Link
Pour la 3e édition du rapport sur les données économiques, sociales et environnementales, la Fédération professionnelle des entreprises de l’eau a souhaité s’appuyer de nouveau sur le savoir-faire et les méthodologies d’analyse du BIPE.
L'engagement des entreprises de l'eau en faveur du développement durable
Cette édition fait apparaître pour la 1ère fois des données sur l’engagement des entreprises membres de la FP2E en faveur du développement durable. Il se traduit par des efforts sur quatre enjeux : limiter l’impact de leurs activités sur l’environnement, préserver la ressource en eau et le milieu naturel, favoriser l’accès au service et valoriser et protéger les salariés.
Les entreprises de l’eau développent, en partenariat avec les collectivités, la certification Iso 14001 de leurs contrats afin de limiter l’impact environnemental de leur activité. Un contrat sur 3 est ainsi certifié, représentant 56% du chiffre d’affaires réalisé par ces entreprises.
Dans un contexte de changement climatique attesté, elles s’engagent par ailleurs à limiter les émissions directes et indirectes de gaz à effet de serre (GES), grâce par exemple à l’optimisation énergétique des process industriels. Les émissions de GES liées aux consommations énergétiques * des services d’eau et d’assainissement exploités par les opérateurs privés est évalué à 0,2% par habitant, contre 16% par habitant pour le secteur de l’énergie, 20% pour la construction, 35% pour les transports et 27% pour les autres secteurs.
Une dizaine d’indicateurs de performance publiés
L’intégration de 11 indicateurs de performance illustrant l’activité des entreprises, tant dans le domaine de la distribution de l’eau potable, que de la dépollution des eaux usées et des relations avec les consommateurs, constitue également l’une des nouveautés de ce rapport. Consolidés au niveau des entreprises, ils retracent la performance de près de 1000 services d’eau et d’assainissement, couvrant au total 30 millions d’habitants.
Ils permettront d’évaluer la qualité du service rendu aux collectivités et aux consommateurs, ainsi que les marges de progression encore possibles. La mise en place par l’Office national de l’eau et des milieux aquatiques (ONEMA) d’un suivi des indicateurs de performance des services, qu’ils soient gérés directement par la collectivité ou délégués à un opérateur privé, devrait assurer une homogénéisation de l’information et une meilleure connaissance de la qualité et de la performance des services.
L’économie du secteur de l’eau
Le montant des sommes facturés par les services d’eau et d’assainissement en 2006 est de 11,8 milliards d’euros TTC, dont 59% pour l’eau potable et 41% pour l’assainissement. Les collectivités sont destinataires de 42% de ces sommes, les opérateurs privés de 40%, et l’Etat et les agences de l’eau de 18%. Pour 2007, les prévisions laissent entrevoir un pic en termes de nombre de procédures de mises en concurrence. D’après les membres de la FP2E, le nombre d’appels d’offre sera de 883, contre 621 en 2006 et 579 en moyenne par an, sur la période 1998-2005.
Le prix de l’eau était en moyenne de 1€ par jour et par famille en 2007 pour 330 litres délivrés puis épurés quotidiennement (soit 3€/m3). La part des dépenses en eau dans le budget des ménages est stable depuis 1996 : elle représentait 0,8% en 2006, contre 2,4% pour les télécommunications et 3,8% pour l’énergie.
L’emploi dans le secteur de l'eau
Le niveau de l’emploi dans le secteur de l’eau et de l’assainissement est estimé à 60 000 personnes. L’effectif total des entreprises de l’eau était de 32 200 salariés en 2006, soit plus de la moitié des emplois du secteur.
4 350 personnes ont été recrutées par les entreprises en 2006, dont plus de la moitié de moins de 26 ans. Ce sont ces derniers qui ont le plus bénéficié de la politique de recrutement des entreprises, avec une augmentation du nombre d’embauches annuelles les concernant de près de 17% entre 2004 et 2006.
A travers la publication de ce rapport, la FP2E entend répondre au besoin d’information de tous ceux qui s’intéressent au secteur de l’eau, qu’ils soient élus locaux, acteurs économiques et sociaux, ou encore représentants d’associations de consommateurs, et leur permettre de mesurer, d’année en année, l’évolution de ce secteur.
* Emissions provenant de la consommation d’électricité et de chaleur, ainsi que de l’utilisation de combustibles et de carburants d’origine fossile.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
New ISO Standards To Improve Quality Of Water Services To Consumers
from: wateronline.com (link)
A suite of new ISO standards offers the international community practical tools to address the global challenge of effectively managing limited water resources in order to provide access to safe drinking water and sanitation for the world’s population.
ISO has just published three standards providing guidelines for service activities relating to drinking water supply systems and wastewater sewerage systems. These international standards are designed to help water authorities and their operators to achieve a level of quality that best meets the expectations of users and the principles of sustainable development.
ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden comments: ”These ISO standards will play a primary role in promoting access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation through improved governance at all levels. Their publication is a first step towards responding to the United Nations' concern in recognizing that access to water is an essential human right. The UN has set ambitious goals to increase access to drinking water and wastewater services, particularly in developing countries”.
ISO 24510, Activities relating to drinking water and wastewater services – Guidelines for the assessment and for the improvement of the service to users, is a service oriented standard that addresses the following topics:
- a brief description of the components of the service relating to the users;
- core objectives for the service, with respect to users’ needs and expectations;
- guidelines for satisfying users’ needs and expectations; assessment criteria for service to users in accordance with the guidelines provided;
- examples of indicators linked to the assessment criteria that can be used for assessing the performance of the service.
ISO 24511, Activities relating to drinking water and wastewater services – Guidelines for the management of wastewater utilities and for the assessment of wastewater services, and ISO 24512, Activities relating to drinking water and wastewater services – Guidelines for the management of drinking water utilities and for the assessment of drinking water services, both management-oriented, address the following topics:
- a brief description of the physical/infrastructural and managerial/institutional components of water utilities;
- core objectives for water utilities, considered to be globally relevant at the broadest level;
- guidelines for the management of the water utilities;
- guidelines for the assessment of the water services with service assessment criteria related to the objectives, and performance indicators linked to these criteria.
