With a view to raising project awareness among regional policy-makers and increasing the outreach of training and certification activities to 100 SMEs of the electrical and electronics industry in the Bohai Basin, the 1st Regional Launch Event was held in the city of Jinan, the capital Shandong Province.

With the support from the Shandong Economic & Information Technology Committee under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the 1-day event organized for local policy makers and companies in the Bohai Basin Area was successfully conducted at the Sheraton Jinan Hotel on the 13th of August 2010. In order to continue raising interest in the upcoming training programs for 500 SMEs, a selection of local enterprises in the electrical and electronic industry were invited to attend the event. More than 100 participants turned up, including representatives from the Chinese Institute of Electronics (CIE), China National Institute of Standardization (CNIS) and Shandong Economic & Information Technology Committee as well as managers and engineers from the region small and medium companies and larger companies headquartered in the province such as Hisense.

The agenda of the Regional Launch Event consisted of detailed presentations by partners and experts on the project objectives and benefits for SMEs in improving their eco-efficiency, OHS and CSR performance through a series of possible measures as detailed in the project’s Standards Guidelines and Conformity Model concept and interactive discussion. Opening the event, Secretary General Wang Guojing from the Shandong Economic & Information Technology Committee welcomed representatives from the local enterprises, AHKB as well as the project partners. Project Team Leader Mr. Igor Darbo gave a comprehensive introduction of the project latest status including the development of an online e-learning platform for SMEs and answered questions raised by companies’ representatives regarding the expected commitments and benefits entailed by their participation in the training and assessment programme. Interested companies were indicated how to register for joining in the project activities. Mr. Huang Jin from CNIS introduced the Standards Guidelines developed by the project consortium. Representing CIE, Mr. He Chuangxin then gave a detailed presentation about the Conformity Model and explained the four levels of compliance that SMEs can reach in the frame of the project. Detailed presentations on eco-efficiency were delivered by project expert Professor Jin Min from Renmin University who introduced the state-of-play of EU legal and regulatory requirements for EE sector, market incentives for eco-design, and an eco-efficiency comprehensive toolbox for SMEs.

Mr. Gao Yuling, Vice President / Director of Technology Quality Advance Department from Hisense Co., Ltd., introduced the enterprise’s experience and challenges on eco-design, resource management and RoHS compliance. An in-depth interactive discussion with the experts’ panel followed Mr. Gao’s speech in order to sketch out the appropriate approach for the companies to initiate compliance/improvement measures and design an eco-efficiency/OHS/CSR Action Plan.