Download The Analyses on the Circular Economy for Urban Development Policy

The Analyses on the Circular Economy for Urban Development Policy
in China
Zhao Yan, Liu Xiaofeng
School of Management
Harbin University of Commerce, P.R.China, 150076
Abstract China’s economy growth has drawn great attention around the world. The compatible
problems between development and environment are prominence with the passage of time. The
construction of circular economy and improve the effective usage of resources have become the main
direction on development policy. People have realized the importance of sustainable growth for a society
in the process of economy growth, and the application of circular economy into the construction of the
urban development take the concept into practice. The authors believe that circular economy is the only
choice to achieve the goal in terms of saving resources and energy in the industry operation and business
activities for the construction of circular economy; it is possible to make urban area become
environmental friendly and achieve sustainable development by issue effective development policies;
policy-makers should take circulated economy into consideration of decision-making, and improve
urban construction and rebuilding by encouraging circulation products and take strict legislation and
management instrument.
Key words Circular economy, Urban development, Environmental friendly
1 Introduction
Circular economy is a model in order to saving energy and natural resources to achieve sustainable
development for all of the countries in the world. Circular economy theory emphasizes the recycling of
resources and reuse of energy. The concept of circulation economy was proposed by American
economist Kenneth Baldin at 60’s in 20th century. It refers the economy which changes the traditional
growth process on resource input, production, product consumption and abandons into the ecological
circulation development. [1] The study on circulation economy began in 1990s in China. Scholars
believe that circular economy is an integrated economy which combines the cleaning production and
utilization of waste. The circular economy is the higher form of modern urban development planning,
for its brand-new urban development pattern in the world. And circular economy has become the only
choice in the construction of ecology city.[2] The application of circular economy is especially
important for China for both its speed of growth and the amount of population.
It is clear that the development of circular economy is the basic way to optimize the structure of
urban industry.[3] The large number of population, poor resources and fragile ecological environment
are brutal fact face to China. Circular economy can foster new point for urban economy to grow
hormonally with environment. Along with economic development and expanding of cities, the amount
of domestic rubbish increased severely, which has brought a series of serious social economic problems.
At present in China, the total amount of industrial solid wastes has already reached 800 million tons; the
stock of urban life rubbish is up to more than 6 billion tons, and 2/3 of the cities are surrounded by
rubbish, nearly 500 million square meters of land is occupied by the rubbish, average annual economy
cost is about 25 billion - 30 billion Yuan. The rubbish recycling industry is lag behind, the utilization
ratio of regenerated resource is 1/4-1/3 of the advanced countries. It is imperative to take circular
economy as leading instrument in urban construction. There are 40 % of sewage purification instruments
are idle. The sewage purification in urban is 51.8% at present in China. [4]
2 Problems for the Construction of Circular Economy
China’s GDP increases up to 9.5% on average today. Urbanization has become the fact since
reform.[5] Along with the continuing development of economy, the speed of urbanization is 12% for
every year while it took Europe industrialized countries for 50 years until the end of the 19th century.
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According to statistics, there are 50 megalopolis, 90 large cities, 668 cities, 19,780 organic towns, and
460 million populations. It is estimated by the year 2010, there will be 126 large cities, 630 million of
population, and the urbanization level will reach to 45 %. Urban economy will play important role in
state GDP. The realization of the well-off society will continue being dominated by urban economy. The
role of urban economy will become more powerful.
The main way of urban economic development basically so far comes from “three high” -- high
energy consumption, high investment, high pollution.[6] The energy consumption of unit GDP is about
2 times of the 80’s. Water consumption for unit GNP is equivalent to 4 times of world average level.
Production of steel, copper, aluminum, lead and zinc consumes are 2-4 times of average level of the
world; the achievement of GNP from the output of energy is only 1/7 of world level. When GDP
accounted for 4 of the worlds in 2003 in China, it consumed 35% on steel, 30% on coal and 50% on
cement of world. Moreover, the loss of heat on the building is 2- 3 times of developed country.[7] The
efficiency of energy consumption apparatus is generally 30-40% of lower than that of the developed
country. Extensive economic growth brings serious environment consequence in urban economy, mainly
as following:
1, the excessively consume of natural resources has caused the resource crisis in urban areas. Among
600 cities, more than 400 cities are lack of water supply, and more than 100 cities are short of water
seriously.(see picture2-2).[4]
2, large number of cities is surrounded by rubbish which competes with human for land, and threats the
safety of the country.
3, the intensity of disposal of pollutants for each unit GDP is increasing, growth rate of industry far
exceeds the capacity of environment may bear. The emission of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide is
respectively 16.6 and 18.5, equals to 8 times and 9 times of OECD national average level. This reflects
the energy structure is unreasonable and low level of technology adoption.
4, while the old pollution problem has not been solved effectively, the problems on “15 small
enterprises”, agricultural and sea pollution, desertification, electronic rubbish, cross-border acid rain and
CO2 discharge, etc. cause the tendency of further ecological environment worse.
5, the deterioration of environment has influenced the economic development of the country. It means,
the economic growth is taking ecological environment as cost to a certain extent. When natural capital
from ecological environment is used up, to keep the development of economy as original level, it will
sacrifice the environment, development and healthy for later generations as the cost, and that makes the
goal of economic growth deviate from the life of people.
