Greening the Global Value Chain event

Greening the global value chain is an important step for achieving the United Nation’s goals of sustainable development.

The international fragmentation of the production process across different countries and different firms highlights the need to rethink how environmental policies are implemented across the world. The effectiveness of these policies in achieving sustainability and promoting green growth increasingly require closer synergies between public policy and business strategies of multinational companies.

Despite the significant role of global value chains in industrial production across the globe, the topic of how to make the value chain more environmentally friendly remains under-researched.

In particular, relatively little is known on how businesses that are looking to improve their level of responsibility are able to shape their global value chain in order to achieve CRS and sustainability objectives and to enable firms to diffuse good environmental management practices and encourage environmentally friendly innovation to be adopted throughout the value of chain of the business.

A green and responsible value chain will hence allow business to reduce the negative impact of their production on the environment and mitigate the negative implications on the health and well being of populations in the off shored locations to avoid the accusation that multinationals are exploiting the health and natural environment of developing countries.

Agenda

9.30 -10.15 Innovation in the Global Photovoltaic Value Chain
Prof. Matthieu Glachant Mines Paristech

10.15 - 11.00 Green Product Innovation in Industrial Networks
Dr. Eugenie Dugoua, London School of Economics

11.30 - 12.15 Supply Chain Integration Capabilities, Green Design Strategy and Performance: A Comparative Study in the Auto-industry
Dr. Yang Liu, University of Birmingham

12.15 – 13.00 Environmental Upgrading in Global Value Chains
Dr. Valentina De Marchi, University of Padova

13.45 - 14.30 Green Patents, Environmental Policies and Capabilities
Dr. Effie Kesidou, Leeds University Business School

14.30 - 15.15 Importing, Outsourcing and Pollution Offshoring
Prof. Matthew Cole, University of Birmingham

15.45 – 16.30 The Signalling Effect of a Micro-level Environmental Regulation on Corporate Environmental Performance: Evidence from Chinese Companies
Dr. Jing Zhang, University of Nottingham

16.30 - 16.50 On the Relationship between R&D and Eco-Innovation: An Analysis of French Manufacturing Firms
Zuokuan Zhou, University of Birmingham

16.50 - 17.10 Transition Towards a Green Economy: Eco-innovation and Green Employment 
Wenjing Kuai, University of Birmingham

17.10 - 17.15 closing remarks

The organisers are grateful to the Birmingham Business School for the financial support for this workshop.