This paper examines how the Chinese business community can best use international sustainability standards to enhance their competitiveness in global markets and more effectively place themselves on a sustainable economic pathway.

It highlights the opportunity for Chinese businesses, supported by enabling public policies, to become a force in shaping the next generation of sustainability standards in global markets as a competitive strategy consistent with China's broader interests. Doing so will require deeper engagement in existing standards initiatives, and a more explicit role amongst the communities that have developed and now govern them. Effective engagement in such standards is a means of off-setting competitive disadvantages, and creating competitive advantages when businesses and nations choose a more sustainable development path.

This work is part of the research project on China's "sustainable trade strategy" organised by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the State Council's Development Research Center, and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. The work is funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and also partnered with the Chinese Central Party School, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, St. Gallens University, and the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development.