Asian entrepreneurs are searching for smog’s silver lining. “The Greening of Asia” by Mark Clifford sets out to show that local businesses can – and do – profit from efforts to avert an environmental emergency. But his eulogy to green business inadvertently highlights new technologies’ unhealthy dependence on subsidies and debt. It’s a flaw that Asia’s eco-capitalists must confront.
It’s true that environmental emergencies can stimulate entrepreneurs. The author, a former journalist and director of the Asia Business Council, is at his most persuasive when he shows how companies react to pollution and scarcity by making their operations both greener and leaner. One chief executive sums up this commonsense strategy succinctly: “Anything you waste you are paying for.” Such pragmatism can pay off. In Hong Kong, an index of listed companies with a strong record of sustainability is up 20 percent so far this year, trumping the local benchmark. Clifford’s suggestion that Asia could become a crucible for green business sounds credible.
The problem is that his most exciting case studies undermine the book’s hypothesis. The author highlights young technologies like renewable energy and green vehicles that have yet to demonstrate they can be commercially viable. Take the book’s opening chapter, which looks at the solar industry. First up is Suntech, which was briefly the world’s largest solar panel producer but collapsed into bankruptcy in 2013. Clifford goes on to feature Hanergy, which is currently under investigation by Hong Kong regulators for market manipulation; LDK Solar, which narrowly avoided liquidation last year; ReneSola, which has been loss-making since 2011; and Yingli Green Energy, a company which recently admitted there was “substantial doubt” about its future as a going concern.
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