China Chapter is transitioning to the Asia-Pacific Chapter
The China Chapter is becoming the Asia-Pacific Chapter of ISAER:
The participants of the 5th Annual Meeting of the Emergy Society approved the formation of a committee to form the Asia-Pacific Chapter of ISAER. After a great deal of investigation, the Asia-Pacific Chapter Organizing Committee under the direction of Daeseok Kang and Dan Campbell determined that due to the laws of P.R. China and the difficulty of establishing nonprofit corporations in many Asian countries the only feasible way forward was to organize a Chapter of the Emergy Society in the People’s Republic of China. We eventually accomplished this end by organizing the Chapter as an arm of the parent society, ISAER. At the time, we did not realize that this organizational format would work for any set of geographic boundaries.
After three years of successful activities including organizing and holding the World Summit on Environmental Accounting (WSEA) from July 4 to 6, 2016 at Beijing Normal University. This work was carried out by Dr. Yang Zhifeng and a group of scientists from the School of the Environment, Beijing Normal University. At the WSEA in a side meeting, the China Chapter Executive Council composed of Zhifeng Yang, former President, Sheng Zhao, President, Hongfang Lu, Secretary-Treasurer, and Xiaobin Dong, Bin Chen, Haitao Li, Yong Geng, and Yunguan Xi, members-at-large and with Gengyuan Liu and Dan Campbell participating agreed that the China Chapter had served its purpose in establishing ISAER in Asia and that the time had come to implement our original vision of an Asia-Pacific Chapter. This action was approved by the ISAER Trustees and an organizing committee was put in place consisting of Daeseok Kang, Tom Abel, President ISAER, Murray Patterson, Hongfang Lu, China Chapter Secretary-Treasurer, Dan Campbell and Sheng Zhao, current President of the China Chapter of ISAER and Liu Gengyuan. The original by-laws for the China Chapter, which were written by Zhifeng Yang and Gengyuan Liu from Beijing Normal University working with the China Chapter Organizing Committee chaired by Daeseok Kang and Dan Campbell, were modified and presented to the Asia-Pacific Chapter Organizing Committee for further modifications and improvements.
The Asia-Pacific Chapter will also be organized as an arm of ISAER similar to the China Chapter. The Asia-Pacific Chapter Executive Council will be appointed by the ISAER Executive Council from nominees gathered by the Asia-Pacific Chapter Organizing Committee. The ISAER Executive Council must also approve the by-laws of the Asia -Pacific Chapter before approving eight nominees to comprise the chapter Executive Council. Once the by-laws are approved and eight Chapter Executive Council members appointed, a representative from the parent body of ISAER will be appointed by the Trustees. Shu-Li Huang has served as the Trustee’s Representative on the China Chapter Executive Council. Gengyuan Liu was appointed and has served as the ISAER Assistant Treasurer in China. Eighty-five members of the Emergy Society will also be members of the Asia-Pacific Chapter or about 30.7% of our total membership. One membership fee confers membership in both the parent society and the Chapter, therefore, dues are split between the two levels in the same organization.
Report on China Chapter Activities:
The ISAER Executive Council held a second special meeting in February of 2013 to consider a proposal from Yang Zhifeng and Beijing Normal University to carry out a series of activities over the next two years that would strengthen emergy research in China and the Asia-Pacific Region. The proposal asked for ISAER support in carrying out the program. The ISAER Executive Council gave its general approval and a detailed response to each item in the proposal. These activities have already begun and have included the International Symposium on River Science in August 2013, at which Dan Campbell represented ISAER. This was followed by the recent visit in June of 2014 of Mark Brown and Sergio Ulgiati to Beijing Normal University where Mark Brown taught a short course on Emergy methods followed by a lecture tour to other universities in China. The World Summit on Environmental Accounting was planned over a period of three years by Yang Zhifeng of Beijing Normal University supported by the ISAER International Conference Organizing Committee chaired by Murray Patterson. This conference was very successful and well-attended. A report about WSEA will be published soon on this web site.
Activities of the China Chapter of the International Society for the Advancement of Emergy Research in 2015 are given below:
The 2015 Annual Report of the China Chapter of the International Society for the Advancement of Emergy Research may be found here: View the Annual Report for China Chapter-2015.