The project aims at evaluating the experience with voluntary or negotiated agreements between industry and public authorities within the European Union and adopting it to the Chinese context. The project is focussing on the City of Nanjing where heavy industry is responsible for 60 % of the regional pollution. It is intended to render Nanjing City a National Environmental Model City in China. To achieve this goal, a group of the 29 most polluting companies in Nanjing are involved in the project. Furthermore, the project will identify both the positive and negative factors of the adoption of the voluntary environmental management approaches in China. Based on the overall goals, the study incorporates three basic elements:

• To review different European voluntary environmental management approaches and provide a systematic analysis on advantages and disadvantages of command-and-control instruments in China;
• To assess the feasibility of voluntary approached for environmental management under Chinese framework-conditions and survey the expectations of companies and the willingness to participate; and
• To develop a suitable voluntary environmental management model for China.

Within these steps, several actions are integrated: Besides three workshops, a course and study tour in Europe will be organised for the Chinese public environmental authorities and companies' environmental managers.
The AsiaProEco-programme of the European Union is designed to strengthen the environmental dialogue between Europe and Asia. The Wuppertal Institute is responsible for central tasks in the project: Firstly, the review of the voluntary approaches in the European Union. The analysis will focus on reasons for adoption, critical success factors, effectiveness and potential for application in the Chinese context. In the second part of the project political and practical advice for developing first models of voluntary agreements will be provided.