The objective of these international standards is to provide the relevant stakeholders with guidelines for assessing and improving the service to users, and with guidance for managing water utilities, consistent with the overarching goals set by the relevant authorities. These standards are intended to facilitate dialogue between the stakeholders, enabling them to develop a mutual understanding of the functions and tasks that fall within the scope of water utilities.
They can also provide methods and tools to define, at local level, objectives and specifications, and assess and monitor performance for possible benchmarking among water utilities.
Jean-Luc Redaud, Chair of the ISO technical committee ISO/TC 224 that developed the standards, comments: "Many stakeholders are involved in water services and these standards will be useful in setting up collective systems of assessment allowing continual improvement of the service to users. This implies clarifying the responsibilities of all involved. One of the main objectives of the committee was to set up guidelines in order to develop a better mutual understanding of responsibilities and tasks of all stakeholders. These standards will have now to be adapted to national or regional contexts. A strong orientation towards developing countries was taken by the TC with the creation of an ad hoc group, lead by Morocco, in order to support developing countries in the application of these standards. A first trial of the standards has been launched in some African countries.”
The implementation of the standards will be monitored to provide feedback for further improvement.
The new standards were developed by ISO/TC 224, Service activities relating to drinking water supply systems and wastewater systems - Quality criteria of the service and performance indicators.
SOURCE: International Organization for Standardization
环保总局: 重污染上市公司将被暂缓融资
from: caijing.com.cn (link)
2月25日，国家环保总局的黑名单列出了十家上市公司，其中包括紫金矿业股份有限公司和安徽海螺水泥有限公司。因为未能通过国家环保总局的环保核查，这些企业总计多达数百亿元的融资计划，被暂时搁置。
这是上市公司首次因为环保不合格而受到暂缓融资的惩罚，国家环保总局将这一政策利器称为“绿色证券”。
2月25日，国家环保总局发布新闻稿称，2007年，该局进行了为期半年的试点，核查上市公司的环保情况，在37家被核查公司中，有十家被不予通过或暂缓通过上市核查，阻止这些企业通过股市募集资金数百亿元以上。
“绿色证券”的巨大威力，在于得到了中国证监会的支持。今年1月9日，证监会在出台的新规定中，将环保核查意见列为证监会受理申请的必备条件之一。
证监会在《关于重污染行业生产经营公司IPO申请申报文件的通知》（发行监管函【2008】6号）中称，“重污染行业生产经营公司申请首次公开发行股票的，申请文件中应当提供国家环保总局的核查意见；未取得环保核查意见的，不受理申请。”
国家环保总局在新出台的一份文件中规定，从事火电、钢铁、水泥、电解铝行业以及跨省经营的“双高”行业（13类重污染行业）的公司申请首发上市或再融资的，必须根据环保总局的规定进行环保核查。
紫金矿业股份有限公司（香港证交所代码：2899）于2007年2月提出了在国内A股上市的计划。安徽海螺水泥有限公司（上海证交所代码：600585）于2007年6月提出了A股增发计划。
2月25日，国家环保总局的黑名单列出了十家上市公司，其中包括紫金矿业股份有限公司和安徽海螺水泥有限公司。因为未能通过国家环保总局的环保核查，这些企业总计多达数百亿元的融资计划，被暂时搁置。
这是上市公司首次因为环保不合格而受到暂缓融资的惩罚，国家环保总局将这一政策利器称为“绿色证券”。
2月25日，国家环保总局发布新闻稿称，2007年，该局进行了为期半年的试点，核查上市公司的环保情况，在37家被核查公司中，有十家被不予通过或暂缓通过上市核查，阻止这些企业通过股市募集资金数百亿元以上。
“绿色证券”的巨大威力，在于得到了中国证监会的支持。今年1月9日，证监会在出台的新规定中，将环保核查意见列为证监会受理申请的必备条件之一。
证监会在《关于重污染行业生产经营公司IPO申请申报文件的通知》（发行监管函【2008】6号）中称，“重污染行业生产经营公司申请首次公开发行股票的，申请文件中应当提供国家环保总局的核查意见；未取得环保核查意见的，不受理申请。”
国家环保总局在新出台的一份文件中规定，从事火电、钢铁、水泥、电解铝行业以及跨省经营的“双高”行业（13类重污染行业）的公司申请首发上市或再融资的，必须根据环保总局的规定进行环保核查。
紫金矿业股份有限公司（香港证交所代码：2899）于2007年2月提出了在国内A股上市的计划。安徽海螺水泥有限公司（上海证交所代码：600585）于2007年6月提出了A股增发计划。
“绿色证券”双剑
国家环保总局称，首轮核查没有通过的十家企业，主要问题包括，其下属一些企业未严格执行“环评”批复、“三同时”未验收、未按有关规定淘汰落后生产工 艺和设备、污染物超标超总量排放、危险废物处置不符合规定、环保治理设施或设施运行不符合相关要求、有群众环境投诉问题等。
目前，其中八家上市企业已经按照要求完成整改工作，环保总局已经通过其核查，还有两家也已基本完成核查工作。
除了上市公司环保核查制度，国家环保总局还将建立环境信息披露制度。国家环保总局副局长潘岳将这两个制度称为遏制“双高”行业扩张的“绿色证券”双剑。
国家环保总局称，将向证监会及时通报，并向社会公开上市公司受到环境行政处罚及其执行的情况，环保总局还将公开严重超标或超总量排放污染物、发生重特大污染事故以及建设项目严重环评违法的上市公司“黑名单”，由证监会按照《上市公司信息披露办法》的规定予以处理。
另一方面，国家环保总局还将选择比较成熟的板块或行业开展上市公司环境绩效评估，编制并发布中国证券市场环境绩效指数及排名，为投资者、管理者提供上市公司的环境绩效信息和排名情况。
绿色贸易与绿色税收
在绿色证券之前，国家环保总局已经推出了“绿色信贷”和“绿色保险”。
去年11月15日，国家环保总局与央行和银监会联手推出“绿色信贷”，12家被列入“黑名单”的重污染企业，被各家银行追缴、停止或拒绝贷款。2月 18日，国家环保总局又宣布，联手保监会推出“绿色保险”，要求重污染企业就可能发生的环境事故风险在保险公司投保，由保险公司对污染受害者进行赔偿。
国家环保总局的“绿色系列”的特点，就是联手其他部委，对重污染企业作出各种限制。
国家环保总局副局长潘岳透露，接下来，环保总局将继续与相关部门联手加紧研究绿色贸易、绿色税收、区域流域环境补偿机制、排污权交易等政策，最终形成完整的中国环境经济政策体系。
潘岳表示，环境经济政策的探索与实践越来越涉及多方面利益，因而越加艰难。整个体系的建成，还有大量的工作要做，需要各个经济主管部门以及社会各界的支持。■
Thursday, February 21, 2008
昆明拟使用滇池淤泥焚烧发电 (ZZ)
from: news.sina.com.cn (link)
This article is contributed by Z. Liu.
