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The "Implementation Opinions on Comprehensively Building a Beautiful Beijing and Accelerating the Modernization of Harmony between Man and Nature," issued by the Beijing Municipal Government, proposes promoting "beautiful cell" cases such as beautiful factories. Industrial enterprises, as major traditional energy consumers and pollutant emitters, must accelerate the green transformation of their development models. Building beautiful factories is not only a powerful tool for advancing the battle against pollution, but also an important part of building a beautiful China.
Be pragmatic and realistic in carrying out the "Five Principles"
The key to building beautiful factories lies in the coordinated promotion of carbon reduction, pollution reduction, greening, and growth, thereby lowering pollution emissions and improving the environment's appearance. Therefore, it is essential to realistically explain the "five aspects": carbon, water, air, noise, and solid waste. These five aspects are interconnected. Industrial enterprises must adhere to a systemic approach, comprehensively tell their stories of pollution reduction and carbon reduction, and, using ESG reports and the legally mandated corporate environmental information disclosure system as platforms, increase the transparency of corporate environmental information in accordance with laws and regulations, revealing their assets, goals, and measures, and proactively accepting public oversight.
First, regarding carbon emissions. In building beautiful factories, industrial enterprises must establish carbon emission management systems tailored to their specific circumstances and clearly define their carbon reduction "timetable" and "roadmap." Carbon reduction for industrial enterprises is a systematic project requiring efforts across the entire process, from source control and process management to end-of-pipe treatment. This involves a series of technical standards and specifications related to carbon accounting, carbon footprint, carbon reduction, energy efficiency and consumption, and carbon capture, utilization, and storage. To truly achieve the goal of "effective and sustainable reduction," it is essential to stay focused on the target, strengthen overall planning, and steadily and orderly promote the implementation of various measures to ensure their effectiveness.
Secondly, there is the issue of water pollutant discharge. Industrial enterprises are not only major water users but also major emitters of water pollutants. Data shows that in 2021, industrial water consumption accounted for 17.7% of the country's total water consumption, and wastewater discharge accounted for about one-quarter of the country's total sewage discharge. Therefore, water conservation and emission reduction are crucial tasks for building beautiful factories. Industrial enterprises must adhere to the principle of harmony between humans and water, utilize water resources scientifically and rationally, and strengthen the protection, management, and restoration of the water ecological environment; they must adhere to the principle of production based on water availability, strictly adhere to the three red lines of total water consumption, water use efficiency, and water function zone restrictions on pollution discharge, and accelerate the elimination of outdated water-using products and equipment. Some non-ferrous metal, petrochemical, chemical, building materials, papermaking, and printing and dyeing industrial enterprises located along rivers, lakes, and other waterways should also develop and publicize environmental emergency plans for sudden water pollution incidents, strengthen practical drills, and improve emergency response capabilities.
Thirdly, regarding air pollutant emissions. While the Blue Sky Protection Campaign has deepened and the level of air pollution control and management in industrial enterprises has significantly improved, air pollutant emissions remain high. Industrial enterprises must not relax their efforts or take a break. They must align with the requirements of the "Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality," and earnestly implement measures such as upgrading and transforming traditional industries, replacing industrial furnaces with clean energy, and implementing "one-plant-one-policy" emergency response for heavily polluted weather, striving to achieve a continuous reduction in total air pollutant emissions and a continuous decrease in emission intensity.
Fourthly, noise emissions. In recent years, industrial noise pollution has become increasingly prominent alongside rapid urbanization and industrialization, leading to a rise in environmental complaints caused by noise pollution. Strengthening noise pollution prevention and control to safeguard the peace and harmony of the people is a crucial aspect of building beautiful factories. Industrial enterprises should, in accordance with local acoustic environmental functional zoning and relevant laws and regulations, rationally plan the layout of production equipment and further reduce vibration and noise by selecting low-noise processes and equipment, using sound-absorbing materials, and increasing sound insulation facilities. Key noise-emitting units should install, use, and maintain automatic noise monitoring equipment in accordance with national regulations and connect it to the monitoring equipment of the ecological and environmental protection authorities. Simultaneously, they should scientifically and rationally arrange production times, avoiding the use of high-noise equipment at night as much as possible to effectively reduce noise emission intensity and mitigate the impact on the surrounding environment.
