| China has promoted cleaner production (CP) at industries since the early 1990s through a multiple-step method called the "CP audit". A key issue concerns the effectiveness of government-led CP implementation efforts. By focusing on CP program implementation in Jiangsu cities, this dissertation addresses three questions: What has been the performance of Jiangsu municipalities in implementing provincial CP policies? What is the impact of municipal CP implementation actions at companies? And, what factors influence the government-led CP initiatives and what are their results?; This research employs a multiple case study research design; Changzhou, Nantong, and Suzhou were selected as the case-study cities. Data were gathered by means of interviews, document review, and on-site visits. Interviews were repeated with seventeen CP implementing officers at municipal Environmental Protection Bureaus and Economic Trade Commissions, managers at twenty-seven companies, and eight CP experts involved with CP audit implementation at factories during April 2001 to April 2004.; This work yields four main findings. First, each city failed to meet the provincial requirement to have all large- and medium-sized companies conduct CP audits by the end of 2000. Second, performance in implementing CP audits varied significantly across cities and over time, because of variations in the strategies of front-line implementers and the political salience of implementing CP audits. Third, my investigation of the twenty-seven companies that did complete CP audit reports shows that the majority of the companies (74%) did not change their environmental management strategies substantially as a result of completing CP audit reports. Fourth, despite the low impact of CP audit requirements on most companies, each of the twenty-seven companies adopted several types of CP measures on their own, but often their reasons for CP measure implementation were unrelated to the government's CP audit requirements. This dissertation demonstrates that the lack of institutional incentives for municipal agencies to allocate more than minimal staff and resources for city-level CP implementation contributed to the failure of the three cities to meet the 2000 CP goal. |
