In the 21st century, China’s trade has also entered a new stage of development. At present, the key macro environmental factors facing the sustainable development of China’s trade mainly include the following three aspects:
Firstly, with the increasing significance of environmental and climate risks, the concept of sustainable development has become a hot topic at home and abroad. In December 2019, the European Commission announced the “European Green agreement”, proposing that Europe will become the world’s first “carbon neutral” region in 2050. In January 2021, the United Nations officially launched the “decade of action” plan to ensure the realization of the sustainable development agenda with 17 sustainable development goals as the core by 2030. At present, coping with climate change and promoting green development have become the key contents in parallel with economic development.
Secondly, in the context of “double carbon”, China’s trade has turned to high-quality green development. The 14th five year plan for China’s trade development advocates taking low-carbon economy and green industry as the starting point to promote the sustainable development of China’s trade. The plan proposes to practice the concept of green and low carbon and improve the level of sustainable development in the field of domestic trade. According to the data of the National Bureau of statistics, from 2015 to 2019, the total retail sales of social consumer goods increased from 2.87 billion yuan to 3.513 billion yuan. In 2020, after a brief decline affected by the covid-19 pneumonia epidemic, it rebounded rapidly in the three quarters of 2021. With the support of policies, China’s trade industry shows a trend of vigorous development.
Thirdly, China’s international double circular economy system leads a new type of globalization. The CPC Central Committee proposed to speed up the construction of a new development pattern with China’s big cycle as the main body and China’s international double cycle promoting each other. The essence of the double cycle economy is the internal retraction of the economic center of gravity and the withdrawal of the market main body. Therefore, the active layout of the Chinese market has become the main scene of future economic development.
The plan proposes to guide enterprises to implement the concepts of environment, society and governance, and establish a green development mechanism for domestic trade. Green and low-carbon development will help China’s major trade industries actively respond to environmental and climate change risks, optimize their own trade structure, and implement the sustainable development goals.
First, it helps to improve the carbon utilization efficiency of China’s trade industry and enhance the ability to deal with the risks of environment and climate change. Building a green, circular and low-carbon trading system in China will help to improve the recycling level of the logistics and transportation system, so as to improve the carbon utilization efficiency of the production and operation of the trade industry, reduce the dependence on fossil energy such as coal, and improve the ability to deal with the risks of environment and climate change.
Second, it helps to optimize the trade structure and improve trade efficiency. Specifically, the main body of trade structure changes from “high input, high consumption and high pollution” goods trade to green and sustainable service trade, which can reduce the environmental pollution and resource consumption caused by traditional manufacturing industry; The trade development direction turns to communication services, financial services, advertising services and other emerging service industries based on information technology, which can improve the scientific and technological content and added value of the industry.
Third, guide green production and establish a green lifestyle. Trade plays a pivotal role in the double cycle. Building a green and low-carbon trade system also promotes the adjustment of industrial structure to the direction of high-tech content, low resource consumption and low environmental pollution, and guides the development of lifestyle to the direction of green, low-carbon, thrift, civilization and health.
In order to better realize the sustainable development of China’s trade, the following development suggestions are put forward in combination with the plan:
First, promote the concept of green development. Promote the green development evaluation system of circulation and encourage enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities. For example, the use of environmental, social and governance tools to enhance the sustainable development capacity of Chinese trade enterprises. From the perspective of internal supervision, enterprises can establish an ESG evaluation team to effectively self inspect and improve the sustainability of production and operation activities according to the relevant guidelines issued by the trade supervision department and the third-party ESG evaluation report; From the perspective of report disclosure, enterprises can formulate personalized ESG disclosure and strategic plans according to the characteristics of the trade industry, improve information transparency and promote the value resonance of stakeholders.
Second, guide green production and consumption. Promote the establishment of a green product system and promote the concept of green consumption. For example, from the perspective of green production, it is suggested that the regulatory authorities establish a unified green packaging certification and evaluation mechanism to promote packaging reduction, standardization and recycling; From the perspective of green consumption, promote green products such as energy-saving household appliances and green furniture, appropriately expand demand and promote the effective connection between supply and demand.
Third, improve the green development level of circulation. It is suggested that enterprises use financial technology to reduce the operating cost of each node and jointly promote green industrial chain management. For example, in the link of cargo transportation, the Internet of things, artificial intelligence and other technologies are used to monitor storage and distribution, optimize logistics distribution routes, and reduce transportation costs and vehicle energy consumption; In the circulation channel, encourage online sales of green products, promote direct sales of e-commerce enterprises or cooperate with entity enterprises to operate green products and services, and reduce operating costs,
Fourth, build a new recycling system of renewable resources. Strengthen the layout of waste material recycling outlets and improve the recycling, sorting and distribution capacity of waste materials. For example, the construction of second-hand e-commerce platform by Internet plus will reduce the circulation cost of second-hand goods and form a recycling system of second-hand resources.
(the author is vice president of the International Research Institute of green finance of the Central University of Finance and economics, President of the Yangtze River Delta green value investment research institute, assistant researcher of the International Research Institute of green finance of the Central University of Finance and economics, researcher of the Yangtze River Delta green value investment research Institute, researcher of the International Research Institute of green finance of the Central University of Finance and economics and director of the green finance Laboratory of the Yangtze River Delta Green Value Investment Research Institute)
