This post was co-written with Hua Wang, an intern with WRI.

Hu Tao是WRI的高级合伙人机构和治理必威官网亚洲体育程序。在加入WRI之前，他是中国环境保护部（MEP）的环境与经济政策研究中心（PRCEE）的高级环境经济学家。

很少有国家不受中国海外投资的影响。该国的外国外国直接投资（OFDI）长大的从2002年的290亿美元到2011年超过4240亿美元。投资可以为接受国带来经济机会，他们也有可能产生负面的经济，社会和环境影响，并与当地社区施加紧张关系。

To address these risks, China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and环境部（MEP） - 几个智囊团的支持 -环境保护与合作指南。These Guidelines are the first-ever to establish criteria for Chinese companies’ behaviors when doing business overseas—including their environmental impact. But what exactly do the Guidelines cover, and how effective will they be? Here, we’ll answer these questions and more.

How Big of a Deal Are China’s New Guidelines on Environmental Protection and Cooperation?

该准则为中国公司设定了基本原则，以将环境保护融入其公司治理策略，并解决东道国政府和社区的关注。必威官网亚洲体育这是中国政府第一次explicit, progressive, and across-the-board environmental and social rules for Chinese overseas investments。以前的规则是部分，隐性和一般的。它也是世界上为了管理海外投资环境绩效的极少数国家政策之一。在这方面，我们欢迎中国政府的主动性将其公司带入对环境和社会负责的治理。必威官网亚洲体育

Do the Guidelines Work?

These Guidelines seem to mainly target the big State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), who have done much better in addressing social/environmental impacts than small and medium-sized private companies—not only in their overseas business, but within China.社会/环境足迹最差的公司是在非洲或东盟国家投资的中小型私人公司。这些公司在国内也往往也有差的声誉。在中国，大型公司倾向于比中小型企业更多地关注其形象，这主要是因为它们与政府的紧密联系。MOFCOM和MEP用新的指南将国有企业瞄准，因为对大公司有效的道德义务因素不一定适用于小型公司。

指南如何进一步？

The current guidelines are voluntary, rather than required. This is just a soft, moral regulation—if companies don’t do anything with them, nothing will happen to them. When my colleagues and I were working on the Guidelines, we tried hard to make them mandatory. We wanted MEP to have the authority to manage Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and environmental standards for companies doing business overseas. After negotiating with MOFCOM, we had to make some compromises, so we started with voluntary guidelines first. In the future, China may have mandatory guidelines.

如果该准则不能有效地改善公司的社会/环境影响，MEP和MOFCOM可能会考虑具有约束力措施，例如强制性的指南。在中国，《环境影响评估》（EIA）法案涵盖了中国边界内的公司。一种可能性是将《 EIA法》扩展到中国边界之外，以覆盖在海外开展业务的公司。

During the last National People’s Congress in March, under our technical support, a bill was submitted by one of the delegates of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) that would authorize the National People’s Congress (NPC) to extend MEP’s oversight to Chinese companies overseas. The draft bill is in process, and relevant ministries from MEP and MOFCOM are being asked for feedback. While we want mandatory guidelines in the future, we currently don’t have a legal basis to do this. We are now hoping NPC can authorize ministries to extend the EIA Act to Chinese companies overseas.

中国银行是否也有类似的指南来为公司的海外投资提供财政支持？

指南的最后一篇文章是指多边金融机构，这意味着当公司向商业银行借钱时，也将鼓励这些银行采用该准则。The Green Credit Directive by the China Banking Regulatory Commission(CBRC) also has a special article that mentions that banks providing money to companies overseas should have environmental guidelines, but there is no specific language on what these guidelines should look like. Future guidelines on green credit for business operations overseas should be similar to any Guidelines from MEP/MOFCOM.