On December 15, the 2023 Annual Conference of The Paper Responsibility Practitioners opened as scheduled at Shanghai Greenland Bund Center. With the theme of "Green, Sustainable, Resilient and High-Quality", this year's Annual Meeting of Responsible Practitioners invited a number of heavyweight guests from international NGOs, scientific research institutions, international rating agencies, public welfare organizations and enterprises to discuss hot topics such as global climate change, environmental protection, and corporate practice of ESG, promotion of high-quality development models, and advocacy of green finance.
At this year's annual meeting of The Paper's responsibility practitioners, the "The Paper ESG Think Tank Committee" was officially established and the committee certificate was issued. Qiu Ciguan, Academic Director of the Sustainable Finance Discipline Development Fund of Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Vice Dean and Professor of Finance, Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Wang Tan, Director of the Academic Committee of the Sustainable Investment Research Center, Wang Yao, Dean of the International Institute of Green Finance, Central University of Finance and Economics, Zhu Dajian, Director of the Institute of Sustainable Development and Management, Tongji University, Liu Wenkui, Executive Vice Chairman of the China Rural Development Foundation, Xu Jialiang, Dean of the China Philanthropy Development Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Su Yanhui, Secretary-General of the Shanghai Adream Foundation, and Ding Bo, Vice President of Shanghai Poster Group, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of The Paper, attended the conference and the unveiling ceremony of the "The Paper ESG Think Tank Committee".
Ding Bo, Vice President of Shanghai Poster Group, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of The Paper, said in his speech that the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (hereinafter referred to as "COP28") has just concluded, and COP28 finally reached the "UAE Consensus" on the first global stocktaking of the Paris Agreement, mitigation, adaptation, finance, loss and damage, just transition and other issues. This once again shows that in the face of various risks and challenges brought about by climate change, only green and low-carbon can enhance resilience and achieve sustainable and high-quality development. Change is urgent, and action requires solidarity. The Paper is willing to work with you and your affiliated organizations to build a responsible ecosystem, promote more dialogues and exchanges, and jointly address the many issues facing sustainable development.
Qiu Ciguan, Academic Director of the Sustainable Finance Discipline Development Fund of Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, delivered a speech on the topic of ""Philanthropy + Finance": Protecting the Ecology with Creative Models. She said that there is a huge funding gap in areas such as biodiversity conservation and marine conservation. The main source of funding for biodiversity conservation in China is government expenditure, and we need to leverage private funds to help solve this problem. When the project is difficult to make a profit and the rate of return is low, the creative model of "public welfare charity + finance" can be adopted to catalyze first, then transition, and finally make the whole field operate in a market-oriented manner.
Wang Yao, Dean of the International Institute of Green Finance, Central University of Finance and Economics, delivered a speech entitled "Interpretation of Key Issues at COP28". She said COP28 reached a historic agreement, agreeing for the first time on a commitment to "transition away from fossil fuels". In addition, the Chinese special envoy at COP28 revealed that the Chinese government intends to put forward new goals and measures for the independent contributions of the Paris Agreement by 2030 and 2035 in 2025. Companies should also propose emission reduction targets that are in line with international and national climate targets. Enterprises should incorporate ESG into their investment decisions, fully consider the external environmental benefits of investment, and improve the effects on society and stakeholders, as well as internal governance.
Zhu Dajian, Director of the Institute of Sustainable Development and Management of Tongji University, delivered a speech on the topic of "From ESG to Sustainable Business". He said that ESG is a means of sustainable management, the horizontal axis is financial importance, the vertical axis is the importance of social impact, and ESG is to achieve both financial benefits and social impact. Therefore, finding what to do in this quadrant is a capability and method for corporate ESG operations.
Liu Wenkui, Executive Vice Chairman of China Rural Development Foundation, delivered a speech on the topic of "Developing Social Enterprises and Promoting Common Prosperity". He said that social enterprises are modern enterprises with clear public welfare attributes with the goal of solving social problems and creating social (public) capital. It is a major innovation in the modern enterprise system and a revolution since the anti-monopoly law in the 20th century, which can enable enterprises to better serve mankind. Today, in China, can the social enterprise mechanism become another major social innovation?
Xu Jialiang, Dean of the China Philanthropy Development Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, delivered a speech entitled "From the Three Circles of Foundation, ESG and Social Enterprises to Common Prosperity of Chinese Modernization", in which he divided the whole society into three circles: the government circle, the enterprise circle and the social organization circle. Three-circle interaction isomorphism. He said that enterprises, governments and social organizations together constitute a complete and viable system. The practice of ESG by enterprises is an important measure to improve the ability of enterprises' production and operation activities and expand social capital, and it is the sublimation and in-depth expansion of the content of corporate social responsibility. Enterprises are pioneering and innovative, taking high-quality development as the standard, and contributing their wisdom and strength to Chinese-style modernization.
Wang Xiaodong, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Greenland Group, delivered a speech on the topic of "Actively Embracing ESG and Promoting the High-quality Development of Enterprises". He said that ESG is the wave of the times of certainty in an uncertain environment, which is of great significance to the development of countries, industries and enterprises. As an imported product, European and American countries are the pioneers, providing us with a high starting point, but while we are in line with international standards, we must explore the establishment of an ESG system in line with China's reality. The number of listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen has exceeded 5,000, basically including benchmark enterprises from all walks of life. Therefore, Wang Xiaodong suggested that priority should be given to gradually expanding the scope of ESG participation in listed companies, so as to form a leading effect on the whole society.
