Office buildings of Datong Coal Mine Group in Datong, Shanxi. [Photo/China Daily]

Office buildings of Datong Coal Mine Group in Datong, Shanxi. [Photo/China Daily]

North China's Datong Coal Mine Group is establishing the Tashan Circular Economy Park (TCEP) to act as a model of a circular economy.

Construction on the park, which is located about 30 kilometers south of the city of Datong, in Shanxi province, started in 2003. It was the first park of its kind in China and was meant to be a local industry leader in the areas of equipment, technology and management.

The province called it a pilot project for a circular economy park. TCEP runs 13 low energy, low emissions, and high-efficiency projects.

This is a radical shift from the way things were just several years ago.

Datong Coal has more than 80 coal mines and it was a large mining operation with heavy amounts of pollution and very efficient, something that was going out of fashion. And there were the problems, such as land subsidence, waste material catching fire, and degraded or declining amounts of surface water.

Datong Coal executives saw that the old way of doing business and their mining model posed a threat to their long-term development. Many of the coal mines had millions of tons of output capacity, and they knew they had to change the pattern of growth to keep things from going even worse, company officials said.