Hosted by the China Enterprise Confederation and China Enterprise Directors Association with the support of the Jilin Municipal Government, this year’s China Top 500 Enterprises Summit took place in Changchun, Jilin Province on 24-25 September. The Summit primarily focused on industries which are anticipated to see significant growth in the era of net-zero ambitions.
China’s carbon peaking and neutrality goals were a central theme. In the forum “Leadership under the Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality Goals” led by the Rocky Mountain Institute, participants shared their experiences gearing up for China’s “carbon-neutral by 2060” plan. Representatives discussed how enterprises can integrate low-carbon transition strategies into corporate governance and operations, particularly how to implement strategies into effective solutions.
The forum included representatives from China National Petroleum Corporation, TCL Technology, Jilin Yatai Group, and China Pingmei Shenma Group, among others who shared respective strategies in their enterprises. Dawei Liu from Industrial Bank noted that they had successfully launched ESG-themed financial products and had been designing more innovative green finance products in addition to developing greener internal policies.
Jason Tu, co-founder and CEO at MioTech, discussed how both financial institutions and corporations can leverage technology and data to accelerate their path to carbon neutrality.
“ESG, carbon peaking and neutrality, and sustainable development all have implications for both financial institutions and corporations. Financial institutions require ESG data to optimize their assets and managed portfolios. A range of indicators associated with financial products also require ESG data, such as companies’ scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions”, said Tu, “through MioTech’s continuous communication and collaboration with regulators and investors, both domestic and global, we have noticed a trend of misinformation of the environmental, social and governance performance of Chinese firms due to the lack of data. As an ESG data solutions provider in China, MioTech aims to bridge companies and responsible investors. Some firms have done well in ESG management but lack an established data disclosure and management system”.
With the pandemic and the announced carbon peaking and neutrality goals, regulators and investors are imposing higher requirements for corporate disclosures. Firms need a complete and objective data management and monitoring system to gain better control of their emissions and energy consumption data for better risk management. In addition, benchmarking against peers and staying in communication with stakeholders are keys to firms' sustainable development and market outperformance.