昆明市发电厂表示有望使 用滇池淤泥来发电，既解决淤泥的处理问题，又能与火力发电所存在高耗能的缺点互补。目前，关于滇池淤泥用于发 电的可行性报告已经上交到有关部门。
This article is contributed by Z. Liu.
昆明市发电厂表示有望使 用滇池淤泥来发电，既解决淤泥的处理问题，又能与火力发电所存在高耗能的缺点互补。目前，关于滇池淤泥用于发 电的可行性报告已经上交到有关部门。
最先运用滇池淤泥的人是滇池沿湖的村民们，他们把淤泥捞起来晒干，然后用做自家的生产生活，他们把晒干的泥叫草煤。众多专家检测后发现，淤泥里存在可燃物质，可以像把垃圾转化成热能、电能一样，把淤 泥用做发电，只不过产生的电量远不如水电和火电。
虽然淤泥发电产能不高，但环保的价值却十分可观。昆明西郊大普吉的垃圾发电厂通过焚烧垃 圾发电，每天可以处理掉上千吨的垃圾。但处理淤泥这类的垃圾，就只能和污水厂里每天处理出来的污泥一 样拉去填埋。另外，为了让母亲河能够尽快地清起来，政府有关部门也在积极进行治理，同样让他们头疼的是，滇池淤泥难以转移，对水体 的改善十分不利。昆明市发电厂：“在这些因素的驱动下，我们厂里的领导就越发想去解决这一问题。他们非常积极地联系专家研究这个项目，并写出可研究方案。加上去年年初，国务院 发令提出节能减排、发展新型工业的思路后，领导们就更加热衷地去关注淤泥发电的项目是否可行。”
Monday, February 18, 2008
La Biofiltration par le Biofiltre BIOFOR (Degrémont)
Note: Comme nous avons étudié le biofiltre BIOSTYR (OTV) lors de notre dernière séance, je vous propose également d'aller découvrir un autre biofiltre breveté : BIOFOR (Degrémont).
BIOFOR (BIOLOGICAL FILTRATION OXYGENATED REACTOR)
Lien : cliquez ici.
Utilisation
Le biofiltre BIOFOR est commercialisé par Degrémont. C’est un procédé aérobie, permettant l’élimination de la DCO et de la DBO5, des effluents et/ou la nitrification des substances azotées.
Ce procédé est utilisé soit en traitement secondaire complet, le plus souvent en substitution des procédés à boues activées, soit en traitement tertiaire. Ce biofiltre est destiné au traitement des eaux résiduaires urbaines et peut être positionné en série (pour la nitrification) ou en parallèle (pour un traitement secondaire).
Il existe plusieurs types de BIOFOR :
• BIOFOR première génération
• BIOFOR Plus C pour l’élimination de la DCO et de la DBO5
• BIOFOR Plus N pour la nitrification des substances azotées
• BIOFOR Plus C-N pour le traitement simultané de la pollution carbonée et des substances azotées (par nitrification)
• BIOFOR Plus Pré-DN pour l’élimination des nitrates en prédénitrification sans apport de substrat carboné externe
• BIOFOR Plus DN pour l’élimination des nitrates en dénitrification finale avec apport de substrat carboné externe
Performances épuratoires
• Elimination des MES : En traitement d’eau résiduaire urbaine, le taux d’élimination des MES d’une eau à traiter dont la teneur initiale en MES est de l’ordre de 100mg/l, varie de 85 % à 70 % pour des vitesses de filtration allant de 2 à 6 m/h. L’élimination des MES n’est pas affectée par la TE du matériau utilisé.
• Elimination de la DBO5 : L’élimination de la DBO5 peut être affectée par la TE du matériau utilisé. Sur des eaux résiduaires urbaines décantées de charge volumique comprise entre 2 et 6, le rendement d’élimination de la DBO5 varie entre 85% et 75%.
• Oxydation de l’ammoniaque en nitrates : Sur des eaux résiduaires urbaines, après élimination de la pollution carbonée, il est possible :
− à 20°C de nitrifier 1 kg de N-NH4/m3.j
− à 12°C de nitrifier 0.45 kg de N-NH4/m3.j
BIOFOR (BIOLOGICAL FILTRATION OXYGENATED REACTOR)
Lien : cliquez ici.
Utilisation
Le biofiltre BIOFOR est commercialisé par Degrémont. C’est un procédé aérobie, permettant l’élimination de la DCO et de la DBO5, des effluents et/ou la nitrification des substances azotées.
Ce procédé est utilisé soit en traitement secondaire complet, le plus souvent en substitution des procédés à boues activées, soit en traitement tertiaire. Ce biofiltre est destiné au traitement des eaux résiduaires urbaines et peut être positionné en série (pour la nitrification) ou en parallèle (pour un traitement secondaire).
