GM China Campus

About the Program
General Motors Company is a car manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China. This campus is located in eastern China, just south of the Qingcaosha River and west of the Yellow Sea. This campus places a large focus on environmental protection and hosts nearly 10 acres of native landscaped habitat, a 950-square-meter pond, a pollinator garden, nesting habitat for avian species and several educational programs where employees and high school students can learn about environmental protection, sustainability and greenhouse gas emission reduction.

Practices and Impacts

• The landscaped area on site is monitored for plant health and survival and maintained via pruning, watering, fertilizing and white washing tree trunks in the winter. Monitoring over the past few years has shown a sharp increase in plant species diversity, most of which are native species. 
• The golden pond on campus is monitored for water quality, water level and sedimentation buildup. Aquatic plant species and native wildlife have been readily using the pond to the point where population management may need to occur in the future to control the population size of wildlife utilizing the pond. 
• Fifteen bird nest boxes were installed throughout the campus in 2017 and have been monitored ever since. More fruit-bearing trees have also been added on campus to provide more foraging opportunities for native avian species. Monitoring shows that this project has proven successful via avian species richness and diversity. 
• The employee awareness project has provided several different opportunities for staff to learn about environmental protection and sustainability. Employees planted trees and installed nest boxes on Earth Day and World Environment Day and learned about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through Earth Hour and the quarterly newsletter produced by GM.
• Shrubs and dungarunga were planted throughout the campus to provide habitat for native pollinator species. Lotus plants were even added to the pond to provide pollinator habitat for dragonflies. Flowering data and pollinator presence is monitored monthly and shows the project's success with the variety of bees, butterflies and dragonflies found on-site. 
• The JA Company program focused on sustainability and conservation occurs eight times a year, in which high schoolers watch educational videos and learn about the different sustainability projects on-site.