A leading expert in sustainable business, Professor David Wheeler of Plymouth University in the United Kingdom, told a Shanghai audience that China needs to include a "green dividend" in its dealings with the West on important mergers and acquisition projects.

Speaking at the annual Chinese Association for the Management of Technology conference in Shanghai, Professor Wheeler said many people in the West are impatient for progress on sustainability issues. And so if Chinese firms deliver progress on renewable energy and other topics, they will create enormous goodwill and this will lead to future business advantages.

Speaking to China Daily, Professor Wheeler stated that many civil society organizations in the West are beginning to despair of slow-moving multilateral processes that were failing to deliver progress on questions of climate change and food security.