Belt and Road Decision-Making in China and Recipient Countries: How and To What Extent Does Sustainability Matter?

Thomas Hale, Senior Researcher at GEG and Associate Professor of Global Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, co-authored one of the most comprehensive reports on China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Aligning the BRI with national and global sustainable development targets is necessary to meet national and global sustainability goals. A growing number of voluntary standards and networks seek to 'green' the BRI, but it is not yet clear how these will influence the decisions and incentives of key actors in China and recipient countries. Based on in-depth interviews with regulatory agencies, policy banks, NGOs and state-owned enterprises in China, 'Belt and Road Decision-Making in China and Recipient Countries: How and To What Extent Does Sustainability Matter?' explores the processes through which BRI projects originate, develop and are implemented at an operational level, and provides recommendations to reshape the incentives BRI decision-makers face to consider sustainability.

The report is published with the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP) and ClimateWorks Foundation. Co-authors are Chuyu Liu (postdoctoral fellow ISEP) and Johannes Urpelainen (Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and founding director of ISEP).