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Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 1296–1302

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Resources, Conservation and Recycling

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Survey of ofﬁcials’ awareness on circular economy development in China: Based on municipal and county level

Bing Xue a,b,1,2, Xing-peng Chen b,∗,2, Yong Geng a,1, Xiao-jia Guo b,2, Cheng-peng Lu b,2, Zi-long Zhang b,d,2, Chen-yu Lu c,b,2,3 a Circular Economy and Industrial Ecology Group, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 72, Wenhua Road, Shenhe District, 110016 Shenyang, China b Institute of Human Geography, College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, No. 222, South Tianshui Road, Chenguan District, 730000 Lanzhou, China c College of Geography and Environment Science, Northwest Normal University, No. 967, Anning East Road, Anning District, 730070 Lanzhou, China d Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, The University of Vermont, 617 Main Street, Burlington, VT 05405, USA article info abstract

Article history: With rapid industrialization in China, both resource scarcity and resources efficiency have challenged the Received 23 December 2009 country’s sustainable development. Under such circumstance, circular economy should be adopted as a Received in revised form 12 May 2010 national development strategy. However, due to a lack of understanding current barriers on implementing Accepted 15 May 2010 circular economy, it is necessary to conduct a questionnaire based survey. The data and information used in this paper were collected by distributing questionnaires in 6 cities and interviewing 252 respondents. Keywords: Our research findings indicated that while most of officials working at municipal and county levels have Circular economy higher awareness and understanding on circular economy concept and its significance, nearly 16.70% Awareness Government official of the interviewed officials had just heard of circular economy indicating that there is still a need for Regional development government officials to further improve their circular economy awareness. Government officials can China receive their circular economy knowledge through awareness raising activities thus obtaining higher circular economy awareness. The main barriers on circular economy development are weakness of public awareness and lack of financial support, the prior method on pushing circular economy development is to execute compulsory regulations, which is shared by about 61.11% of all respondents; the gap between policy-making and practical action is still a serious problem. Nearly half of the respondents are not willing to pay more money for green products. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction build a resource-saving and environmental-friendly society (Guan et al., 2008). Inspired by Japanese and German Recycling Economy Since the implementation of the “Reform and Opening up Laws, China’s leadership has formed a circular economy (CE) initia- Policy”, China has achieved the most remarkable GDP-oriented tive in order to decouple the economic growth from environmental economic development (Ren, 2007). Meanwhile, China’s rapid degradation (Liu et al., 2009). The concept of a circular economy, industrialization has also engendered serious problems with the introduced by the late David Pearce in 1989, addresses the inter- depletion of natural resources and degradation of ecosystems linkages of four economic functions of the environment (Pearce (Ness, 2008). In response to the impacts coming from the non- and Turner, 1989; Andersen, 2007). On one hand, the environment circular pattern of development and deal with the climate change, not only provides amenity values, in addition to being a resource it is an overall, urgent and long-term strategic task for China to base and a sink for economic activities, but is also a fundamental life-support system (Andersen, 2007). On the other hand, circular economy is the outcome of over a decade’s efforts to practice sus-

∗ tainable development by the international communities, and is the Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 931 2100113/13519638185; detailed approach towards sustainable development (Moriguchi, fax: +86 24 83970371. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (B. Xue), [email protected] (X.-p. Chen), 2007). [email protected] (Y. Geng), [email protected] (X.-j. Guo), [email protected] The concept of CE was ﬁrst proposed by scholars in China (C.-p. Lu), [email protected] (Z.-l. Zhang), [email protected] in 1998 and formally accepted in 2002 by the central govern- (C.-y. Lu). ment as a new development strategy aimed at environmental 1 Tel.: +86 24 83970372/13889203591; fax: +86 24 83970371. 2 Tel.: +86 931 8912627/13893393395. protection, pollution prevention and sustainable development 3 Tel.: +86 931 2100113/13519638185. (Bilitewski, 2008). The terminology of circular economy may not