Il existe plusieurs types de BIOFOR :
• BIOFOR première génération
• BIOFOR Plus C pour l’élimination de la DCO et de la DBO5
• BIOFOR Plus N pour la nitrification des substances azotées
• BIOFOR Plus C-N pour le traitement simultané de la pollution carbonée et des substances azotées (par nitrification)
• BIOFOR Plus Pré-DN pour l’élimination des nitrates en prédénitrification sans apport de substrat carboné externe
• BIOFOR Plus DN pour l’élimination des nitrates en dénitrification finale avec apport de substrat carboné externe
Performances épuratoires
• Elimination des MES : En traitement d’eau résiduaire urbaine, le taux d’élimination des MES d’une eau à traiter dont la teneur initiale en MES est de l’ordre de 100mg/l, varie de 85 % à 70 % pour des vitesses de filtration allant de 2 à 6 m/h. L’élimination des MES n’est pas affectée par la TE du matériau utilisé.
• Elimination de la DBO5 : L’élimination de la DBO5 peut être affectée par la TE du matériau utilisé. Sur des eaux résiduaires urbaines décantées de charge volumique comprise entre 2 et 6, le rendement d’élimination de la DBO5 varie entre 85% et 75%.
• Oxydation de l’ammoniaque en nitrates : Sur des eaux résiduaires urbaines, après élimination de la pollution carbonée, il est possible :
− à 20°C de nitrifier 1 kg de N-NH4/m3.j
− à 12°C de nitrifier 0.45 kg de N-NH4/m3.j
Friday, February 15, 2008
A French Water Company's Cautionary Tale in China (ZZ)
From: BusinessWeek (Link)
Suez Group, a global player in water treatment projects, is shying away from China's impoverished northeast after a joint venture in Siping turned bad
by Chi-Chu Tschang
Paris-based Suez Group (SZE) is a global player in the business of water treatment plants—those elaborate systems built to purify water and deliver it to a local utility or directly to customers. Suez has targeted China for a major drive. That makes sense: 312 million Chinese, or a quarter of the population, do not have clean water to drink.
By and large the venture has been successful. But in Siping, an urban area of 3 million in China's impoverished northeast, Suez can't get paid despite years of trying. Its project in Siping, though small (Suez invested less than $3 million), has turned into a cautionary tale not just for investors interested in China's water treatment industry but also for all foreigners doing business in China—even in a surefire business like water.
Like many local governments throughout China in the late 1990s, Siping welcomed foreign investors with open arms, hoping they could help build infrastructure projects the local government couldn't afford to build. In 2000, Suez signed a deal to set up a joint-venture water treatment plant in Siping. The French secured a written guarantee from the Siping municipal government promising that Suez's state-owned Chinese partner, Siping Municipal Water Co., would buy a fixed amount of water from the joint venture every year.
City Customer Files for Bankruptcy
The authorities also pledged to close down the city's underground wells within three years. Factories had long been illegally digging the wells to get free water, so shutting them down was key to the profitability of the Suez venture. "A lot of industries and customers in Siping itself take water from underground wells. So they are not buying it from Siping Water Co., which reduces the amount that they sell, so that impacts them financially," says Steve Clark, executive director of Sino French Water Development.
But after the first year, in 2001, Siping Municipal Water failed to pay Suez's joint venture for water, claiming to be financially strapped. Without the money, Siping Sino French Water Supply, the joint venture, has been unable to pay taxes, repair equipment, or pay wages. .
Suez is now having trouble figuring out who to pressure to get its money. Siping Municipal Water's management began privatizing the state-owned enterprise in 2001 and eventually transferred all of its assets to a newly restructured company called Siping Longyuan Water. The new entity actually competes head-to-head with Suez's joint venture in offering water treatment services. Without operating assets, Siping Municipal Water applied for bankruptcy in 2006, claiming it owes creditors, including the Suez joint venture, $2 million.
Free Well Water, Tepid Demand
But Siping Longyuan Water, the new entity, is not honoring the creditors' claims. "It's not us that owes the joint venture money. It was the government that made the promise. The government owes them money," says Liu Xiaodong, general manager of Siping Longyuan Water. Efforts to reach the Siping mayor or his representatives were unsuccessful. Besides, Siping Longyuan Water argues, it hasn't been able to buy the agreed upon amount of water from Suez's joint venture due to tepid demand from its own customers.
One cause of that poor demand is all the illegal wells dug in the city. Despite numerous promises and edicts, the local government has failed to shut down the wells out of fear local companies will close or go elsewhere if they actually have to pay for water. The government has hoped to smooth over the problem in the short term by compensating Sino-French Water so it doesn't not lose too much money on the joint venture. "Because the government did not close down the underground wells, [it] has agreed to give Sino-French Water Development a subsidy to cover their losses," says Zhang Zhiyong, head of Siping Municipal Public Utilities Bureau. "But because some of the subsidy still hasn't been paid, the French aren't very happy."
Suez has tried quietly to resolve its problems in Siping. The company's senior management gained a private audience with the provincial governor. Soon after, Siping's mayor renegotiated the contract with the French, who granted the Chinese more lenient terms. But even with the renegotiated contract, Siping has not paid. "It's the difference between can't and won't. We [had] assumed that they couldn't pay because of the financial difficulties, so we appreciated that," says Clark. "Now, I'm sure they can pay."
Asking for a Fair Price
Suez could sue or take its Chinese partners to arbitration, but the French company has 21 joint-venture water treatment facilities in China, including Siping, and is wary of how its other Chinese partners may react if lawyers get involved. "They don't want to be the pioneer to bring the government and Chinese partner either to court or to arbitration. It may have a negative image for them," says attorney Leo Zhou, who worked for Suez trying to resolve its dispute in Siping.
This is not the first time foreign investors have tried investing in China's water treatment industry and suffered. Thames Water Utilities of Britain, Hong Kong's China Water, and several financial investors have already pulled out of China's water treatment industry after going through similar experiences. In the best-case scenario, the local government will buy out the foreign partner, as the Shanghai municipal government did with Thames' water treatment project in 2004. Suez would happily sell its stake to the Siping municipal government if it could get a fair price for it.
