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Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission has a detrimental impact on climate change. There is an increasing trend for firms to use disclosure to signal stakeholders about its environmental responsibilities and performance in dealing with climate change. China is one of the countries producing the most carbon emissions. Over the last decade, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are becoming important players in international trade. However, the existing literature provides limited evidence on how Chinese SOEs influence GHG disclosure. Through the lens of stakeholder–agency theory, this chapter studies the top 300 listed firms to examine the relationship between Chinese SOEs and the likelihood of GHG disclosure. The result suggests a negative relationship between Chinese SOEs and the likelihood of GHG disclosure. This could be explained as a consequence of the managers' political self-interests, economic and policy-oriented decision-making process and the power differentials between the government and SOE managers. This research extends the GHG literature to Chinese SOEs context, providing direct evidence on how state ownership impacts on GHG disclosure.

Purpose – To review the place of bicycle transportation within the Chinese national objective of sustainable development.

Methodology – The chapter provides an analysis of the evolution of bicycle transportation policies in China, and a discussion of the latest developments in the function and operation of public bicycle hire schemes.

Findings – Due to high population density, the prevailing mix of land use and a lack of affordability of cars and motor scooters, bicycle transportation has historically been very common in the urban areas of China. However, since the 1990s, many Chinese cities implemented restrictive policies on the development of bicycle transportation and the modal share of bicycles has reduced sharply.

Practical implications – The chapter suggests that China would need to create favourable conditions for bicycle transportation in urban areas through means such as policy support, land use planning, use of economic levers and through creating an acceptable social and cultural atmosphere for cycling. Finally, the maintenance of a relatively high proportion of bicycle traffic would need to be regarded as an index for sustainable urban development.

Institutional actors are critical allies for grassroots movements, but few studies have examined their effects and variations within the non-democratic context. This chapter argues that while institutional allies are heavily constrained and unlikely to give open endorsement to grassroot activists, some institutional activists indirectly facilitate movement mobilization and favorable outcomes in the process of advancing their own political agendas. Drawing upon in-depth interviews conducted in 2008 and 2012, I illustrate this argument by examining the Anti-PX Movement – a landmark grassroots environmental movement against a chemical plant – in Xiamen, China. I find that the environmental institutional actors were constrained and divided, yet some still fostered opportunities for movement mobilization and in turn exploited the opportunity created by the protesters to pursue their policy interests, thus facilitating positive movement outcomes. As long as the claims are not politically subversive to the authoritarian rule, this type of tacit and tactical interaction between institutional activists within the state and grassroot activists on the street is conducive to promoting progressive policy changes.