Su Yanhui, Secretary-General of Shanghai Adream Foundation, delivered a speech entitled "Surging Era, Shanghai Practice - ESG Exploration of Adream Dreams", in which she shared with you the practice of Adream in ESG as a non-governmental public welfare organization, as well as cross-border cooperation with enterprises and governments to create better value. This year, Adream and BCG jointly released the White Paper on ESG Development in China's Foundation Industry. Su Yanhui called on enterprises to join hands with professional public welfare organizations to create strategic sustainable public welfare projects when embracing ESG, so that goodwill does not stop at donations, and help enterprises to implement ESG strategies solidly, and sincerely invited partners to create a "special public welfare plan for sustainable education for young people".
Xu Yangying, General Manager and Chief Representative of Consumer Goods Forum Greater China, delivered a speech on the topic of "Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) Promoting Sustainable Development". According to her, the Consumer Goods Forum, abbreviated as CGF, was born in 1953 in Paris, France. As a consortium of manufacturers and partners in the FMCG industry, CGF currently has more than 400 members. As a non-profit organization, CGF focuses on non-competitive fields, such as food safety, sustainable development, health and digitalization, etc., and at the same time, CGF does not publish standards separately, does not audit and issue certificates, but only builds industry advocacy principles, promotes consensus, and is committed to promoting a collaborative model to solve hot spots and pain points in the global consumer goods industry.
Zhang Zhengwei, Special Advisor to the President of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) and Director of the Beijing Office, delivered a speech entitled "Learning First: Seizing New Opportunities for Sustainable Information Disclosure", in which he said that whether China can become an ESG highland depends first on whether ESG talents can be gathered, and the gathering of ESG talents depends on the talent logo. The ISSB aims to provide high-quality, highly compatible, highly reliable, and highly comparable sustainable information disclosure content on a global scale. China has gradually grown from a passive recipient and an active adapter of international economic and trade rules to an important participant. We have completed this standard in the accounting standards, but in the sustainability standards, we are still in the stage of transformation from active adapters to important players, so we need to have this awareness of active acceptance, which is not only related to climate change, but also where the competitiveness and vitality of enterprises lie.
Li Zhiqing, director of the Environmental Economics Research Center of Fudan University and deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Economics of Fudan University, delivered a speech on the topic of "Enhancing the Competitiveness and Influence of Shanghai's Green Finance". In addition to disclosure, we must continue to strengthen the construction and application of infrastructure in the fields of environment, biodiversity, and renewable energy.
Wang Tan, deputy dean of Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, professor of finance, and director of the Academic Committee of the Sustainable Investment Research Center, delivered a speech on the topic of "ESG Practice and Education and Training", he said that from the current state, from the perspective of global and Chinese university talent training, the popularity of ESG and the degree of compatibility with demand groups are also relatively low, mainly because the training and reserve of terminal talents and high-end talents are still weak, and the matching of professional directions is relatively low. He believes that domestic teaching and education institutions should make more efforts to promote the development of ESG.
Xiaoshu Wang, Head of ESG & Climate Research, Asia Pacific, MSCI, delivered a speech titled "2024 Sustainability & Climate Trend Outlook". Over the past decade, she said, it has become increasingly clear that environmental and social and governance risks are financial risks. As sustainable investing matures, regulators around the world are taking steps to improve clarity for the end investor. In 2023, there is an increasing discussion around ESG investing, and both investors and institutions want to make the purpose, definition and intent of the concept clearer, and innovation is expected to return in 2024.
Liu Dong, chief reporter of The Paper and director of the monthly climate magazine "Tipping Point", delivered a speech entitled "The Return of COP28 - The Hardships and Significance of Reaching Consensus", saying that the COP28 resolution document marks the end of the fossil fuel era, which is a very important moment. A roadmap for the transition away from fossil fuels has been adopted, and action is to be accelerated over the next decade to reach the goal of zero carbon emissions by 2050. In the past 200 years, the economic and social foundation of human social development has been built on fossil energy, and today we must realize that the era of fossil energy is coming to an end. How do you end it? That might lead to a bigger discussion. But the process is already beginning, happening.
The 2023 Annual Meeting of The Paper also set up three roundtable dialogues, respectively from the three topics of "Innovation and Prospect of Green Finance after COP28", "ESG Management: Exploring a New Path for High-quality Enterprise Development", and "The Ecological Niche of Non-profit Organizations in ESG", and invited a number of heavyweight guests from international NGOs, scientific research institutions, international rating agencies, public welfare organizations and enterprises to discuss the path of exchanging economic benefits and social value simultaneously.
The "2023 Annual Meeting of Responsible Practitioners" was also released at the same time, providing a reliable sample for promoting the green, sustainable and resilient high-quality development of enterprises and non-profit organizations.
This year, the annual meeting of The Paper Responsible Practitioners has received support from 12 authoritative organizations, and I would like to express my gratitude to Greenland Bund Center, the strategic partner of the conference, and Infinitus (China) Co., Ltd. for their public welfare support, and the supporting organizations: Environmental and Economic Research Center of Fudan University, Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), Sustainable Investment Research Center, Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China Philanthropy Development Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai Lujiazui Financial City Development Foundation, Shanghai United Charity Foundation, Shanghai Society for Sustainable Development, Shanghai Adream Foundation, Shenzhen One Foundation, IPE, International Institute of Green Finance, Central University of Finance and Economics, and CDP supported the conference.