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Fig. 1. Map of investigated cities. be very familiar to Western readers, but in China it is under- cation of new market model is still in its early stage. Evidently, the stood to mean the realization of a closed loop of materials driving force behind this dramatic development can be attributed flow in the whole economic system. Different from the tra- to the changes in governance philosophies of the Chinese govern- ditional linear production model, a circular economy approach ment (Ren, 2007). However, even with these efforts by the Chinese encourages the organization of economic activities with feed- central government, the knowledge of existing CE best practices in back processes which mimic natural ecosystems through a process China is inadequate (Geng et al., 2009). of ‘natural resources → transformation’ into manufactured prod- Nowadays, the development of China’s CE is in an important ucts → byproducts of manufacturing used as resources for other transitional period from concept promotion and partial trial to full industries. We understand that the perfect implementation of CE in scale practice. During this period, to correctly identify awareness the real world may not be ideal, or even not necessary due to higher of CE development is an urgent need. The entities concerning CE costs and other factors. But at least in a country where both resource development consist of government, enterprises, and the public, scarcity and resource efficiency are challenging the national econ- and the awareness of all three entities for promoting CE is vital omy, such as China, the CE approach should be fully employed so as during the course of putting CE into practice (Xue, 2009). How- to reduce the total consumption of various resources and minimize ever, while few researches have paid attention to this awareness, the overall emissions (Geng et al., 2008). Since 2003, the Chinese a case study from Tianjin, China, based on a survey and analysis central government has inaugurated a development philosophy – of public awareness and performance, indicated that the respon- scientific development concepts – that is people-oriented through dents have limited awareness and a poor understanding about the a comprehensive, coordinated, and sustainable approach to rec- CE program (Liu et al., 2009). Other studies indicate that the perfor- oncile economic, social, and environmental development, and CE mance of enterprises with respect to awareness of CE is to integrate is considered as one of the key strategies in scientific development CE into the corporate development plans by optimizing materials concepts (Chen et al., 2005). Promoting a circular economy has been and energy, and minimizing waste emission (Fernandez, 2007), for identified as China’s basic national policy (Feng and Yan, 2007). On example, by constructing industrial ecosystems, Nanning Sugar Co. October 27, 2005, the National Development and Reform Commis- Ltd. in China, has achieved the successful transition from a tradi- sion of China (NDRC) announced the first list of entities to be the tional corporation to a circular corporation (Yang and Feng, 2008). pilot entities of demonstrating CE development, which included 56 Actually, the government officials’ awareness of CE development is enterprises, 13 industrial parks, 7 provinces, 5 cities, and 1 town. vital due to the Chinese-style political system. Generally, it is a 4- In 2007, a report at the 17th Party Congress announced that cir- level management system of province, city/county and township in cular economy should be pushed to develop on larger scale. Then local government of China (Chang, 2007), and the municipal level the NDRC announced the second pilot entities in December 2007, (city and county) serves as a connecting link between the province and the total number of pilot entities increased to 178. The first and township, as well as the front between enterprise and public. law on CE named Circular Economy Promotion Law of the People’s Under such a circumstance, the real enforcement efficiency relies Republic of China was launched on 29 August 2008, and has been on the awareness of local officials. In such regions where govern- put in force from 1 January 2009. The Circular Economy Promotion mental officials have better awareness and strong drivers to make Law clearly stipulates that the local government should prepare changes, the actual enforcement performance is much higher. That their circular economy master plan by considering the local reali- means whether China can entirely and truly realize CE development ties. This law also encourages the local government to adopt market basically relies on municipal government officials’ awareness (Xue, model for further promoting circular economy, but the real appli- 2009). Author's personal copy

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This survey provides initial insight into the awareness of munic- 2.2. Questions design ipal government ofﬁcials with respect to the promotion process of CE. The research results will provide both information for Chinese A questionnaire composed of questions with a choice of pre- CE developmental and implemental strategies, and inspiration for selected answers was used as the main tool of this research. The further normative research on CE’s social level. questionnaire consisted of 11 questions and was divided into 4 sections. The basal section consists of 3 questions, which are about the 2. Research design and data veriﬁcation demographic information for statistic reference:

