Forum on ESG Pushing Forward Sustainable Development Progress

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish to thank Mr. Xiangrong Mei and Yingke Law Firm for the invitation to address today’s Forum on ESG Pushing Forward Sustainable Development Progress.

During today’s forum, we heard from experts on how enterprises are building environmental, social and governance (ESG) systems, the development of ESG rating systems that allow investors the ability to assess a company’s compliance with ESG criteria, and the sharing of best practices of different enterprises. 

The private sector has a critical role to play in helping the world to address the escalating and interconnected global crises we face, and in accelerating global progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

We are just past the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda, and due to these interconnected crises, we are off track to achieve the SDGs. At present, only 15 per cent of SDG targets are on track, 48 per cent show weak and insufficient progress, and a staggering 37 per cent have seen no progress or even a regression.

While we are in critical danger of not achieving the ambitions of the SDGs, there is still time to act. Earlier this week, world leaders gathered at the United Nations Headquarters in New York for the SDG Summit and the Climate Ambition Summit in order to galvanize support for transformative actions to accelerate progress on the SDGs and to take significant actions to address the climate crisis. 

The Secretary-General of the UN, Mr. António Guterres, in his remarks at the closing of the SDG Summit, highlighted seven key areas in which countries and other actors should focus their actions, including transforming the SDG Stimulus into real investments in developing countries, implementing concrete policies, budgets, investment portfolios and actions to accelerate progress on the SDGs, supporting the six key SDG transitions: food energy, digitalization, education, social protection and jobs, and biodiversity, increased investments in social protection, among others.

The Secretary-General concluded his remarks by stating, “Now is the time to lift the declaration’s words off the page, and invest in development at scale like never before. Now is the time to go back to your countries and get to work on policies, budgets and investments needed to achieve the SDGs.”

Ladies and gentlemen,

Forward thinking leaders, innovators and implementers across all sectors are needed to expedite our progress to achieve the SDGs and no single sector or country has the capacity to single-handedly address the magnitude of these challenges. The private sector has a key role in our collective ability to achieve the SDGs and the global community needs a resolute commitment from not only the private sector, but also government and civil society to catalyze advances.

The UN recognizes the potential of the private sector to contribute to the SDGs and seeks to identify innovative initiatives to support greater alignment between private sector activities and the SDGs. One such initiative, launched earlier this week at the UN General Assembly, is the “Forward Faster” initiative, introduced by the UN Global Compact. This initiative strives to foster ambitious corporate endeavours in the realms of gender equality, climate ambition, a living wage, finance and investment and water resilience. These five areas hold substantial potential for accelerating progress across the SDGs, and cover many of the areas in which the private sector can make the most significant and expeditious impact by 2030.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Evidence suggests that responsible and sustainable business practices that include robust ESG management and corporate sustainability strategies not only generate changes in societies, but also enhance business performance and foster sustainable economic growth on a global scale.

At the UN in China, the International Labour Organization, UN Women, UN Development Programme, UN Children’s Fund and UN Global Compact have been working on an inter-agency project to develop a handbook on responsible business practices that embodies many of these criteria and are planning to hold training and capacity building sessions with interested corporations and state-owned enterprises in the future. 

China not only houses over 100 of the Fortune 500 companies, but it also has more than 44 million small and medium-sized enterprises. There is immense potential to advance ESG practices throughout the private sector in China that will allow for progress on sustainable development and combatting the climate crisis.

As the world’s largest developing country, China holds immense potential to push forward this agenda, both domestically and abroad, via overseas investments and other international cooperation initiatives, having the potential to impact the well-being of billions of people around the world and the sustainable development of our planet. 

In addition, the Chinese private sector’s embrace of ESG standards could serve as an example for other countries to see that ESG practices are not only good from a social and environmental standpoint, but also for the business’s bottom line, increasing profits.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to invite all the companies gathered here today to join the more than 800 companies in China and more than 15,000 globally that are signatories to the UN Global Compact.

Together, we can forge ahead, creating positive change and ensuring a future for all that includes sustainability, and leave no one behind.

Thank you.