How green is our future?
- Source: Global Times
- [10:19 July 19 2010]
- Comments
By George Wyndham
It's well documented that China's Goliath-like economic growth has come at a weighty environmental cost. And in response to the problem, the government has started to take decisive action. In 2009, China invested approximately $35 billion into renewable energy - more than twice as much as the US. And because of this huge financial investment, those involved in green technology innovation see China as an exciting prospect. The Global Times met some of Shanghai's expat green entrepreneurs to discuss the potential role of Shanghai and China in the world's environmental clean-up.
Environmental outsourcing
There is nothing new about foreigners making a business out of China's relatively cheap production costs. However it's only recently that increasing numbers of companies are using these methods to manufacture green technology. Dutch national Roel Van Den Berg has set up Deltashan, a Shanghai-based company specializing in production outsourcing for renewable energy products. Van Den Berg's company sources many materials from China for various renewable energy companies in Europe and he was recently involved in supplying components for a condensation compressor for a Netherlands-based windmill company. The system - designed in the Netherlands and manufactured in Wuxi - operates inside a wind fan, cooling down condensation from the atmosphere and turning it into drinkable water. Van Den Berg says that one of the key factors enabling him to produce these "environmental solutions" is China's cheap labor costs. "China has the unique ability to produce cheap solar and wind equipment. Low-cost labor, cheap money and a large quantity of raw materials give China the perfect formula for leading the way in terms of green technology manufacturing," he told the Global Times.
It is this combination of design innovation in the West, and the manufacturing capabilities of the East, that Van Den Berg believes will assist the natural world in its environmental recovery. In particular, he points to the smaller environmental innovation companies in Europe as perhaps the greatest beneficiaries of this collaboration. "Renewable energy has to be able to compete in the market with non-renewable energy, and many of the green tech products being designed in Europe are just too labor costly to be made there. This is why China's role as a manufacturer is so important right now for the environment."
Van Den Berg first got into this field after being hired to work in the research department of Dutch electronics conglomerate Philips. After spending several years in Shanghai, he was approached by a European company known as Home Energy asking him to find a company in China capable of manufacturing their design for a domestic energy-saving product. "It was luck really. I was fortunate enough to find a client willing to fund my research into this field and the more I looked into it the more I knew it could work."