2.1. Research area 0-1 Level of family income per month 0-2 Age of the respondents Cities in developed areas such as coastal eastern China have bet- 0-3 Educational level ter implemented CE while cities in northwest China generally lag behind but are important parts of China to implement CE (Geng The first section is to evaluate the official’s understanding et al., 2009). Hereby, six cities from northwest China were chosen toward CE development. The questions are as follows: as research samples, five of them in Gansu province, and one in Shaanxi province (Fig. 1). 1-1 Have you heard of the circular economy? Area 1. Hanzhong, which forms the center of the Han Principal- 1-2 Do you know the reason why we should develop CE? ity, is a municipality in the southwest corner of Shaanxi province, 1-3 By which ways do you usually get the information about CE in central China. The population in 2008 was approximately 3.80 (limited to three choices)? million, in a municipal territory of 27,246 km2. Hanzhong realized GDP of RMB 30.53 billion in 2008, of which primary, secondary and tertiary industries accounted for 24.9%, 38.6% and 36.5% of the GDP The second section is to find out the official’s attitude toward respectively (Hanzhong Municipality, 2009). promoting CE development. The questions are as follows: Area 2. Hezuo, located at the northeast edge of the Qinghai- Tibet Plateau, is the capital city of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous 2-1 In your opinion, what are the main barriers for CE development State in southern Gansu Province. Standing at the junction area (limited to three choices)? of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan provinces, it is the ligament con- 2-2 In your opinion, what could be the most effective methods to necting the central plains region and the Amdo Tibetan region. push CE development (limited to three choices)? The population in 2008 was approximately 84,300, in a municipal territory of 2670 km2. Tibetan people in Hezuo numbered 44,000, The third section is to find out the official’s performance toward making up 52.19% of the total population. Hezuo realized GDP of promoting CE development. The questions are as follows: RMB 993 million in 2008, of which primary, secondary and tertiary industries accounted for 9.66%, 25.49% and 64.85% of the GDP 3-1-1 Do you sort the garbage in your daily life? respectively (Statistic Bureau of Gannan Tibetan Autonomy State, 3-1-2 Into how many categories are you willing to sort the 2009). garbage? Area 3. Linxia, the capital city of Linxia Hui Autonomous 3-2 Do you agree with the policy of “charging a fee for a shopping State, is located in the valley of the Daxia River (a right trib- bag”? utary of the Yellow River). Linxia has a Muslim (Hui and 3-3 How much more money are you willing to pay for “green Dongxiang) majority. It has long been the center of the Mus- products” (i.e. “energy-saving products”) compared to ordinary lim community of Gansu province. The population in 2008 products? was approximately 25,000, in a territory of 88.6 km2. Hui and other minority people in Linxia numbered 12,800, making up 2.3. Questionnaire distribution and results 51.4% of the total population (Linxia Hui Autonomy State, 2009). In order to remove and eliminate the mistrust of officials, this Area 4. Tianshui city was once the first stop that the Silk Road questionnaire promised not to show the name, affiliation, and posi- made upon entering Gansu Province. The population of Tianshui tion of the respondents, but required to fill in the income level, was 3.57 million at the end of 2008, and 28.25% of them was urban age, and educational level. If the respondents do not feel comfort- residents. Tianshui realized GDP of RMB 22.66 billion in 2008, able about these last 3 questions, they also have the right to refuse of which primary, secondary and tertiary industries accounted answering these questions, and this action does not influence the for 18.7%, 36.8% and 44.5% of the GDP respectively (Tianshui validity of the remainder of the questionnaire. Municipality, 2009). The survey was carried out from September 2008 to July 2009 Area 5. Qingyang is habitually called ’Long Dong’ because of its while we were in charge of compiling the regional master plans of 2 locality in eastern Gansu Province. It covers an area of 27,119 km . circular economy development which were financed by the local Population of the city amounted to 2.52 million by the end of 2008. governments. Most of these questionnaires were completed when Qingyang realized GDP of RMB 24.86 billion in 2008, of which we held the stakeholders meetings and officials’ seminars, and primary, secondary and tertiary industries accounted for 15.63%, some of them were answered when we did the personal interviews. 60.55% and 23.82% of the GDP respectively (Qingyang Municipality, The bureaus involved in this questionnaire are local development 2009). and reform commission, science and technology bureau, environ- Area 6. Pingliang city is located in the hill and ravine region mental protection bureau, construction bureau, agriculture bureau, of the Loess Plateau having rivers, valleys, mountains, plains and economic commission, investment invitation bureau, bureau of 2 tablelands. Currently, it covers an area of 11,000 km , with a pop- land and resources, and other departments who are concerning ulation of 2.28 million by the end of 2008. Pingliang realized GDP with circular economy development in local. We mixed all the ques- of RMB 17.0 billion in 2008, of which primary, secondary and ter- tionnaires together before we started to analyze them, and did not tiary industries accounted for 22.94%, 42.94%, and 34.12% of the classify them according to how many surveys we got from each GDP respectively (Pingliang Municipality, 2009). area. Author's personal copy

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Table 1 Table 3 The demographic composition of the samples. Attitude to the driving force of developing CE.

