(Yicai) Oct. 10 -- Foreign dignitaries, Nobel Prize winners and business leaders will be discussing the route to sustainable development and global prosperity at the 2024 ESG Global Leaders Conference to be held in Shanghai later this month.

The conference, which is now in its fourth year, will have the theme ‘Uniting for Global Prosperity’ and will be held in the Bund City Hall Plaza in Shanghai’s downtown Huangpu district from Oct. 16 to 18, according to a press conference held today.

The ESG Global Leaders Conference, which is hosted by Citic Group and Sina Group and organized by Citi Press and Sina Finance, has been elevated to a national-level conference this year with the State Council’s approval, said Chen Wei, chairman of Citi Press.

The conference will focus on cutting-edge topics such as energy and dual carbon, green finance, sustainable consumption, technology and public welfare, said Deng Qingxu, chief executive officer of Sina Finance. There will be nine parallel forums that will discuss more than 50 core topics in depth. These will be interspersed with multiple ESG workshops and side meetings.

There will be nearly 300 speakers, including Dilma Rousseff, the former president of Brazil who currently serves as the president of the New Development Bank, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund and Ban Ki-moon, the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations. VIP guests include Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, former president of Croatia, Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., vice president of the International Olympic Committee, and Nobel prize winner Aaron Ciechanover.

Although countries in the East and West have a consensus in the field of ESG, there are also subtle differences such as China's rural construction and goal of common prosperity, Deng said. Continuous exchanges will not only help the outside world understand ESG discourse with Chinese characteristics, but will also help Chinese companies raise funds overseas.

The ESG Global Leaders Conference will permanently settle in Huangpu. This is the inevitable result of the resonance between the two sides in promoting ESG practices, said Xu Zhi, deputy head of the district.

Huangpu district was the first zone in Shanghai to carry out peak carbon emission and neutralization trials. These tests focus on eight aspects, namely green and low-carbon industries, virtual power plants, buildings’ carbon efficiency, low-carbon transportation, recycling, park carbon sinks, carbon emission management as well as mechanism and institutional innovations.

With efforts from all sides, Huangpu's demonstration will achieve better and better results, provide new ideas for the green and low-carbon transformation of the region, and develop a model for the realization of the city's dual-carbon strategic goals, Xu said.

Editor: Kim Taylor