China's environment watchdog has recently named six more corporations as environmentally-friendly state-level companies, including Shanghai General Motors.

 

Dow Chemical (Zhangjiagang) Co, Changzhou Toshiba Transformer Co, Golden Dragon Refractory Co, Huanxiling Oil Production Plant under PetroChina and Yizheng Shuanghuan Piston Ring Co, have also been listed as environmentally-friendly companies, the State Environmental Protection Administration said on its website Tuesday.

 

So far, the SEPA has honored 38 companies with this title.

 

A SEPA official of the administration said the six companies smoothly adopted new industrialization methods and followed environment protection rules.  

 

They play a leading role in controlling energy-consumption in their sectors in China, the official added.

 

These companies keep cutting pollutant discharges ahead of the country's standard. Their equipment and methods are fully primed to prevent emergency spills and accidents.

 

Last month, a government blacklist revealed 33 multinationals in China, including four of the world's top 500 companies, as having broken the country's water pollution laws in the past three years.

 

The list includes Nestle Sources Shanghai Ltd, whose parent is Switzerland's Nestle AG, the world's biggest food and beverage company. The drinking water company started assembly in Shanghai last May, without having had its environmental protection facilities officially cleared by authorities.

 

Pepsico, ranking 104 on this year's Forbes 2000 list, was accused of discharging wastewater containing illegal levels of pollutants at a plant in Changchun, in Jilin Province, according to the list. Panasonic and 3M are the other two top-500 companies blacklisted.

 

(Shanghai Daily November 8, 2006)