Items N (number) Percent Ofﬁcials Publica

Age Energy-saving and environmental protection 71.83% (181) 65.30% Under 18 years old 0 0.00% Reducing cost 0.00% (0) 0.48% 18–30 14 5.56% Requirement of the national policy 13.10% (33) 24.82% 31–45 162 64.29% Public appealing 15.08% (38) 6.27% 46–60 76 30.16% Had no idea 0.00% (0) 3.13% 61 and above 0 0.00% Total 100% (252) 100%

Income per month a Source: Xue (2009). Less than RMB 1000 10 3.97% 1000–2000 90 35.71% 2000–4000 120 47.62% are working in such fields. We believe that our introduction did lit- 4000–5000 24 9.52% tle disturbance on their own responses on various questions, thus More than 5000 8 3.17% avoiding any bias. Educational level Primary school 0 0.00% 3.1.2. Attitude toward the driving force of developing CE Middle school 28 11.11% The outcome shows that 71.83% of the official respondents chose Graduate 218 86.51% Post-graduate 6 2.38% the answer “for energy-saving and environmental protection”, 13.10% Overseas returnees 0 0.00% of them chose “Requirement of the national policy”, and 15.08% of them thought that the reason for developing CE is the “public appeal”, while no one chose the answer “for reducing cost”or“had A total of 255 questionnaires were sent out and all of them were no idea about the reason”(Table 3). returned from the six areas, consisting of 252 completed question- Comparison with another study, it shows that there exists a naires and 3 uncompleted. The response rate was 100%, and the common but different situation between officials and the public. completed 252 questionnaires were used as analyzed samples in The common result is that both of them predominantly selected this paper. There was a bias in the sample toward 31–45 years “for energy-saving and environmental protection” as the main rea- old (64.29%), RMB 2000–4000 per month (47.62%), and graduate son for CE development (71.83% and 65.30%) as the main cause, level of education (86.51%). The details of the samples are listed in and both ignored the reason of “for reducing cost” (0.00% and Table 1. 0.48%). The different result is the subsidiary choice of the force driving CE development: the officials thought that both “Require- 3. Research findings ment of the national policy” and “public appeal” could be causes of developing CE, while the public only chose the “Requirement 3.1. Understanding of CE development of the national policy” as secondary cause. Probably, this difference may be caused by their different roles, and we thought that 3.1.1. Knowledge about CE concept the meaning behind this difference could be explained as that For question 1-1, the results showed that 78.6% of the respon- the public recognized government as the primary entity of envi- dents chose the answer “Yes, I knew what CE is.”, 3.2% of them had no ronment protection (China Environmental Awareness Program, idea of it, 16.7% of them just heard of it, and 1.60% of them said that 2008). they did not care (Table 2). Another research on public awareness which was carried out in October 2006 in Tianjin, showed that only 3.1.3. Channels of information acquisition 13.1% of the public respondents chose the answer “I understand cir- Based on the results shown in Table 4, we found that the main cular economy very well”, 58.2% had just heard of it, and 28.7% had channels for officials to pick up information are radio and TV, which never heard of the word “CE” (Liu et al., 2009). share 73.01% of all, followed by government documents and news- Comparing these two surveys, we can find that the officials’ papers and magazines, which share 67.46% and 65.08% respectively understanding level is higher than that of the public. However, (Table 4). The survey of the China Environmental Awareness Pro- the result that nearly 16.70% officials had only heard of CE is not gram carried out in 2007 showed that the first channel for the public a good sign for local government to push the CE development to pick up information about environmental protection knowledge to a higher level. Actually, in order to better complete this sur- and information is also radio and TV, followed by the secondary vey, we arranged several meetings and seminars so that those channel of newspapers and magazines, etc. (China Environmental interviewees can clearly understand our objectives. During such Awareness Program, 2008). meetings and seminars, we did deliver some related knowledge In January 1999, China formally launched an e-government on CE. However, even without these activities, those interviewees project called “Government Online Project” (GOP) (Shi, 2007), had already received a lot of training through both official chan- which aims to lead government agencies to learn the needs of the nels (such as governmental capacity building programs on CE) and citizens and the enterprises and finally to improve their manage- informal channels (such as public media propaganda) since they

