WWF to promote innovation in water management at Changzhou Textile and Dyeing Industrial Park

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) the world’s most experience non profit NGO focused on environmental protection have inked a joint statement with Changzhou National Hi-Tech District’s Textile and Dyeing Industrial Park to promote the Innovation in water management demonstration project in the industrial park.

WWF will team up with Changzhou National Hi-Tech District’s Textile and Dyeing Industrial Park to adopt and implement a series of innovative approaches to water management, including how to better manage the water supply and water consumption, conservation and drainage, jointly pioneering water management efforts at all levels, including at selected small, medium and large-scale businesses, throughout the industrial park as well as across the entire basin.

Changzhou National Hi-Tech District’s Textile and Dyeing Industrial Park is currently home to more than 300 manufacturers, with total annual output value exceeding RMB 10 billion (approx US$1.61 billion).

With the issuance of China’s strictest water resource management policies and the Action Plan on Water Pollution Prevention and Treatment, the joint statement will encourage parties to participate in the establishment of platforms, engaging companies in the campaign to improve water management and the park to implement a more scientific approach to water management.

It will increase the utilization efficiency of water resources, reducing water pollution and intelligently arranging industry clusters in a move to establish a greener and healthier ecology across the Taihu basin and transform the park into a model for “green” manufacturing.

The project, driven and implemented by the Jiangsu Development and Reform Commission and WWF, is designed to comprehensively improve governance of the Taihu basin. It aims to boost social and economic sustainable development and, over the course of the next two to three years, gradually turn the basin into an model of proper ecological management and governance by working with major industries and industry parks and by adopting innovative management and governance models..

The effort will include: choosing pilot companies who will improve their skills at water management; organizing an expert consulting team who will advise on innovative approaches to water management, participation in which will include the China National Textile And Apparel Council (CNTAC), the Jiangsu Development and Reform Commission and the Taihu Fishery Management Commission of Jiangsu Province; establishing platforms for dialogues between multiple parties to establish additional demonstration pilots; and evaluating the industrial park’s influence on the surrounding basin, gradually transforming it into a model for innovation in water management and the model for proper ecological governance across the Taihu basin.

The WWF’s first demonstration project gets underway in Changzhou National Hi-Tech District’s Xixiashu Town.