Sustainability
Asia’s sustainable development
Fast growth based on industrialization provided Asia with a path out of poverty.
But Asia’s future depends on inclusive growth that aligns with ecological limits. We subscribe to the premise that better environmental and social outcomes will only be possible with new approaches to growth, development, and business operations. In Asia’s Sustainable Development, we aim to explore and demonstrate this new development model and, working with business, help to catalyze Asia’s transition to more sustainable growth.
Kermit’s Bankers
by Andrew Sheng
What will it take for the global economy to transition into a green economy?
Sesame Street’s Kermit the Frog once lamented that “it’s not easy bein’ green.” Today, this sentiment is surprisingly relevant to the global economy – only it is becoming green that is the problem. ( read more )
Fiscal Policies and Green Growth
Taxes and subsidies are key policy instruments for steering the economy, businesses, and consumers towards cleaner, greener growth. Two factors may inhibit their effectiveness. First, a range of subsidies and state support have entrenched fossil fuels within many major economies; these need to be unwound. Second, taxes and subsidies are often deployed without adhering to best practices, often resulting in perverse or unintended side effects. The readings below address the potential, and limits, of such policies. (read more)
Can the Circular Economy Inform Asia’s Growth Challenges?
China for the World
In The China Strategy, Edward Tse, Booz & Company’s Chairman of Greater China, describes how to build the capabilities that business leaders need for operating an integrated China-global strategy.
Tse explains how to tell which Chinese companies can provide the best alliances for particular purposes, what parts of the country to enter first; how to manage Chinese financing; and how to establish a trajectory for growth that profits with the growth of, rather than just fighting against the growth of, the next wave of Chinese competitors.
Tse also discusses flexible “footprints” for locating innovation, manufacturing, and services; the adaptation of brand names in China’s many markets; and the integration of back-office functions between China and the rest of the world.
Additionally, Tse describes how success in China can be applied globally, using the market knowledge, networks of low-cost suppliers, and scientific talent that can be found there as a platform for reaching a worldwide scale.
In the world’s fastest-growing economy, the experience of the last ten years will not be the best guide to the next ten years. Business leaders around the world who want to be successful—not just in China, but anywhere—will need a new China strategy.
A new China strategy does not merely mean a set of plans for doing business in China. Most big companies are already selling to China’s markets and competing against Chinese companies. Many more, even relatively small enterprises, will join them. But a true China strategy is different. It is a one world strategy: a long-range developmental plan for doing business as a global enterprise in which China is a central and integrated component, in a world where China plays a very different role than it has in the past.
Together, the four drivers of change in China—Open China, Competitive China, Official China, and One World—will transform the way in which businesses operate everywhere.