Table 4 Channels to catch the CE information. Table 2 a Understanding of CE by different entities. Ofﬁcials Public Radio and TV 73.01% (184) 81.1% Ofﬁcials Publica Newspaper and Magazine, etc. 65.08% (164) 47.3% Understand well (Yes, I knew what CE is) 78.57% (198) 13.1% Government Document, etc. 67.46% (170) 13.5% Had no idea of it 3.17% (8) – Communicate with colleagues, etc. – 21.6% Just heard of it 16.67% (42) 28.7% Internet 52.38% (132) 9.3% Did not care 1.59% (4) 58.2% Public-service Announcement 7.94% (20) – Total 100% (252) 100% Others – 16%

a Source: Liu et al. (2009). a Source: China Environmental Awareness Program (2008). Author's personal copy

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Table 5 After the questionnaire survey, the investigators interviewed Barriers of CE development. some of the ofﬁcials who worked in the Development and Reform Percentage Commission of local government, which is generally in charge of

Lack of public awareness 64.29% (162) CE affairs in China. They said that the market should play a fun- Lack of finance support 63.49% (160) damental role in the period of promoting CE development, while Lack of legislation 29.37% (74) compulsory regulations should be enacted so that those enterprises Lack of technology 35.71% (90) can comply with. However, compared with the results shown in Lack of supervision 27.78% (70) Table 5, we can find something different: lack of public awareness is Lack of encouragement 24.60% (62) Lack of punishment 29.37% (74) considered as the main barrier (Table 5), but here, the method pro- Total respondents 252 posed for promoting public awareness is the least selected option, which only amounts to 15.87%, just a quarter of the option for compulsory standards. This apparent contradiction could be explained Table 6 Methods choosing to push CE development. as that currently the officials much more focus the CE development on the industrial aspect than that of public participation, and the Percentage promotion of public awareness such as waste sorting is not consid- Execute compulsory regulations 61.11% (154) ered as the priority issue. The outcome also may indicate that the Set government macro-control policy 23.02% (58) economy aspect is still taken as the core of the regional develop- Promote public awareness 15.87% (40) ment, which is because the current cadre accessing system takes Has no idea 0.00% (0) Total 100% (252) the GDP growth as main indicators.