Bad for the Region
For now, Suez is shying away from making further investments in northeastern China and other smaller, poorer Chinese cities. "Quite frankly, our experience in Siping means that we are very careful about which areas of China we go into," says Clark. He adds that Suez is making money on its other water treatment projects in China, particularly in the wealthier coastal regions. During French president Nicolas Sarkozy's state visit to China in late November, Suez signed new deals with Chongqing and Tianjin. The company's experience in Siping—which has an annual per-capita gross domestic product of $1,279—illustrates why Beijing's efforts to revive the northeast have been frustrated.
Based on Suez's original projections of Siping's demand for water, the joint venture hoped to build a second water treatment plant in the city. Now Suez won't go near Siping or anywhere in northeastern China. "This is an extremely huge loss for Siping, because if the Siping municipal government has lost its creditworthiness, not just investors in the water industry but no other investor will dare invest there now," says Chen Jining, professor at Tsinghua University's Water Policy Research Center.
Tschang is a correspondent in BusinessWeek's Beijing bureau
Suez Group, a global player in water treatment projects, is shying away from China's impoverished northeast after a joint venture in Siping turned bad
by Chi-Chu Tschang
Paris-based Suez Group (SZE) is a global player in the business of water treatment plants—those elaborate systems built to purify water and deliver it to a local utility or directly to customers. Suez has targeted China for a major drive. That makes sense: 312 million Chinese, or a quarter of the population, do not have clean water to drink.
By and large the venture has been successful. But in Siping, an urban area of 3 million in China's impoverished northeast, Suez can't get paid despite years of trying. Its project in Siping, though small (Suez invested less than $3 million), has turned into a cautionary tale not just for investors interested in China's water treatment industry but also for all foreigners doing business in China—even in a surefire business like water.
Like many local governments throughout China in the late 1990s, Siping welcomed foreign investors with open arms, hoping they could help build infrastructure projects the local government couldn't afford to build. In 2000, Suez signed a deal to set up a joint-venture water treatment plant in Siping. The French secured a written guarantee from the Siping municipal government promising that Suez's state-owned Chinese partner, Siping Municipal Water Co., would buy a fixed amount of water from the joint venture every year.
City Customer Files for Bankruptcy
The authorities also pledged to close down the city's underground wells within three years. Factories had long been illegally digging the wells to get free water, so shutting them down was key to the profitability of the Suez venture. "A lot of industries and customers in Siping itself take water from underground wells. So they are not buying it from Siping Water Co., which reduces the amount that they sell, so that impacts them financially," says Steve Clark, executive director of Sino French Water Development.
But after the first year, in 2001, Siping Municipal Water failed to pay Suez's joint venture for water, claiming to be financially strapped. Without the money, Siping Sino French Water Supply, the joint venture, has been unable to pay taxes, repair equipment, or pay wages. .
Suez is now having trouble figuring out who to pressure to get its money. Siping Municipal Water's management began privatizing the state-owned enterprise in 2001 and eventually transferred all of its assets to a newly restructured company called Siping Longyuan Water. The new entity actually competes head-to-head with Suez's joint venture in offering water treatment services. Without operating assets, Siping Municipal Water applied for bankruptcy in 2006, claiming it owes creditors, including the Suez joint venture, $2 million.
Free Well Water, Tepid Demand
But Siping Longyuan Water, the new entity, is not honoring the creditors' claims. "It's not us that owes the joint venture money. It was the government that made the promise. The government owes them money," says Liu Xiaodong, general manager of Siping Longyuan Water. Efforts to reach the Siping mayor or his representatives were unsuccessful. Besides, Siping Longyuan Water argues, it hasn't been able to buy the agreed upon amount of water from Suez's joint venture due to tepid demand from its own customers.
One cause of that poor demand is all the illegal wells dug in the city. Despite numerous promises and edicts, the local government has failed to shut down the wells out of fear local companies will close or go elsewhere if they actually have to pay for water. The government has hoped to smooth over the problem in the short term by compensating Sino-French Water so it doesn't not lose too much money on the joint venture. "Because the government did not close down the underground wells, [it] has agreed to give Sino-French Water Development a subsidy to cover their losses," says Zhang Zhiyong, head of Siping Municipal Public Utilities Bureau. "But because some of the subsidy still hasn't been paid, the French aren't very happy."
Suez has tried quietly to resolve its problems in Siping. The company's senior management gained a private audience with the provincial governor. Soon after, Siping's mayor renegotiated the contract with the French, who granted the Chinese more lenient terms. But even with the renegotiated contract, Siping has not paid. "It's the difference between can't and won't. We [had] assumed that they couldn't pay because of the financial difficulties, so we appreciated that," says Clark. "Now, I'm sure they can pay."
Asking for a Fair Price
Suez could sue or take its Chinese partners to arbitration, but the French company has 21 joint-venture water treatment facilities in China, including Siping, and is wary of how its other Chinese partners may react if lawyers get involved. "They don't want to be the pioneer to bring the government and Chinese partner either to court or to arbitration. It may have a negative image for them," says attorney Leo Zhou, who worked for Suez trying to resolve its dispute in Siping.
This is not the first time foreign investors have tried investing in China's water treatment industry and suffered. Thames Water Utilities of Britain, Hong Kong's China Water, and several financial investors have already pulled out of China's water treatment industry after going through similar experiences. In the best-case scenario, the local government will buy out the foreign partner, as the Shanghai municipal government did with Thames' water treatment project in 2004. Suez would happily sell its stake to the Siping municipal government if it could get a fair price for it.
Bad for the Region
For now, Suez is shying away from making further investments in northeastern China and other smaller, poorer Chinese cities. "Quite frankly, our experience in Siping means that we are very careful about which areas of China we go into," says Clark. He adds that Suez is making money on its other water treatment projects in China, particularly in the wealthier coastal regions. During French president Nicolas Sarkozy's state visit to China in late November, Suez signed new deals with Chongqing and Tianjin. The company's experience in Siping—which has an annual per-capita gross domestic product of $1,279—illustrates why Beijing's efforts to revive the northeast have been frustrated.
