A Decade at the Heart of Greening ChinA
This is Our Story
Scroll down to continue v
Lessons Learned
In 2010, we embarked on our next project - using the materials from pavilions in the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai to build a new boarding school for secondary school students. Even though we successfully built the school, we failed to create systemic change and make reusing materials a standard practice in China.
Defining Success
In contrast, with our Energy Efficient Lighting Initiative, because the price of carbon emissions trading certificates fell dramatically, we failed to achieve our original target of distributing 10 million compact fluorescent light bulbs to replace incandescent light bulbs. However, we inspired systemic change. Our massive media campaign instigated a campaign in Shanghai and Beijing where over 2 million fluorescent light bulbs in each city were distributed. Despite our initial failure, we viewed this project as a success because we helped move the needle in terms of usage of compact fluorescent light bulbs in China. As a result, China is now a leader in LED innovation.
Smart Grid
Our first major accomplishment was to accelerate the adoption of Smart Grid in China. By convening key players in China along with top international experts, JUCCCE played a crucial part in China’s decision to dedicate US$ 7.2 billion to deploying Smart Grid by 2020. As the skeleton of all energy use, Smart Grid was a game-changer in the energy landscape. It upgraded China’s electrical grid to waste less energy and allowed for more innovative energy like solar and wind energy to be delivered to customers.
Our Beginnings
At the first public dialogue on clean energy between US and Chinese government officials in 2007, it became clear that there needed to be more programmatic collaboration between China and the U.S.
Rapid urbanization had put China on pace to become the largest user of energy in the world, but it had neither the resources nor the connections with the US to start going green.
So, JUCCCE was founded by Peggy Liu along with Steve Papermaster (US PCAST) and Jiang Zhaozu (NDRC IAC) to serve as the bridge between the two countries.
From these projects, we learned that instead of working with a narrow scope, we should instead work with a wide scope and focus on inspiring systemic, reverberating change, which is critical to our Government Training program
Government Training
Since 2009, we have also developed various government training programs where we teach topics ranging from eco-livable cities and eco-heritage tourism to climate resilient city design and low carbon lifestyles. Through these programs, we have trained over 900 Chinese mayors, central government officials, and state-owned enterprise executives, who lead a combined population of over 500 million people and run some of the largest companies in the world.
Food Heroes
To further develop the sustainable lifestyle imagined in the China Dream, we created Food Heroes in 2013. Just as JUCCCE bridges cultures and brings people together to combat environmental issues, food connects people in the same way. We believe that the way we eat has the potential to have a transformative impact on the environment. Our Food Heroes program educates people about sustainable nutrition and mobilizes them as the key players in environmentalism. When we view sustainability through the lens of food, everyone can be an environmentalist.
While we had great successes in transforming China’s infrastructure, we had yet to inspire people to take initiative and create a greener China themselves. The use of jargon-centered language in discussions about sustainability did not resonate with the general public. This, in turn, did not affect their attitude towards the environment.
China Dream
The China Dream was born out of this realization. In our three- year project, we created a framework to redefine the language of sustainability as a language of prosperity and national identity. We held workshops throughout China and the world to define the China Dream and empower leaders who helped shape and spread the dream. By bringing together a coalition of marketers, artists, and role models, we championed a reimagined and prosperous yet sustainable lifestyle throughout China as a vision for its future.