3.3. Performance toward promoting CE development ment skills and services (Ma et al., 2005), the result indicated that the channel for picking up information through the internet was 3.3.1. Attitude and performance toward garbage sorting selected by 52.38%, while the CEAP survey of the public showed that As one of the key concepts in CE development, waste sorting has the choice of the internet was selected by only 9.3% in 2007 (China been talked about and practiced in some countries for many years Environmental Awareness Program, 2008). These outcomes could (Giusti, 2009). Therefore, 1 question in the survey was designed to indicate that the GOP has improved the government officials’ skill get to know officials’ opinions toward garbage sorting; and another in using internet because the officials have been freely provided was to uncover how many categories could be sorted in daily life. with computers and internet connections. In all, 26.98% of respondents always sorted the garbage in daily life, 64.29% sorted the garbage sometimes, and 8.73% never did 3.2. Attitude toward promoting CE development that. The results revealed a positive attitude toward the sorting of garbage by the officials’ class. Similar surveys had been carried 3.2.1. Opinions on the barriers to CE development out in other Chinese cities. In Tianjin, 52.3% of the people consid- Practical implementation of a circular economy has many ered that garbage collection was necessary, and 31.7% pointed out aspects. Vertically it involves enterprises, industrial parks, regions that classification was inconvenient (Liu et al., 2009); the figure (cities, cross-cities, provinces, etc.); and horizontally it involves in Shanghai was 69.9%, and in Ningbo it was 60% (Huang et al., industries, urban infrastructures, the cultural environment, and 2006). However, 72.2% of Shanghai residents thought that sorting the social consumption system (Bilitewski, 2008). However, at the was inconvenient (Ji and Wang, 2002). implementation stage of regional CE development, barriers such as To identify the willingness for garbage sorting categories is a lack of public awareness, legislation, technology, supervision are pre-condition issue to compile the CE development plan. In Ger- observed (Liu et al., 2009; Xue, 2008). Thus, it is necessary to find many, the garbage is divided into 5 categories as organic waste, out officials’ opinions on the barriers to CE development, and it shall light packages, glass, problem material collection, and other waste. make sense of transferring knowledge and experience in order to And in Japan, the garbage is first classified as 4 main types: com- implement the CE successfully for officials. bustible materials, noncombustible materials, general waste, and The finding shows that the main barriers on CE development big-style waste. Typically, in most Chinese cities, the garbage is include “lack of public awareness (64.29%)”, “lack of financial sup- requested to be divided into 2 categories which are recyclable and port (63.49%)”, followed by “lack of technology (35.71%)”, and, “lack non-recyclable. The survey shows that most of the officials prefer of legislation”, “lack of supervision”, “lack of encouragement”, and to separate the garbage in 2 categories. About 27.64% of the respon- “lack of punishment” all came to less than 30%, which indicated that dents are willing to sort the garbage in 3 categories, and nearly no currently the policy-making link to these aspects is not urgent. This one wants to sort the garbage in more categories (Table 7). could be understood as that for China CE development, promotion of public awareness and financing could be the priority issues to be considered. 3.3.2. Attitude towards the policy of “charging a fee for plastic shopping bags” 3.2.2. Effective methods chosen to push CE development On December 31, 2007, the Chinese central government issued CE not only targets waste disposal, but also involves transforma- an announcement to restrict the production and utilization of tion of industrial organization and allocation, urban infrastructure, plastic shopping bags, and this announcement has been put into environmental protection, technological paradigms, social welfare practice since June 1, 2008. The policy of charging a fee for plas- distribution, etc. Therefore promoting CE development should take tic shopping bags was regarded as a meaningful method to protect a system innovation approach as the first step, and the government the environment and promote public awareness by introducing a plays a significant-leading role in this innovation. market-based instrument. Data of the survey displayed that 70.63% Our research findings show that the first method that should respondents support this policy, and 16.67% are opposed to the be taken is to execute compulsory regulations, which was shared policy, while 11.11% do not care about it, and 1.59% have no idea by about 61.11% of all, to set government macro-control policy, about this policy. The results show that the gap between policy- which was shared by 23.02%, followed by the promotion of public making and practical action is still a serious problem in China’s CE awareness which was shared by 15.87% of all the officials (Table 6). development, even among the officials’ class. Author's personal copy