Based on Suez's original projections of Siping's demand for water, the joint venture hoped to build a second water treatment plant in the city. Now Suez won't go near Siping or anywhere in northeastern China. "This is an extremely huge loss for Siping, because if the Siping municipal government has lost its creditworthiness, not just investors in the water industry but no other investor will dare invest there now," says Chen Jining, professor at Tsinghua University's Water Policy Research Center.
Tschang is a correspondent in BusinessWeek's Beijing bureau
Monday, February 11, 2008
Environment and development ：How green is their growth
The Economist 的一篇文章，对国家财力，国家行政管理能力与治理环境的关系提出新的观点。
Jan 24th 2008From The Economist print edition
A new argument that economic progress can help to ease environmental woes, just so long as the governance is good too
Panos
CAN poor countries afford to be green? That is a question which politicians in the developing world have often asked rather pointedly. To them, it seems that the obsession of some rich types with preserving forests and saving cuddly animals like pandas or lemurs, while paying less attention to the human beings living nearby, is both cynical and hypocritical.
There is, of course, plenty of evidence that greenery and growth are not polar opposites. After decades of expansion in China and other fast-emerging economies, some of the negative side-effects and their impact on human welfare, above all the death toll caused by foul air and water, are horribly clear (see article). Yet the relationship between growth and the state of the environment is far from simple.
Some new light has been cast by a team of researchers led by Daniel Esty of Yale University, who delivered their conclusions this week to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. What they presented was the latest annual Environmental Sustainability Index, which grades the “environmental health” of 150 countries—using many indicators, from population stress and eco-system health to social and institutional capacity. This year's report focuses on the link between the state of the environment and human health.
In a nutshell, what the new report (also sponsored by the European Commission and Columbia University) suggests is that poor countries have been quite right to challenge the sort of green orthodoxy which rejects the very idea of economic growth. Indeed, the single biggest variable in determining a country's ranking is income per head. But that doesn't imply that economic growth automatically leads to an improvement in the environment.
The team's finding is that growth does offer solutions to the sorts of environmental woes (local air pollution, for example) that directly kill humans. This matters, because about a quarter of all deaths in the world have some link to environmental factors. Most of the victims are poor people who are already vulnerable because of bad living conditions, lack of access to medicine, and malnutrition (see article). Among the killers (especially of children) in which the environment plays a role are diarrhoea, respiratory infections and malaria. These diseases reinforce a vicious circle of poverty and hopelessness by depressing production. According to the World Bank, the economic burden on society caused by bad environmental health amounts to between 2% and 5% of GDP.
Mr Esty's analysis suggests that as poor countries get richer, they usually invest heavily in environmental improvements, such as cleaning up water supplies and improving sanitation, that boost human health. (Their economies may also shift gear, from making steel or chemicals to turning out computer chips.)
But the link between growth and environmentally benign outcomes is much less clear, the study suggests, when it comes to the sort of pollution that fouls up nature (such as acid rain, which poisons lakes and forests) as opposed to directly killing human beings. The key to addressing that sort of pollution, Mr Esty argues, is not just money but good governance.
A closer look at the rankings makes this relationship clearer. Of course it is no surprise that Switzerland fares better than Niger. But why is the poor Dominican Republic much healthier and greener than nearby Haiti? Or Costa Rica so far ahead of Nicaragua, whose nature and resources are broadly similar? And why is wealthy Belgium the sick man of western Europe, with an environmental record worse than that of many developing countries?
A mixture of factors related to good government—accurate data, transparent administration, lack of corruption, checks and balances—all show a clear statistical relationship with environmental performance. Among countries of comparable income, Mr Esty concludes, tough regulations and above all, enforcement are the key factors in keeping things green.
All this may be a helpful way of looking at pollution in the classic sense, but there is another factor that may upset all previous calculations about the relationship between growth and the state of the earth: climate change. Greenhouse emissions do not poison people, or lakes or woods, in the direct or obvious way that noxious chemicals do. But at least in the medium term, they clearly alter the earth in ways that harm the welfare of the poor.
Paul Epstein of the Harvard Medical School says the impact both on nature and directly on humanity of global warming will swamp all other environmental factors. As alterations in the climate lead to mass migrations, epidemics will spread; as temperate zones warm up, tropical diseases like malaria will surge; storms will overwhelm sewer systems; heat waves will push ozone levels up.
He may be right, but here too economic growth, coupled with good governance, may yet prove to be a source of solutions rather than problems. At the moment, perhaps 2 billion people have no formal access to modern energy—they make do with cow dung, agricultural residue and other solid fuels which are far from healthy. Unless foresight and intelligence are applied to the satisfaction of these people's needs, they may embrace the filthiest and most carbon-emitting forms of fossil-fuel energy as soon as they get the chance.
A mixture of economic growth and transparent governance may offer the only chance of avoiding that disaster. Indeed, everyone will gain if poor countries find a way to leapfrog over the phases of development which in so many other places did terrible harm to the environment.
Jan 24th 2008From The Economist print edition
A new argument that economic progress can help to ease environmental woes, just so long as the governance is good too
Panos
CAN poor countries afford to be green? That is a question which politicians in the developing world have often asked rather pointedly. To them, it seems that the obsession of some rich types with preserving forests and saving cuddly animals like pandas or lemurs, while paying less attention to the human beings living nearby, is both cynical and hypocritical.
There is, of course, plenty of evidence that greenery and growth are not polar opposites. After decades of expansion in China and other fast-emerging economies, some of the negative side-effects and their impact on human welfare, above all the death toll caused by foul air and water, are horribly clear (see article). Yet the relationship between growth and the state of the environment is far from simple.
Some new light has been cast by a team of researchers led by Daniel Esty of Yale University, who delivered their conclusions this week to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. What they presented was the latest annual Environmental Sustainability Index, which grades the “environmental health” of 150 countries—using many indicators, from population stress and eco-system health to social and institutional capacity. This year's report focuses on the link between the state of the environment and human health.
