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. Is a state-level green factory allowed to have records of environmental violations? Since 2016, in order to promote the green development of industry, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has begun to build a green manufacturing system, including green factories, green design products, green parks and green supply chain management demonstration enterprises, among which green factories are the core support units of the green manufacturing system, and seven batches of lists have been released so far. Being
appraised as a green factory can bring many benefits to enterprises. Encouraging policies vary from place to place, with some giving financial incentives of up to 1 million yuan, some opening green approval channels, and some not being included in the scope of production suspension and restriction during the period of off-peak production and emergency control of heavily polluted weather. Guangzhou Green Net Environmental Protection Service Center (hereinafter referred to as Green Net) , a non-profit
environmental protection organization, found that 874 green factories on the list in 2022 have been listed since September 16, 2019. Forty-five enterprises have 167 records of environmental violations, including excessive discharge of pollutants, unlicensed discharge of pollutants, abnormal operation of pollution prevention and control facilities, and construction of environmental impact assessment without approval. The environmental data platform of Green Net contains the information of administrative penalties and orders for correction of environmental protection of enterprises published on government websites at all levels throughout the country.
According to the requirements of green factory evaluation issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, enterprises need not have accidents such as environmental pollution in the past three years. "Credit China" and "National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System" shall prevail. These two websites have collected a number of records of dishonesty, including information on environmental violations. Taking "Credit China" as an example, after meeting the corresponding conditions, except for particularly serious dishonesty, some records of dishonesty can be eliminated through credit repair. The starting point of
credit repair is not to let the dishonest subject "never turn over". When it comes to the evaluation of green factories, whether the information of environmental violations can be eliminated or not, the focus of the controversy behind it is how to define "environmental pollution accidents"? Does the record of environmental violations constitute the condition of "one vote veto" for green factories to participate in the evaluation? "a real green factory should not have a record of environmental violations."
01
Both new and old "green factories" have records
of environmental violations. Green factories have records of environmental violations, not individual cases. On September 16,
2022, the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the Notice on the Recommendation of the Green Manufacturing List in 2022 (hereinafter referred to as the Notice) . The evaluation threshold includes the requirement that enterprises should not have environmental pollution accidents in the past three years.
According to Green Net statistics, in the final list of green factories for 2022 published in March 2023, 45 enterprises have records of environmental violations since September 16, 2019. Nearly half of the records of environmental violations come from six iron and steel enterprises , among which there are more records of gas-related environmental violations. More than a dozen enterprises have committed serious environmental violations, such as building without approval of environmental impact assessment, inadequate acceptance of "three simultaneous", discharge of pollutants without certificates, and falsification of monitoring data to evade supervision.
Some enterprises are "habitual offenders" of environmental violations and have been fined more than ten million yuan . For example, Fengnan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. of Hebei Zongheng Group has 29 fines in the past three years. In 2019, it was found that three projects were built without approval of environmental impact assessment, one of which was fined 22 million yuan , and then fined 350,000 yuan for discharging pollutants without a license; in 2020, the company was fined 400,000 yuan for "three simultaneous" environmental protection and inadequate acceptance; In 2021, the company was fined 200000 yuan and 2.4 million yuan for failing to declare hazardous waste and discharging pollutants without a license.
Shandong Jinjing Science and Technology Co., Ltd. has been issued a number of large fines: in 2019, it was fined 1 million yuan for shutting down environmental treatment facilities; in 2021, it was ordered to make corrections and fined 746,875 yuan for evading supervision of sewage discharge; In 2022, a fine of 70.In March
2023, together with the list of green manufacturing in 2022, the results of dynamic adjustment of green factories were also published. Of the 2783 green factories in the previous six batches, 41 were removed from the list , from 19 provinces (municipalities directly under the Central Government and autonomous regions).
Dynamic adjustment is to ensure that the key indicators of green factories that have been evaluated can still meet the requirements. The above-mentioned Notice also requires that environmental pollution and other accidents should be reported to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology by the local authorities, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will remove them from the list.
However, some enterprises have records of environmental violations and have not been removed from the list of green factories.
For example, Hebei Donghai Special Steel Group Co., Ltd., which was selected as the fifth batch of state-level green factories in 2020, was caught by the Central Environmental Protection Supervision Group in 2018 for illegal construction without approval. During the period from 2021 to 2022, the company recorded a number of environmental violations, such as being fined 900,000 for suspected online data fraud.
Southern Weekend reporters contacted 32 enterprises with more or more serious environmental violations in the public list of the fifth and seventh batches of state-level green factories, 4 enterprises were interviewed and 17 refused to be interviewed. Eleven did not receive a reply .
