Is Environmental Sustainability Taking a Backseat in China after COVID-19? The Perspective of Business Managers
1
College of Information and Management Science, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450046, China
2
Centre for Environment and Sustainability, University of Surrey, Surrey GU2 7XH, UK
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2020, 12(24), 10369; https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410369
Received: 3 November 2020 / Revised: 5 December 2020 / Accepted: 10 December 2020 / Published: 11 December 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Socio-Economic Sustainability and Resilience after COVID-19)
China’s quick economic recovery from COVID-19 has presented a narrow but vast opportunity to build an economy that is cleaner, fairer, and safer. Will China grab this opportunity? The answer rests with both business managers and the government. Based on a questionnaire survey of 1160 owners and managers of companies headquartered in 32 regions of China and covering 30 industries, this paper explores how COVID-19 has impacted Chinese business, especially with regard to the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, social, and environmental). The results suggest that Chinese companies’ sustainability priorities have been shifted towards the social dimension both during COVID-19 and into the post-pandemic phase, regardless of the type of ownership, company size, or market focus (domestic, overseas, or mixture of the two). However, all types of company prioritize the need for economic sustainability in the post-pandemic phase and in relative terms the importance of the environmental dimension has been diminished. Hence the potential for a post-pandemic environmental rebound effect in China is clear. But it does not have to be the case if Chinese businesses and the government take actions to change its recovery plans to embrace the environmental dimension of sustainability. The paper puts forward some suggestions and recommendations for businesses and the government.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
social sustainability; economic sustainability; environmental sustainability; COVID-19; China; business
▼
Show Figures
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Zhang, D.; Hao, M.; Morse, S. Is Environmental Sustainability Taking a Backseat in China after COVID-19? The Perspective of Business Managers. Sustainability 2020, 12, 10369. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410369
AMA Style
Zhang D, Hao M, Morse S. Is Environmental Sustainability Taking a Backseat in China after COVID-19? The Perspective of Business Managers. Sustainability. 2020; 12(24):10369. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410369
Chicago/Turabian StyleZhang, Dongyong; Hao, Mengge; Morse, Stephen. 2020. "Is Environmental Sustainability Taking a Backseat in China after COVID-19? The Perspective of Business Managers" Sustainability 12, no. 24: 10369. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410369
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
Search more from Scilit