In a nutshell, what the new report (also sponsored by the European Commission and Columbia University) suggests is that poor countries have been quite right to challenge the sort of green orthodoxy which rejects the very idea of economic growth. Indeed, the single biggest variable in determining a country's ranking is income per head. But that doesn't imply that economic growth automatically leads to an improvement in the environment.
The team's finding is that growth does offer solutions to the sorts of environmental woes (local air pollution, for example) that directly kill humans. This matters, because about a quarter of all deaths in the world have some link to environmental factors. Most of the victims are poor people who are already vulnerable because of bad living conditions, lack of access to medicine, and malnutrition (see article). Among the killers (especially of children) in which the environment plays a role are diarrhoea, respiratory infections and malaria. These diseases reinforce a vicious circle of poverty and hopelessness by depressing production. According to the World Bank, the economic burden on society caused by bad environmental health amounts to between 2% and 5% of GDP.
Mr Esty's analysis suggests that as poor countries get richer, they usually invest heavily in environmental improvements, such as cleaning up water supplies and improving sanitation, that boost human health. (Their economies may also shift gear, from making steel or chemicals to turning out computer chips.)
But the link between growth and environmentally benign outcomes is much less clear, the study suggests, when it comes to the sort of pollution that fouls up nature (such as acid rain, which poisons lakes and forests) as opposed to directly killing human beings. The key to addressing that sort of pollution, Mr Esty argues, is not just money but good governance.
A closer look at the rankings makes this relationship clearer. Of course it is no surprise that Switzerland fares better than Niger. But why is the poor Dominican Republic much healthier and greener than nearby Haiti? Or Costa Rica so far ahead of Nicaragua, whose nature and resources are broadly similar? And why is wealthy Belgium the sick man of western Europe, with an environmental record worse than that of many developing countries?
A mixture of factors related to good government—accurate data, transparent administration, lack of corruption, checks and balances—all show a clear statistical relationship with environmental performance. Among countries of comparable income, Mr Esty concludes, tough regulations and above all, enforcement are the key factors in keeping things green.
All this may be a helpful way of looking at pollution in the classic sense, but there is another factor that may upset all previous calculations about the relationship between growth and the state of the earth: climate change. Greenhouse emissions do not poison people, or lakes or woods, in the direct or obvious way that noxious chemicals do. But at least in the medium term, they clearly alter the earth in ways that harm the welfare of the poor.
Paul Epstein of the Harvard Medical School says the impact both on nature and directly on humanity of global warming will swamp all other environmental factors. As alterations in the climate lead to mass migrations, epidemics will spread; as temperate zones warm up, tropical diseases like malaria will surge; storms will overwhelm sewer systems; heat waves will push ozone levels up.
He may be right, but here too economic growth, coupled with good governance, may yet prove to be a source of solutions rather than problems. At the moment, perhaps 2 billion people have no formal access to modern energy—they make do with cow dung, agricultural residue and other solid fuels which are far from healthy. Unless foresight and intelligence are applied to the satisfaction of these people's needs, they may embrace the filthiest and most carbon-emitting forms of fossil-fuel energy as soon as they get the chance.
A mixture of economic growth and transparent governance may offer the only chance of avoiding that disaster. Indeed, everyone will gain if poor countries find a way to leapfrog over the phases of development which in so many other places did terrible harm to the environment.
Environmental protection in China ：Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air
摘自The Economist的一片文章，讲为什么目前SEPA的作用有限。
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10566907
Jan 24th 2008 BEIJINGFrom The Economist print edition
And don't expect the government's environmental watchdog to do much about it
THESE days China's environmental bureaucrats know how to talk the talk. They readily admit that pollution is poisoning the country's water resources, air and soil. They acknowledge that carbon emissions are soaring. If only, they lament, the government would give them the means to do something about it.
For all its green promises in recent years, the Communist Party has done little to build a bureaucracy with the clout to enforce environmental edicts and monitor pollution effectively. As long as they deliver economic growth without too much public protest, officials can still expect promotion, however polluted their areas.
Optimists see changes afoot. The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the government's largely toothless watchdog, could soon be renamed and upgraded to a ministry. Some observers expect the rubber-stamp legislature, the National People's Congress, to endorse the change at its annual session in March.
In an article last year two scholars argued that if SEPA were a ministry it might hold its own better in bureaucratic turf wars in which it is at present “marginalised”. SEPA's weakness was evident last year during one of the country's biggest recent environmental disasters, the choking of the country's third-largest freshwater lake, Taihu, by toxic algae. The contaminants included emissions from small factories and crab farms along the shore. SEPA officials say they could do little: the crab farms fall under the Ministry of Agriculture, waste-water treatment plants under local governments and the lake itself under the Ministry of Water Resources.
SEPA is so weak that its officials admit it has little grasp of the impact of agriculture on water and soil pollution. The Ministry of Agriculture has discouraged it from gathering data even though, as one SEPA official sees it, Chinese agriculture pollutes as much as its industries. The country's first national census of pollution sources is due to begin in February. The ministry is taking part in the two-month effort. But, famously secretive and protective of its bureaucratic territory, it is likely to drag its feet. Health officials would sympathise with SEPA. Their efforts to persuade the agriculture ministry to co-operate over livestock-related threats to public health, such as bird flu, have encountered stubborn resistance. And health already has a full-fledged ministry.
To impress its bureaucratic rivals, SEPA also needs a bigger budget. Officials have said that between 2006 and 2010 China will spend 1.3 trillion yuan ($180 billion) on environmental protection, an increase of more than 85% over the previous five years. But much of this is expected to be given to other agencies (the State Forestry Administration, for example, deals with stemming the spread of deserts) or to the local environmental-protection bureaus, which, being answerable to local governments, are crippled by conflicts of interest.
Little of the money, complains a SEPA official, is used to curb pollution. SEPA itself is so strapped that to finance one of its recent high-profile projects, an effort to calculate a measure of “green GDP” (GDP minus the cost of environmental damage), it begged for money from companies. The government, says an official, gave nothing. After three years of effort, including struggles with a highly sceptical National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the project was abandoned last year. It did publish one figure: environmental damage in 2004 cost 3.05% of that year's GDP. Last July the head of the NBS said the government had stopped using the term “green GDP” because it was not internationally accepted.
