Pollution and Business: Case Studies From Modern Chinese Business History

Abstract

<p>This chapter looks at the connection between business history and climate change, with a particular focus on pollution and the case of China. It aims to encourage business historians of China to probe the environmental side of Chinese business history, including the connection between business and pollution. This chapter starts with a discussion of previous historical scholarship on pollution in business history. It then turns to several examples of works by China historians not working in the field of Chinese business history that nevertheless touch upon the relationship between business and the environment and can be useful to historians of Chinese business in terms of considering future avenues for research that take into account the environment. The chapter then moves to early twentieth-century Shanghai. It first discusses how the Shanghai Municipal Council in the International Settlement reacted to the problem of air pollution. Thereafter, the chapter zooms in on two businesses: the Shanghai Power Company and the China General Omnibus Company, both of which were sources of air pollution in early twentieth-century Shanghai.<br></p>