Lessons learned

The following list should help to be prepared to overcome barriers of replication and should help to implement similar projects in the future

• The initial motivation for the project from the company side was smaller than expected. They understood the project as an additional effort for the company and they were afraid that and company specific data published, and they hade no senses for environmental protection. This is a new topic, and in the last years, during the rapid development of Chinese industry this topic was mainly ignored.
• The fact that CP increases benefit made it possible to win the companies and to get their full participation. Finally most if the companies started the project as well finalized successfully. For the future it will be necessary to explain the benefit of the participation more carefully in order to get committed companies to participate.
• The assessment of the company became more difficult than expected as basic accounting and data keeping were not in place and some didn’t really wanted to know everything what’s going on in their company. This mentality is left from former days were raw material and energy were delivered to the state companies according to quotes without any monitoring or detailed planning in advance. This made it necessary to additionally develop guidelines for the companies and being on site for much more time to assist the responsible to asses the data. Water consumption, process specific energy or raw material consumption data were evaluated were possible indicating were potential of improvement are. The problem was tackled by shifting resources in more work in the field and equipping the national consultants with more tools for assessment.
• The result at the end was very promising as already the first visits leaded to many improvements of foundry processes.
• The organization of the business mission consumed more resources than expected. It was relatively easy to find interesting technology providers to visit, also technology institutions like universities or independent research centres in related field agreed to participate. The foundries avoided a meeting with their Chinese competitors totally due to different reasons. If CAI organizes any more business mission these problems will be clarified in advance. This also shows the EU and other organisation have to increase their campaigns for their industry to understand the Chinese market better.
• The close partnership to the TFA and the MOST turned out to very productive as they can sustain these activities in China.

Practical recommendations for follow up projects

Difficulties mainly arise from communication and interpretation problems and cultural barriers

• Language barriers have to be overcome with simple English and not too sophisticated English phrases and with the help of many illustrations.
• Also cultural problems have to be taken into account. Small misunderstanding can often lead to an immediate blockage of the participants mind resulting in reduced motivation for the project.
• EU experts have to show a lot of sensibility in transferring western ideas of pollution prevention and process improvements, especially because many Chinese are sure to know it better. Be aware that they are right sometimes and respect their thinking.

CP is not yet familiar in China

• The topics and the idea of CP are very new to the Chinese society and extremely difficult to explain. To explain major topics, which are familiar already in Europe, more time is needed in China.
• High awareness of the actual understanding of environmental management in China is recommended, as in China environmental protection is still considered as only costs. This causes also problems to convince Chinese companies to participate.
• In this respect the economical aspects of CP have to be addressed with emphasis and replicated many times.

In respect of methodology and didactics these measures seem to be adequate

• To persuade the companies to give company specific details can be at the beginning a big problem. Helpful is to sign agreements with the companies not to present any of their secret data to third parties.
• To start with instruction training is a methodological very fruitful idea, to increase the expert capacity from the beginning.
• Helpful is to equip the Chinese key actors with a project folder to have a simple tool communicating the project idea and the benefits of CP for the participating companies.
• Focus in first instance on the economical benefits of CP and explain that environmental benefits are a logical result (by-product) of sound management.
• Provide training materials in kind of textbooks, oriented along headings which can be used in form of transparencies, not to overload actual presentations on one hand, but to provide detailed home studying on the other hand.
• Continue with care to collect feedback.

Ensure the support of authorities and policy

• The issue of CP is attracting more and more attention in Chinese industry. Companies are already experiencing some pressure for pollution control and are not sure about the future of their company, especially small enterprises, which are endangered to close down in the next years as they can not invest in expensive end of pipe technology.
• The interest comes also from the authorities and legislative who want to gain more experience in pollution prevention at a company operational level. This production integrated model of environmental protection is considered as sustainable solution to minimize the immense consumption of natural resources of Chinese industry these days.

Planning of business missions to Europe

• Although this feature of a project is very attractive for Chinese you have to be aware of the following restrictions and problems.
• Chinese love exhibitions and are interested in all foreign things a lot, but this does not mean that they are also ready to enter concrete business.
• European exporters (and importers) are familiar with this experience and are often not interested to afford promotion activities, if no clear intention by Chinese is visible.
• Therefore try to match only those, who have already a more advanced idea of cooperation.

Multiplier Effects

The success of the project and the showed interest by the industry should stimulate the replication of the project. The CFA and the MOST is very interested to develop the conditions for further CP programmes in China within the foundry industry but also other sectors. There is no need to convince the responsible of the need or efficiency of this programme, only the financing issues needs to be clarified in the near future and hoe to put this project on an institutional level.

• The envisaged effect of this project is the replication of the used approach in the larger scale in China. This pilot project generated the most important preconditions for this prospect:
• A number of Chinese companies have successfully implemented cleaner production and presented their savings and improvements to the public and were mentioned in the television.
• A number of Chinese consultants have received the necessary qualification to conduct CP assessments in professional manner.
• The official bodies could be convinced to follow up were ever possible
• Environmental protection is deeply embedded in the new 5 years plan of the central committee.
• Companies are willing to pay for consulting services.
• Additionally the experiences derived from the project are summarised to practical recommendations, how to initiate further similar projects in China. This guideline is in ownership by Chinese partner side and is backed politically by the Chinese government. (see project replication guideline in the Annex )

Multiplier Keys

The below mentioned aspects will directly enable the multiplication of the project:

• Dissemination of all project proceedings and achievements to all national offices of the CFA to reach thousands of companies directly
• Invite other intermediary business organisations in china to replicate the project
• Project Website - Will provide regional as well as national level publicity to the concept.
• Marketing materials - Proper dissemination of the project results and an information brochure on the same will generate the required interest.
• Publications in regional and national press will give publicity
• The above described activities for the promotion of the project and the publication of the results are considered as incentive to use the new channels of contacts:
• The applicant will use his network of companies and further of ministries, universities, research organisations and consultants.
• The European Partners will promote the results also via the Austrian chamber of commerce and especially the department for foreign affairs.
• The Chinese consultants will promote the method within his catalogue of consulting services.
• The Asia Invest Secretariat and the European Commission will also have the possibility to widely disseminate the results of the project.