A shortage of money has similarly hobbled SEPA's latest efforts to encourage greener corporate behaviour. These include last year's “green credit” policy whereby state-owned banks are supposed to suspend lending to egregious polluters (SEPA circulated a list of 30 such companies in July). There is also a “green trade ” initiative, announced last October, that threatens polluting companies with suspension of their exports. Also being considered are environmental requirements for companies planning to list their shares publicly, and a tax on polluters. Resistance from local governments and powerful state-owned companies will make it hard to implement such measures.
What it lacks in resources SEPA tries valiantly to regain by appealing to public sentiment. Its deputy director, Pan Yue, is an outspoken green campaigner who happens to be a son-in-law of a famous former general, Liu Huaqing (such connections can be a big help in Chinese politics).
Last year officials reportedly asked the World Bank to remove estimates of pollution-related deaths in China from a report published jointly with SEPA. But SEPA's website still shows a little-reported speech by Mr Pan in 2006 in which he said cancer experts believed that 70% of China's more than 2m annual deaths from the disease were pollution-related. The World Bank had been planning to blame pollution for just 750,000 deaths from various causes.
Chinese officials were worried that the World Bank's figures would cause unrest. But environmental awareness—and anger—is mounting anyway. Of complaints submitted to government departments, 13% relate to pollution, up from fewer than 6% three years ago. And SEPA officials say pollution-related disturbances are also becoming more common—51,000 in 2005 and more than 60,000 in 2006. Such protests are more likely than SEPA's efforts to goad reluctant officials into action.
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10566907
Jan 24th 2008 BEIJINGFrom The Economist print edition
And don't expect the government's environmental watchdog to do much about it
THESE days China's environmental bureaucrats know how to talk the talk. They readily admit that pollution is poisoning the country's water resources, air and soil. They acknowledge that carbon emissions are soaring. If only, they lament, the government would give them the means to do something about it.
For all its green promises in recent years, the Communist Party has done little to build a bureaucracy with the clout to enforce environmental edicts and monitor pollution effectively. As long as they deliver economic growth without too much public protest, officials can still expect promotion, however polluted their areas.
Optimists see changes afoot. The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the government's largely toothless watchdog, could soon be renamed and upgraded to a ministry. Some observers expect the rubber-stamp legislature, the National People's Congress, to endorse the change at its annual session in March.
In an article last year two scholars argued that if SEPA were a ministry it might hold its own better in bureaucratic turf wars in which it is at present “marginalised”. SEPA's weakness was evident last year during one of the country's biggest recent environmental disasters, the choking of the country's third-largest freshwater lake, Taihu, by toxic algae. The contaminants included emissions from small factories and crab farms along the shore. SEPA officials say they could do little: the crab farms fall under the Ministry of Agriculture, waste-water treatment plants under local governments and the lake itself under the Ministry of Water Resources.
SEPA is so weak that its officials admit it has little grasp of the impact of agriculture on water and soil pollution. The Ministry of Agriculture has discouraged it from gathering data even though, as one SEPA official sees it, Chinese agriculture pollutes as much as its industries. The country's first national census of pollution sources is due to begin in February. The ministry is taking part in the two-month effort. But, famously secretive and protective of its bureaucratic territory, it is likely to drag its feet. Health officials would sympathise with SEPA. Their efforts to persuade the agriculture ministry to co-operate over livestock-related threats to public health, such as bird flu, have encountered stubborn resistance. And health already has a full-fledged ministry.
To impress its bureaucratic rivals, SEPA also needs a bigger budget. Officials have said that between 2006 and 2010 China will spend 1.3 trillion yuan ($180 billion) on environmental protection, an increase of more than 85% over the previous five years. But much of this is expected to be given to other agencies (the State Forestry Administration, for example, deals with stemming the spread of deserts) or to the local environmental-protection bureaus, which, being answerable to local governments, are crippled by conflicts of interest.
Little of the money, complains a SEPA official, is used to curb pollution. SEPA itself is so strapped that to finance one of its recent high-profile projects, an effort to calculate a measure of “green GDP” (GDP minus the cost of environmental damage), it begged for money from companies. The government, says an official, gave nothing. After three years of effort, including struggles with a highly sceptical National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the project was abandoned last year. It did publish one figure: environmental damage in 2004 cost 3.05% of that year's GDP. Last July the head of the NBS said the government had stopped using the term “green GDP” because it was not internationally accepted.
A shortage of money has similarly hobbled SEPA's latest efforts to encourage greener corporate behaviour. These include last year's “green credit” policy whereby state-owned banks are supposed to suspend lending to egregious polluters (SEPA circulated a list of 30 such companies in July). There is also a “green trade ” initiative, announced last October, that threatens polluting companies with suspension of their exports. Also being considered are environmental requirements for companies planning to list their shares publicly, and a tax on polluters. Resistance from local governments and powerful state-owned companies will make it hard to implement such measures.
What it lacks in resources SEPA tries valiantly to regain by appealing to public sentiment. Its deputy director, Pan Yue, is an outspoken green campaigner who happens to be a son-in-law of a famous former general, Liu Huaqing (such connections can be a big help in Chinese politics).
Last year officials reportedly asked the World Bank to remove estimates of pollution-related deaths in China from a report published jointly with SEPA. But SEPA's website still shows a little-reported speech by Mr Pan in 2006 in which he said cancer experts believed that 70% of China's more than 2m annual deaths from the disease were pollution-related. The World Bank had been planning to blame pollution for just 750,000 deaths from various causes.
Chinese officials were worried that the World Bank's figures would cause unrest. But environmental awareness—and anger—is mounting anyway. Of complaints submitted to government departments, 13% relate to pollution, up from fewer than 6% three years ago. And SEPA officials say pollution-related disturbances are also becoming more common—51,000 in 2005 and more than 60,000 in 2006. Such protests are more likely than SEPA's efforts to goad reluctant officials into action.
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