This has been a tab open in my browser for days and I hadn’t looked at it yet, but today I’m going to contact the Green Dragon Media Project because I like their work. It’s focused on the building industry, but the attitude of the project extends beyond the construction industry.  On the site: “[China's green building movement, valued at] 4 million square meters of green building construction (not including sustainable development), is a story worth telling… and for reference, the U.S. now has 12.5 million square meters after 30 years of a green building movement.”

Charles McElwee, an Environmental lawyer in Shanghai, talks about changing attitudes within the Central Government in China. McElwee, like a few others that we’ve connected with, chooses to focus on the “opportunities that have been created by China’s environmental situation” rather than the challenges. There are two sides to every problem. All of McElwee’s interviews are interesting.

David Zhou, an architect in Beijing, mentions that driving the environmental movement in China is environmental education–which is what we saw as well, and will be highlighted in our film–and that people in China are acting now with a consideration of how their kids are going to live in the future.

Intellectual property is an issue in China that has hindered innovation, and several Green Dragon interviewees mention this. The issue is that if an innovation saves energy and decreases pollution, many feel that it should be a public good, and that there should be a public fund provided by governments to provide an incentive to innovate in these ways. I think that in China the tendency to consider public goods is still much stronger than it is in the West.