02
Some enterprises have asked Green Net to eliminate pollution records
. Green Net's concern for green factories originated from the call from enterprises in February 2020. The other side said that the company was declaring the fifth batch of state-level green factories, and urged them to eliminate the environmental administrative penalty records of their enterprises in the Green Net environmental database, so as not to affect the application results. The
company's consultation surprised Ding Wenzhang, who tracks the environmental performance of green factories on Green Net. In the past, although enterprises often made similar calls, the reasons were often bidding, loans, financing and even listing, and "declaring green factories" was the first time. As usual, Ding Wenzhang refused the request of the enterprise.
Since then, several enterprises have put forward the same appeal. Ding Wenzhang immediately searched the "green factories" publicized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in the past few years, and found that many enterprises had records of environmental violations in recent years.
Comparing with the Green Net database in 2020, we can find that 253 of the first four batches of 1402 green factories have 881 records of environmental violations, which are punished from 2010 to 2020. About 90% of the penalty information is after 2015. Some of the companies that had previously called were among them.
Since then, Green Net has begun to pay attention to the list of green factories, and has released seven batches of lists, each of which has a record of environmental violations. Among the 724 green factories in the public list of the fifth batch in 2020, there are 99 enterprises with environmental violation records within three years, totaling 326 items; in 2021, among the 673 green factories in the public list of the sixth batch, there are 67 enterprises with environmental violation records within three years, totaling 252 items.
"Since the fifth batch (green factories), we have sent the list of environmental violations of enterprises to the Department of Energy Conservation and Comprehensive Utilization of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in the form of e-mails and letters, but we have not yet received a reply." Ding Wenzhang told the Southern Weekend reporter.
03
Enterprises participating in the evaluation of green factories based on "Credit China" and "National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System" are of course the reference conditions for their environmental performance.
According to the Notice, the dynamic assessment of declaring green factories and removing them from the list of existing green factories focuses on whether enterprises have "environmental pollution accidents". All of them are based on "Credit China" and "National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System". The
former is sponsored by the National Development and Reform Commission and the People's Bank of China, while the latter is sponsored by the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration. Not only green manufacturing, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is in charge of the certification of new and specialized small and medium-sized enterprises, enterprise financing, loans, bidding and so on will refer to these two websites.
Taking "Credit China" as an example, its official website introduces that it is a window for the government to praise honesty and punish dishonesty. It mainly undertakes credit publicity, information dissemination and other work, and uses the credit information provided by the member units of the joint inter-ministerial meeting on the construction of social credit system. When entering the list of enterprises on the
"Credit China" website, information such as "administrative management", "list of subjects with serious dishonesty" and "judicial judgment" will appear. However, as long as the conditions are met, some penalty records can be implemented through compliance means to repair credit and remove publicity. Wu Jingmei, an expert in
credit management and a professor at the School of Finance and Banking of Renmin University of China, once wrote that the dishonest behavior of many market participants is often non-subjective and non-malicious, and there is a strong desire to correct the dishonest behavior, reduce the adverse effects of dishonesty, and improve their reputation and image. Credit repair provides opportunities for dishonest subjects to correct themselves and reform themselves, which can release inclusive and positive energy to the market and society, and effectively stimulate the willingness of market subjects to keep their promises. It weakens the panic and negative mentality of the subject of dishonesty that "there will never be a day to turn over".
"Credit China" divides the behavior of dishonesty into three levels: specific serious, serious and general. In addition to specific serious, serious and general acts of dishonesty can be withdrawn from publicity. The publicity period for
serious breach of trust is six months to three years, and the publicity period for general breach of trust is three months to one year. After meeting the minimum publicity period, the enterprise can report the materials by itself, and after the examination and approval, the publicity can be revoked, or called credit repair . After meeting the maximum publicity period, the administrative penalty information will be automatically revoked.
Credit repair conditions are not strict , in addition to filling in the letter of commitment, providing company registration certificates and other basic processes, the general dishonest behavior repair also needs to provide relevant proof materials of administrative penalties, such as a fine receipt with the official seal of the ecological environment department. In addition to the above materials, it is also necessary to provide proof materials for active participation in credit repair training.
Southern Weekend reporter learned from a credit management expert that due to the different opinions of different departments, the policy of credit repair may be adjusted in the near future.
04
The key to defining
the severity of environmental violations is whether the publicity can be withdrawn in Credit China and the severity of environmental violations.
Credit China stipulates that specific serious acts of dishonesty include administrative penalty information such as being ordered to stop production and business in the field of ecological environment, or revoking licenses or licenses. However, the description of serious dishonesty and general dishonesty is vague , for example, general dishonesty refers to "administrative penalty information with minor nature, minor circumstances and less social harm". A staff member of
Credit China did not give a clear answer to the Southern Weekend reporter's consultation, saying only that "laws and regulations shall prevail, if the provisions of laws and regulations are vague, there is a special internal audit department to define", and suggested that if enterprises can not distinguish the severity of environmental administrative penalty records, they can consult the penalty agencies.