Fifth, the situation regarding solid waste emissions. It is estimated that the historical accumulation of large quantities of solid waste generated during my country's industrial production processes, such as coal gangue, coal ash, coal slag, phosphogypsum, and red mud, is substantial. This not only impacts the natural environment but also occupies arable land and grassland in some areas. Implementing the requirements for solid waste reduction, resource recovery, and harmless disposal is essential for building beautiful factories. Industrial enterprises should adopt advanced production processes and equipment to effectively reduce the quantity and types of solid waste generated, and incorporate the comprehensive utilization and disposal of solid waste into their production and operation management plans. They should vigorously promote the comprehensive utilization and disposal of solid waste, striving to repay old debts and avoid incurring new ones.
Create "Four Beauties" according to local conditions
Industrial enterprises vary in industry, organizational form, output scale, and development stage, requiring a practical approach to transform the goal of building beautiful factories into universally applicable, operable, and evaluable specific indicators. The construction of beautiful factories should be tailored to local conditions, creating "four beauties": beautiful corporate culture, beautiful development strategy, beautiful operation and management, and beautiful factory appearance.
First, there is the beauty of corporate culture. Culture is the soul of an enterprise, encompassing core values, institutional culture, and behavioral culture, serving as an inexhaustible driving force for enterprise development. Industrial enterprises must integrate the vision of building a beautiful factory into their corporate culture, transforming it into a goal advocated by company leaders and endorsed by all employees, and putting it into practice. They must proactively assume primary responsibility for environmental governance, deeply embedding the concept of green and low-carbon development into their core values, truly moving towards a greener future. They must solidify the bottom line for green development through enterprise system construction, fostering a positive atmosphere of not daring to pollute, not being able to pollute, and not wanting to pollute through institutional mechanisms. Furthermore, they must firmly establish the concept among all employees that "protecting the ecological environment is protecting productivity, and improving the ecological environment is developing productivity," mobilizing them to consciously participate in environmental protection work.
Second, we must develop a beautiful development strategy. Industrial enterprises should take the concept of green development as their strategic guide, proactively integrate into the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development, cultivate new drivers and advantages for development, and achieve more efficient, higher-level, and more sustainable growth. We should actively and steadily promote the "dual-carbon" strategy, proactively plan for future industries in the green and low-carbon fields, accelerate the promotion and application of advanced green technologies, strengthen green manufacturing, develop green service industries, expand the green energy industry, and actively build a green, low-carbon, and circular economy system. We should deeply implement the innovation-driven development strategy, focusing on areas such as new pollutant treatment, resource recycling, ecological protection, restoration and utilization, and green upgrading of infrastructure, vigorously promote green technology innovation, actively participate in tackling key core technologies, and strive to achieve breakthroughs in "building beautiful factories and setting industry benchmarks."
Thirdly, there is the beauty of operational management. Operational management involves many aspects such as internal control management, performance management, and project management, and is a crucial link in enterprise management. Industrial enterprises should use systematic thinking and comprehensive methods to coordinate and promote pollution reduction and carbon reduction work, and incorporate it into lean management to further optimize production processes and operating standards. Strengthen internal control management to form a panoramic view of pollution reduction and carbon reduction across the entire chain, from all perspectives, and throughout the entire process; optimize the management system; strengthen business supervision; and improve operational efficiency. Strengthen performance management, emphasizing hard environmental constraints in target setting, management plans, assessment implementation, and result application to ensure that production and operation activities comply with ecological and environmental laws and policies. Furthermore, it is essential to closely monitor project management, strictly control project approval, and ensure that no investment in pollution control projects is reduced and no projects that violate industrial policies are approved.
Fourth, the factory's appearance is aesthetically pleasing. A factory's appearance is its "face," representing not only its image but also reflecting its management level to a certain extent. Using the creation of dust-free workshops and smokeless factories as a framework, we vigorously promote mechanized wet sweeping operations to reduce dust pollution. Through tapping into potential green spaces and planting greenery wherever possible, we comprehensively promote the construction of a garden-style factory, with high-standard design and rational layout to maximize the dust removal, noise reduction, and air purification functions of factory greenery. We establish a long-term mechanism to integrate the improvement of the factory's appearance into daily work, maintaining consistent and persistent efforts.
This article is reprinted from: China Environment News