Assessing the Nexus between Cross-border Infrastructure Projects and Extinction Accounting—from the Belt and Road Initiative Perspective

Ruopiao Zhang and Carlos Noronha

Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 2023, vol. 43, issue 1, 30-55

Abstract: The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a mega-global infrastructure development strategy initiated in 2013. Although the BRI has fostered huge potential for economic growth, it poses a significant threat to biodiversity, especially because many of the infrastructure projects are cross-border and are being built in areas where rare and endangered species found nowhere else on the planet live. This paper reflects and raises concerns about the repercussions of BRI infrastructure projects on species extinction. While most research has been geared towards assessing the economic and social impacts of BRI on host countries, this paper contributes to the sustainable planning and evaluation of the impacts of a less investigated sector—the infrastructure sector through the lens of extinction accounting.By identifying the specific extinction risks of different types of infrastructure projects during construction-in-progress period and daily operations period, this paper refines and extends prior general frameworks of extinction accounting, and further tailors them to the specific and important context of infrastructure projects under the BRI scenario. In addition, this paper serves as a counterpoint to prior literature on extinction accounting within the Chinese frame of reference by critically underscoring the current infirmity in extinction accounting by Chinese MNEs operating under the mega initiative. Thirty representative cross-border infrastructure projects under the BRI are examined on how they report and attempt to mitigate their ecology-specific impacts using the extinction accounting checklist. This paper concludes that the extinction accounting practices of BRI infrastructure projects are still at their embryonic stage and offers practitioners, researchers and policy makers critical insights and a broader perspective on the role of human activities in extinction crises along cross-border corridors.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1080/0969160X.2022.2132969

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