In the Credit China website, Hebei Zongheng Group Fengnan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., Shandong Jinjing Science and Technology Co., Ltd. and Hebei Donghai Special Steel Group Co., Ltd., which have more tickets, have no record of environmental violations.
Southern Weekend reporters repeatedly called the first two enterprises, but did not get a reply. A staff member of the general manager of
Hebei Donghai Special Steel Group Co., Ltd. told the Southern Weekend reporter that because the record of environmental violations before the green factory was evaluated did not constitute an environmental accident , the rectification was in place. In Credit China and the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, the publicity information of environmental protection administrative penalties has been eliminated, so it does not affect the declaration of green factories.
Regarding the record of environmental violations after the evaluation of green factories, the above-mentioned staff also said that enterprises would accept the review and inspection of green factories in the province every year. Because these illegal acts are general environmental penalties , they do not constitute environmental accidents , so they do not affect the green factory title of enterprises. Some of the 41 green factories recently removed by the
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology were not removed because of environmental violations, such as some enterprises that have been discredited. Among the top ten enterprises on the list, only one enterprise can query the record of environmental violations in the Green Net database.
05
Environmental penalties do not belong to "one vote veto"?
According to the notice issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the application for green factories should carry out self-evaluation report and tripartite evaluation report . The evaluation standard refers to the Green Factory Evaluation Requirements in the Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on the Construction of Green Manufacturing System (Jiehan [2016] No.586 of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) and the National Recommended Standard General Rules for Green Factory Evaluation 0HTML0 implemented in December 2018. UNK4 3 (hereinafter referred to as "Requirements" and "General Principles") 0 HTML0 UNK4 4. 0HTML0 UNK4 5 Both the Requirements and the General Rules state that green factories include 0HTML0 UNK4 6 basic requirements and prospective requirements 0HTML0 UNK4 7. Among them, the basic requirements must be met, that is, one vote veto; while the expected requirements are the reference targets for the establishment of green factories, and local governments are encouraged to put forward higher requirements in combination with the regional development level and with reference to the expected indicators. 0 HTML0 UNK4 8 Both the Requirements and the General Principles have a 0 HTML0 UNK4 9 Basic requirements 0 HTML0 UNK5 0:0 HTML0 UNK5 1 The factory shall comply with relevant laws, regulations, policies and standards 0 HTML0 UNK5 2 in the construction and production process.Does
this basic requirement mean that enterprises can not have any environmental violations?
Firstly, the records of environmental violations of enterprises are also based on "Credit China" and "National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System". In other words, as long as credit repair is carried out on the above two websites before declaration, the requirement is nominally met.
Secondly, the basic requirements lack evaluation rules, and in the actual implementation, the focus of attention is subjective . The "Technological Innovation Service Center" directly under the
Zhejiang Provincial Economic and Credit Department is mainly responsible for the green manufacturing work in the province. A staff member of the unit told the Southern Weekend reporter that due to the very broad expression of this basic requirement, in the actual implementation, the compliance issues that the competent authorities are mainly concerned about include: whether the enterprise land is used in compliance. For example, whether the ecological red line is occupied; the approval and acceptance of "Three Simultaneities" of environmental protection (environmental protection facilities must be designed, constructed and put into operation simultaneously with the main project); energy conservation review, including the total energy consumption of project construction, whether the process equipment is listed in the prohibited or eliminated catalogue, etc.; plant building planning permission, etc.
Other tickets are less concerned. "Some small environmental punishment enterprises are inevitable, more or less, if the credit information publicity system of China and national enterprises can find it, but it does not belong to a larger environmental accident of one vote veto, we will deduct it as a discretionary item ." The above staff said. A staff member of the general manager of
Hebei Donghai Special Steel Group Co., Ltd. said that Hebei Province, especially Tangshan City, is very strict in environmental protection control, such as the inspection found that the vehicles running in the factory will be punished for a little dust. "If there is a little dust on the road surface of the factory, can it have no dust?"? You can check all the iron and steel enterprises in Tangshan area, and some of them are fined more.