3 Main Methods to Solve the Problem for Developed Countries
Developed countries have summarized and accumulated experience the side effect for environment
after experiencing the high growth of economy.[8] After decades of research and application,
government in Western countries have learned lessons from experience of conflict between urban
economy development and sustainable environment. These experiences are very important for Chinese
policy-makers to learn in order to make few mistakes on the issue.
The main methods can be borrowed from the experience for China are as five aspects: 1,
Encourage business to develop old and useless article adjust and retrieve industry. The setting-up of this
reproduction system has greatly improved the reuse of energy and save resources. 2, Develop circulated
logistics industry and related service. Circulated logistics means improvement for saving the energy,
protection of the environment and setting up ecological friendly logistics system. 3, Issue strict
regulations and laws for strengthen consumer's responsibility. As “consumer” itself, government should
take responsibility on green consumption and propaganda, in order to improve public’s understanding on
circulated economy, make corresponding regulations for consumer carrying the responsibility. 4, Guide
the development of circulated economy by different types of economic methods. In Germany, package
and disposals are reduced by adoption on economic method on charging, deposit and praise. etc. 5, Take
circulated economy into strategic planning of local economy development. In Denmark and Japan, the
development plans for the construction of industry area and city take seriously consideration on the
issue of ecological affect and make circulated economic into planning system.
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4 Countermeasures for the Construction of Circular Economy in China
Government plays a critical role in the process of construction on sustainable economic
development in macro-level for regulation and control.[9] Government policies and regulations are
important instruments and security for economic development and environment protection. For setting
up environment friendly urbanization plan, government should take circulated economy as the centre
of the policy, combine the resources shortage in economic development and environmental problem,
take recycle economy as an important principle in the whole economic policy, encourage environmental
protection industry, extend industry chain, improve economic effectiveness constantly.
4.1 Improve public’s consciousness on circular economy
Public are main actors of the urban activity, and public’s attitude toward environment influences
result of policy implement and construction of circular economy. Educate public on environment
protection is an important safeguard of establishing the circular economy, and it is a critical respect of
the ecological urban construction as well. Through systematic consciousness education to foster
environmental awareness, public may take long-term interest of the circular economy as action and take
own responsibility and obligation in the ecological urban construction. Once the environmental
consciousness of the whole society be set up and strengthened, the ecological environment of the whole
country can be improved.
4.2 Encourage environmental friendly industries
There is no waste in the system of circulated economy because wastes of one business or enterprise
is raw materials of another business or enterprises at the same time, thus there is no emission to outside
of the system. Circulated system can maximize the utilization of resources and minimizes environmental
pollution. Every city should define one’s own competitive industry, make the corresponding ecological
localization, and make the circular economy development planning taking circulated economy as
direction for the area on this basis. Every area should develop and support of circulated economy
industry and encourage relevant business to establish chain on circulation of supplies and providence to
achieve the goal of circulated use of resources.
4.3 Implement 3R principle in urban development
3R principle is reduction, reuse and recycling. The reduction principle is to achieve the production
and consumption purpose through less raw materials, energy especially harmless resource in the
environment are invested; the reusing principle means to make the products and packaging container can
be recycled and reused in initial form, that requires manufacturers to lengthen the time of products usage,
resist the disposable articles. [10]Recycling is to encourage business to use materials and resources
finished their original function by other business instead of dispose them as garbage. 3R principle
technically includes: 1, strengthen pollution control and encourage business to reduce pollution.2,
encourage industry to reuse production waste and make the waste become resources again. 3, improve
cleaning production technology and reduce emission from production process and produce green
products.
4.4 Implement cleaning production and green technology
It is urgent for government to set up cleaning production regulation and policy to direct business to
follow, and set up technical standard to examine especially for those large-scale enterprises. [11]The
most important thing is to extend producer's responsibility, reduce the products impact on environment
Green technology includes the recycle treatment technology, environmental engineering and producing
environmental friendly products etc. The key of green technology is to adopt the cleaning production
technology actively to make the process and products harmless or low harm to environment while to
reduce input of raw materials and energy consumption, discharge pollution and minimize waste as much
as possible. The technology includes: substitute technology, reduce technology, reusing technology,
resource transaction technology and last, systematized technology.
4.5 Increase investment for the construction of circular economy
Circular economy is beneficial for whole society and present and future. Apart from regulations
and policy making, government should involve the investment activities to improve the social support
for the construction of circular economy. All institutions, enterprises and organizations even public
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should be encouraged to participate in the constructions of ecological environment by different channels
such as raise fund. Government should set up mechanism of investment and financing including
compensation system to manage pollution, waste and achieve cleaning production.
5 Conclusion
This article aimed to introduce the circular economy characterized by cleaning production, safety
handling waste and effectively reuse of resources, it suggested that the importance of direction and
integration for construction of macro policy economic development of cities, the establishment of a
cleaner production of products, resources recycling and waste-recycling for the ecological
characteristics of urban models discussed in the ecological construction in urban economic development
cycle in order to achieve sustainable use of our resources and the need for urgency, from the theory and
practice to explore how to use our resources to the economic development cycle in response. The author
believe that the development of urban ecological strategic development planning, and improve the legal
protection policy, building technology support systems, and nurturing green market, the adjustment of
economic structure. The introduction of advanced technology and international experience, attracting
public funds into the construction of urban ecology may achieve the goal of harmonious development
between nature and economy development.
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