery picture of Hong Kong to make people image that, if the China Environmental Labeling is introduced in Hong Kong, it can help people make great contribution to the environment, and people can keep this beautiful scenery forever. Lastly, we use the sentence “using the CEL, have bright future , you can do it” and “CEL, our best friend” to help people believe the China Environmental Labeling looks like a friend to help us deal with the environmental problems together. From these four steps, it can help the audience to be attracted, and change their consumption behavior.

Reference

[1] [2] http://kjs.mep.gov.cn/zghjbz/

[3] http://www.greenpeace.org/hk/publications/green-discussion-articles/3/

[4] [5] Green Peace, Hong Kong Environmental Protection in Ten Years, retrieved from December, 2007, <http://www.foe.org.hk/uploaded_files/16062007Anniversery/10years%20chi.jpg>

[6] http://economy.caixin.com/2013-04-10/100512117.html

[7] http://www.hkfep.com/international.asp

[8] http://www.gsc.org.hk/modules/AMS/index.php?storytopic=4&start=10

[9] Hong Kong Monthly Digest of Statistics, Trade between Hong Kong and the Mainland of China, retrieved from June, 2013, <https://www.censtatd.gov.hk/hkstat/sub/sp230.jsp?productCode=FA100252>

Conger, J. (1998). The Necessary Art of Persuasion. Harvard Business Review, 85-94

Denning, S. (2004). Telling Tales. First Person, 122-129
Garvin, D., Roberto, M. (2005). Chang Through Persuasion. Harvard Business Review, 104-112