06
After the self-assessment reports and third-party evaluation reports of enterprises with different
evaluation standards in each province are completed, they need to be reviewed by provincial industry and information departments and reviewed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. On April 19, 2023, a reporter from Southern Weekend called the Energy Conservation Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. A staff member said that in the dynamic management of green factories, which green factories would be removed from the list would be subject to the opinions of local industry and information departments . There are many third-party organizations in the
market that provide the service of declaring green factories. Whether the record of environmental administrative punishment will affect the performance of enterprises in the evaluation of green factories, different third-party organizations have different opinions, some organizations say that "as long as the credit can not be found in China"; A staff member of "Wantai Certification" in Zhejiang Province said that the Zhejiang Economic and Credit Office had a more detailed review during the pre-examination, and the experts of the evaluation committee would pay attention to whether the enterprise had a record of administrative penalties, and the declaration also had an on-site defense link, so if there was a record of environmental violations, it would be difficult to pass in Zhejiang. The staff of the "Technological Innovation Service Center" directly under the
Zhejiang Economic and Credit Department told reporters at the Southern Weekend that the economic development of each province is different, the audit criteria are different, and the evaluation of Zhejiang Province is stricter, and the way of "selecting the best from the best" is adopted. "For example, if the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology gives Zhejiang 20 places, we may relax to 40 when screening, and then carefully screen them to see which one has lower energy consumption and better environmental protection when they all meet the basic requirements.". Eventually, we will go to the scene to check. The scale of evaluation varies
from place to place, which also results in different environmental performance of selected green factories in different provinces.
For example, according to the statistics of Green Net in September 2020, in the public list of the fifth batch of green factories issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, enterprises from Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Heilongjiang, Chongqing and Sichuan performed better . In the past three years, there has been no record of environmental violations in the Green Net database.
But green factories in some provinces are not so "green" . Some state-level green factories in Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Xinjiang, Gansu and other places have a large number of records of environmental violations in the past three years.
Southern Weekend reporters contacted Hebei Province, Shandong Province and Shanxi Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology. Hebei Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology declined the interview. Shandong Province and Shanxi Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology did not respond to the interview request.
A person familiar with the evaluation of green factories told Southern Weekend that although the General Rules for the Evaluation of Green Factories give a unified standard, the lack of evaluation rules leads to subjective factors in the evaluation basis and differences in the scales of different regions and institutions.
07
"Environmental compliance is the bottom line of legitimate compliance enterprises"
Southern Weekend reporters consulted in the name of enterprises, a third-party organization said that the declaration of green factories first requires the size of enterprises. Provincial green factories generally require their annual output value to rank around the top five in the same industry in the province, and there is little hope after ranking in the top ten. Another agency said that one of the most important things in the declaration process is the use of new energy. For example, the evaluation of roof Green Factory" is mainly divided into six indicators -infrastructure, management system, energy and resource input, products, environmental emissions and performance. It corresponds to the green factory concept of "intensive plant, harmless raw materials, clean production, waste recycling, low-carbon energy". One of the six indicators, "environmental emissions", only accounts for 10% of the weight in the third-party evaluation form of green factories.
In Xia Qing's view, the evaluation of green factories should pay more attention to environmental pollution. He believes that the logic behind the establishment of green factories is more inclined to the latter in terms of overall control of environmental pollution, energy conservation and low carbon. Under the background of synergistic effect of pollution reduction and carbon reduction, we should pay attention to both pollution reduction and carbon reduction.Compared with other domestic green standards, such as the General Principles for Green Product Evaluation (GB/T 33761-2017),
Xia Qing is the deputy leader of the overall group of national green product evaluation standards, which involves many dimensions of safety, economy, ecological and social benefits, reflecting the close relationship between green products and environmental safety. "Environmental compliance is the bottom line of legitimate compliance enterprises, which must be maintained, otherwise they are not qualified to complete the green evaluation of product life cycle."
At present, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is paying attention to the performance of green factories after evaluation, requiring all localities to complete the dynamic management work by April 30, 2023 and put forward dynamic adjustment suggestions. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will adjust the list after comprehensive evaluation. On April 4, 2023, the Energy Conservation Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held an online presentation to explain the method of filling in the dynamic management form of green factories in 2023. Staff members said at the briefing that the continuous improvement of green factories is the core content of the management table. Enterprises are required to fill in the data of land use, energy consumption, carbon emissions, comprehensive utilization of industrial solid waste and pollutant emissions when they are listed, in 2021 and 2022. The industry and information department will establish a database accordingly to facilitate the dynamic situation of green factories. Chen Yanying, a professor at the School of Economics and Management of
Dalian University of Technology, and other researchers have pointed out in a paper that the evaluation of green factories has significantly increased the stock price of enterprises. The rise in stock prices is mainly due to investors'high expectations of government benefits such as cash subsidies and improvement of government-enterprise relations, rather than investors' green preferences and high expectations of market benefits such as sales growth and financing capacity improvement.
Xia Qing believes that green is the aspiration of the people and the well-being of the people, and social supervision must be realized. What is the green highlight of a green factory, what ecological value it has, and what demonstration it can provide for its peers, should further disclose relevant information. Southern Weekend reporters sent letters to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to inquire about
"the definition of environmental pollution accidents" and "how the industry and information departments supervise green factories", but no reply was received.
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