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Table 7 novel concept that provides strategies to achieve greater efficiency Attitude and performance toward garbage sorting. through economy of system integration should be adopted as a Question 3-1-1 national development strategy. Such an approach can optimize Do you sort the garbage on your daily life? the use of energy, water and natural resources through the real- Constantly 26.98% (68) ization of a closed loop of material flow in the whole economic Sometimes 64.29% (162) Never 8.73% (22) system. However, due to a lack of understanding current barriers on Total 100% (252) implementing CE, it is necessary to conduct a questionnaire based survey. Question 3-1-2 This paper is such an effort. Our research findings indicated How many categories are you willing to sort the garbage that both the establishment and implementation of CE schemes Unwilling to sort 14.63% (36) 2 categories 56.91% (140) and campaigns to make government officials more aware of their 3 categories 27.64% (68) responsibilities, and for the future study of public policy underlying 4 categories 0.81% (2) the development of CE at regional levels. More than 5 categories 0.00% (0) While most of officials working at municipal and county lev- Missing (no answer) 2.38% (6) Total 100% (252) els have higher awareness and understanding on CE concept and its significance, nearly 16.70% of the interviewed officials had just heard of CE, indicating that there is still a need for government Table 8 officials to further improve their CE awareness. Comparing with the Attitude towards the green purchase. general public, government officials can receive their CE knowledge Question 3-3 through awareness raising activities such as newsletters and work- How much more money are you shops, as well as TV and other media promotions, thus obtaining willing to pay on the “green products” higher CE awareness. (i.e. “energy-saving products”) compared to the ordinary products? The main barriers on CE development are weakness of public Unwilling to pay more 49.12% (112) awareness and lack of financial support, which shows that China’s About 5% 32.46% (74) CE development has been on a low level where the promotion of About 10% 15.79% (36) public awareness and financing could be the priority issues to be About 15% 2.63% (6) considered. But in comparison, in the officials’ opinion, the prior It does not matter 9.52% (24) Total 100% (252) method on pushing CE development is to execute compulsory regulations, which is shared by about 61.11% of all respondents; and this contradiction suggests that the officials currently much more focus 3.3.3. Attitude towards purchasing green products on the CE development of industry than on public participation. Generally, green products include the acquisition of recycled The outcome shows that the officials have higher awareness of content products, environmentally preferable products and ser- garbage sorting, but most of the officials prefer to separate the vices, bio-based products, energy and water-efficient products, garbage into 2 categories. The gap between policy-making and alternate fuel vehicles, products using renewable energy, and alter- practical action is still a serious problem in China’s CE development, natives to hazardous or toxic chemicals. Thus, generally, purchasing even for the officials’ class. Green purchasing and green consump- green products means paying more money due to the strict require- tion in China still have a long way to go and more depends on the ments of their production. However, a survey carried out in Ningbo price, because nearly half of the respondents are not willing to pay in 2003 illustrated that a higher percentage of the respondents gave more money for green products: about 32.46% of respondents are priority to the environmental elements related to saving energy and willing to pay 5% more money, but instead, the prices of green prod- therefore gained some economic benefits, such as reducing elec- ucts are usually about 15–30% higher than those of the ordinary tricity consumption (Huang et al., 2006). Another survey carried products. out in Tianjin in 2007 showed that more people chose to buy goods which are harmless to their health, like green foods, while fewer Acknowledgements people chose products that are good for the local or global environment, and more than half of the respondents would like to buy This research was supported by the National Natural Sci- energy or water-saving products (Liu et al., 2009). However, the ence Foundation (Project No.: 40871061), Initial Fund for Doctors question is how much more money the respondent is willing to pay of Institute of Applied Ecology at Chinese Academy of Sciences for the “green products” or “energy-saving products” compared to (Y0SBS161S3), 100 Talents Program of the Chinese Academy of the ordinary products? Sciences (08YBR111SS), Shenyang Bureau of Science and Technol- Question 3-3 was used to analyze the officials’ willingness to ogy (1091147-9-00), and Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning purchase green products. The results (Table 8) showed that nearly province (20092078). Projects of the circular economy develop- half of the respondents are not willing to pay more money for green ment plan for Hanzhong, Hezuo, Pingliang, Tianshui, Qingyang, and products: about 32.46% of the respondents are willing to pay 5% Linxia. more money, and 15.79% are willing to pay 10% more money, but We appreciate the kind help from Miss. Hu Xiaofen, Miss. Cheng only 2.63% chose the option of 15%. And about 9.52% of the respon- Shuhong, Miss. Li Jielan, Miss. Jiao Wenting, Miss. Zhang Wei-wei, dents do not care about the price of green products. But generally, Mr. Yang Mian, Mr. Wang Yu, Mr. Zhao Yongbo, Mr. Wu Shi-feng, the price of green products is about 15–30% higher than that of the Mr. Zhou Bin, Mr. Xu Baojin, and Mr. Zhao Bo. Thanks for their hard ordinary products. The results show that the green purchasing in work and contributions to the investigating process. Sincerely, we China still has a long way to go and is quite dependent on the price. are very glad to appreciate Mrs. Helen Raffel, thanks for her pre- reading and correcting the grammar. 4. Conclusions References With rapid industrialization in China, both resource scarcity and resources efficiency have challenged the country’s sustain- Andersen MS. An introductory note on the environmental economics of the circular able development. Under such circumstance, circular economy, a economy. Sustainability Science 2007;2(1):133–40. Author's personal copy

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