On the morning of November 4, 2024, at the invitation of the School of Management, Professor Chen Jian from Tsinghua University visited the school for academic exchange and delivered an academic report entitled Green Disposable Packaging Strategy under Consideration of Bring-Your-Own-Container in Meeting Room 214 of the School of Management. The session was hosted by Professor Liu Chenguang and attended by some faculty members and graduate students of the School of Management.

Professor Chen Jian first introduced the enormous environmental pressure caused by disposable packaging waste, and explored the environmental potential of the Bring-Your-Own-Container (BYOC) model by citing the environmental practices of coffee brands such as Starbucks. He then extracted a series of scientific issues from practical observations and conducted in-depth research. By constructing a model, he discussed the interactions among three parties: enterprises, consumers and the government. Specifically, the model took into account the following aspects: whether enterprises adopt eco-friendly containers and conduct voluntary certification, whether they engage in greenwashing and promotion of ordinary containers, whether consumers have environmental awareness and bring their own containers, and whether the government imposes mandatory certification on the eco-friendly containers claimed by enterprises. The research shows that BYOC helps resist corporate greenwashing and can improve corporate profits to a certain extent, but it may be detrimental to the environment. In addition, when enterprises implement the BYOC model, mandatory government certification of the containers adopted by enterprises may instead be unfavorable to the environment. This research provides important management implications for enterprises and the government, and offers scientific reference for the formulation of environmental protection strategies in the future.

During the interactive Q&A session, participating teachers and students conducted in-depth exchanges with Professor Chen Jian on various issues, such as the underlying motivations of consumers to bring their own containers, government supervision costs, and how to achieve an economic-environmental win-win situation. Professor Liu Chenguang summarized the lecture, which triggered positive responses among the participants and stimulated and promoted their enthusiasm for scientific research.

Speaker ProfileChen Jian is the Lenovo Chair Professor at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, and Director of the Research Center for Contemporary Management, Tsinghua University—a Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education. He is a recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and a Chang Jiang Distinguished Professor of the Ministry of Education. He was awarded the inaugural Fudan Distinguished Contribution Award in Management, and was elected an IEEE Fellow and an Academician of the International Academy of Systems and Cybernetics. His main research areas include systems engineering, enterprise operations management and supply chain coordination optimization, analysis and optimization of emerging business models, and decision theory and methods. He has published more than 200 papers in high-level academic journals at home and abroad, including Management Science, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Operations Management, Systems Engineering — Theory & Practice, Journal of Management Sciences in China, and Management World. His research findings have attracted extensive attention from scholars at home and abroad, with over 10,000 citations on Google Scholar, and he has been invited to deliver keynote speeches at numerous international conferences. He has presided over and completed more than 50 national-level research projects, including major projects and innovation group projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He currently serves or has served as a member of the Management Science and Engineering Disciplinary Review Group of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, Secretary-General of the Teaching Steering Committee for Management Science and Engineering Programs in Institutions of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education, Vice President of the Production and Operations Management Society, Vice President of the Chinese Society of Management Science and Engineering, Vice President of the Systems Engineering Society of China, Vice President of the Chinese Society of Management Modernization, Vice President of the Chinese Society of Optimization, Overall Planning and Economic Mathematics, as well as Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board Member or Consultant of more than 10 international academic journals.

Written by/Chen Jinyi Reviewed by/Jia Ming