The Research On Implementing Environment And Functioning Mechanisms Of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) In Chinese Automobile Industry

With rapid growth of amounts of car production and conservation in recent years, the collection and management of discarded cars will become one of the most serious problems constraining sustainable economic development in China in the next five or ten years. Experiences of decades of environmental management in developed countries prove that extended producer responsibility(EPR) is an effective policy principle to lessen the environmental pressure caused by used products at post-consumption stage, and further to improve environmental performances during the whole life-cycle of products and products systems from the source.Implementations of EPR are quite distinctive form each other in terms of different countries or different industries, which means practical experiences in developed countries can not be used to instruct Chinese environmental management practices directly. By taking automobile industry as a case, key components for EPR system development are identified in this research. Crucial influencing factors for implementing EPR in automobile industry and the consequent functioning mechanisms are studied respectively. Advices are given hoping that references could be valuable for facilitating EPR in Chinese.Firstly, based on the definition study and theoretical analysis, case studies are made on EPR policies in car industry and the management systems of discarded cars in four developed countries including Germany, Sweden, Japan and America. All the stakeholders for constructing and implementing EPR and the mutual relationships are analyzed accordingly, contributing to identifying key stakeholders for EPR implementiion in automobile industry. As a conclusion of this part, a conceptual model of EPR system in automobile industry is set up which is "led by government, focused on automobile manufacturers, supported by qualified recycling industries, and taken owners of discarded vehicles as important participants"Secondly, focusing on automobile manufacturers, implementing environment and crucial influencing factors are studied. Different from all the previous work, this research adopts measures of combining questionnaire investigation and statistical analysis to study key promoting and hindering factors influencing Chinese automobile manufacturers during their participation in discarded cars managing. In order to set up analytical framework of EPR implementing environment, both static and dynamic game model with tow players are formulated and relationships between government and core manufacturers during the game of constructing EPR are further analyzed. Complemented by relevant literature review, questionnaire for empirical studies is developed and data from in-field investigations and questionnaire surveys are processed and analyzed statistically by using the software of SPSS. Findings from this part are as follows:Economic and technological factors are the most important ones in influencing manufacturers during participating discarded vehicles collecting and recycling;Adoption of policy and regulatory measures would be out of effectiveness at all or encounter high transaction costs if constrained by economic and technological factor;Factors of international trade are "bi-side-effect". The real function will depend on the development strategy of manufacturers, the extent to which manufacturers are influenced by the world market, and developing tendency and process of the integration of national and international markets;Hindering function of environmental awareness is not proved in this study. On the contrary, their promoting influence has been testified to be apparent.Lastly, footing on the vehicle product life-cycle management, the impact of implementing EPR, and theoretical corresponding manners by and relationships among such three major levels in EPR system, which are vehicle manufacturers, system management level, and management of discarded automobiles are analyzed Model of EPR functioning mechanisms is set up theoretically, according to which, empirical studies are made with conclusions as the following:The strategy of eco-design by manufacturers is positively correlated with the improvement of system managing practice and enhancement of discarded vehicles managing performance, which is also the most difficult one to be carried out.Strategies of "strengthening environmentally friendly cooperation with upstream and downstream companies on the product chain" and "to promoting the integration of product system" are comparatively easier to be carried out, and also the first priority for both manufacturers and government.To improve the collecting level and end-of-pipe disposal performance are most important in order improve performances of discarded vehicle management in China.