Pledges for the future at the Sustainability Summit

With COP29 about to begin in Baku, the British Chamber’s Sustainability Summit 2024 dived deeply into two of the most critical issues at the conference – energy decarbonisation and green finance. Held on Wednesday 30th October in conjunction with the United Nations Office in China and KPMG China, the event was an opportunity for businesses to commit to a path forward in decarbonising and greening their operations.

We were honoured to be joined by Siddharth Chatterjee, the UN Resident Coordinator in China, whose keynote speech reminded attendees of how urgent work needed to be taken on the climate crisis – an issue that connected environment, politics, industry, business, and more.

Our two panels featured expertise from across industry, academia, government and more, creating two fascinating discussions on “Energy Transition and Green Transformation,” and “Climate Finance and ESG Investment.” During the first panel, speakers explored various topics surrounding energy transition and green transformation. Moderated by Daisy Shen (Head of Climate and Sustainability, KPMG China), our speakers dived into the latest trends and innovation in their respective sectors, covering digitalisation, innovation driven by the introduction of new policies on energy in previous years, and more. The latter half was dedicated to the role of geopolitics in decarbonising energy systems, highlighting the importance of collaboration among countries for the change.

In panel two, speakers each gave respective insights on climate and transitional finance. Led by Robert Xiao (Director, Beijing of the Economist Intelligence Corporate Network), the discussion was mainly taken on green financing where each panelists shared data to showcase the on-going and upcoming trend on this topic. As well as providing timely information on China’s work in this crucial field, speakers also dived deeper into how China and the UK were working together to lessen the impacts of climate change, and how a just climate transition could be achieved when business, government and civil society work together.

Four workshops tied together the themes of the morning’s summit, allowing attendees to develop their own pledges to the environment, ensuring that conversations and actions continued following the summit’s conclusion.

Thank you to our co-organisers, panelists and attendees of the Sustainability Summit 2024! We look forward to seeing the results of this year’s COP, as well as keeping our members engaged and accountable as they set ambitious targets towards decarbonisation of their operations.