OPINION: Pearl River Delta: Sustainability
The focus of businesses in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) during the past 20 years of a more “open economy” has always been about the possibilities for growth and facing up to challenges that may stand in the way of building the means for development. But for all the frenzied machinations, it was a health issue that brought the breakneck pace of the region’s growth to a shuddering halt.

Chandran Nair

Sars did in 2003 what logistical bottlenecks, power failures, trade barriers and the possibility of labour shortages could never do. It showed the PRD for what it really is – not just a factory for the world, but an environmental and social system of great complexity.

The underlying factors that created the severe acute respiratory syndrome panic are so important as to go to the very heart of the paradox that is the PRD, yet they were – and still are to a great extent – off the radar of business leaders and planners who are engaged in the delta.

Sars, an atypical pneumonia, was found to be caused by a new kind of virus previously unseen in people. Researchers and influenza experts have long feared that tropical southern China is a primary source of new strains of viruses, because of the close conditions and the lack of hygiene in which people and domestic animals live.

These conditions are only one source of concern. More potent now is how the PRD and Hong Kong relate to the rest of the world, as the Sars outbreak dramatically illustrated. The region’s unquestioned credentials as a manufacturing and product transshipment hub and business melting pot of the world became the factor that gave Sars wings.

This reflects the one-dimensional approach to the PRD that has been exercised so far by many who espouse the conventional wisdom that the only path to prosperity is economic growth. There appears to have been little appreciation of the long-term needs of 40 million people beyond this.

For their part, Hong Kong businesses, which exercise strong influence in the PRD, must show leadership and start seeing beyond cheap labour and short-term gain. They must start to ask serious questions about the intrinsic quality of life for the residents of the PRD, the social impact, and the long-term environmental concerns without just assuming that health, wealth and wisdom will “trickle down” to all and sundry.

What appears to be far, far down the list of priorities for companies and entrepreneurs is thought for developing other aspects of the “value chain” – such as self-sufficiency for the region, the quality of life of its people beyond measures of economic prosperity, the integrity and quality of natural systems – and concern about pollution, health threats and the erosion of social safety nets. Forty million people need a strong, self-contained eco-system to survive. They need to have a reliable supply of food and water. They need clear air and clean, sustainable energy sources.

This is not an environmental message, as it is often dismissed as or misunderstood to be. It is unfortunate that the environment’s champions are responsible for this misconception, having painted the environment as a zero-sum game. In so doing, they have frightened off planners and business leaders. There is a strong need for a comprehensive, more enlightened approach to the PRD. It goes beyond cross-border and inter-governmental committees.

For now, though, the incentives to do that are weak, and current practices as well as regulations allow us to shift externalities either onto others or to the future. Let us hope that we do not need stronger signals from stressed systems to become smarter in the way we plan for true prosperity.

Chandran Nair is founder and chief executive of the Global Institute For Tomorrow, a pan-Asian, Hong Kong-based think tank.
www.globalinstitutefortomorrow.org/