Social Responsibility Towards More Balanced Urban–Rural Development in China

David Angus Ness ()
Additional contact information
David Angus Ness: University of South Australia

A chapter in Sustainable Development and CSR in China, 2015, pp 43-54 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Whilst seeking to embrace a ‘green economy’, China has an opportunity to develop its own version, not merely adopt western concepts. In this regard, the notion of a ‘socialist ecological civilisation’ has been canvassed by leaders such as Pan Yue, placing increased emphasis on social justice and equity. Such a civilisation and economy may be supported by a community wide ecological value system, akin to corporate social responsibility, which integrates notions such as human well-being, fair sharing of wealth, social responsibility and inclusion, and respect for nature and its scarce resources. This may form the basis for ecological education programs, thereby inculcating hearts and minds, guiding socially responsible behaviour and decisions, and motivating ‘social-preneurs’. The value system may be used to highlight the inequity and social challenges associated with imbalanced development and urbanisation in China, including the 80 million ‘children left-behind’ and environmental degradation. The proposition is put forward that rural community enterprise and infrastructure development may not only slow the population flow to cities, but also enable communities to share prosperity in an environmentally friendly manner. The use of emissions trading and offsets may form a platform for such rural enterprise development and investment, and this forms the basis of the paper. China is piloting carbon trading schemes in seven locations, accompanied by Certified Emissions Reductions offsets. Similar to the Clean Development Mechanism, rural areas may benefit by sale of domestic carbon credits from plantations that sequester carbon, enabling urban areas to offset their emissions. Examples of such plantations and schemes are presented. Carbon offsets and enterprises are seen as a possible solution to the urban–rural imbalance. This will require social and environmental entrepreneurship, leadership and capability building within rural communities, supported by partnerships and training from urban based corporations and NGOs, so that carbon finance and investment opportunities may be realised.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility; Clean Development Mechanism; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneur; Emission Trading Scheme (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:csrchp:978-3-319-17371-9_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783319173719

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-17371-9_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().