Browse Research

The 'Global Chemicals Outlook II – From Legacies to Innovative Solutions' takes stock of global trends as well as progress made and gaps in achieving the global goal to minimize the adverse impacts from chemicals and waste by 2020.

China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, has launched a ground-breaking report that sets out in specific and practical terms an ambitious agenda of how China can green its rapidly developing financial and capital markets.

The report, entitled “Establishing China’s Green Financial System”, is the outcome of a Green Finance Task Force which was tasked to develop policy, regulatory and market-innovations that would better align China’s financial system with the needs of green industry and sustainable development. The Task Force was co-convened by the Research Bureau of the People’s Bank of China (PBC) and the United Nations Environment Programme project Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System (`UNEP Inquiry`).

Over the course of the last two decades, the issues surrounding technological innovation, investor behaviour, and business resilience have become magnified in the context of environmental change. This has helped to bring forward the issue of stranded assets as a sustainability concern beyond regulatory action on competition policy. This paper, produced to help inform an International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and UNEP Inquiry collaboration with policymakers in China, examines the risks and opportunities associated with stranded assets, provides five international case studies, and identifies how these issues might be relevant to Chinese policy makers.

Chemical leasing is a service-oriented business model that shifts the focus from increasing sales volume of chemicals toward a value-added approach. Chemical leasing forms part of UNIDO’s strategy to assist enterprises globally in a variety of aspects related to green industry. Over the past few years, this innovative approach has been implemented in a number of different sectors, processes and countries. Experience has shown that it is best applied to processes that are not the core know-how of the chemical user, such as cleaning, degreasing and painting, etc. In 2005, UNIDO launched the Global Chemical Leasing Programme, which is presently supported by the Governments of Austria and Germany. At the national level, it is implemented in close cooperation with respective National Cleaner Production Centres (NCPCs).