Shanghai Climate Week coincides with Earth Day and highlights China’s dual-carbon commitments. And while its object as also a public-facing initiative remains undoubtedly to drive awareness of the severity of the situation faced by the world, amid the detail there is also much to be celebrated in terms of progress already made.
This was the focus of The Nanjinger’s 4 day long immersion across both Shanghai and Suzhou during the week of 21 April for a sampling of the activities on offer at Shanghai Climate Week 2025; some 64 in total, held in universities, climate/environmental business parks, even shopping malls.
Checking in at East China Normal University for the Climate Change Education Forum, Djian Sadadou with the UNESCO Office for Climate Education (France) impressed with a case study of experience in rolling out climate change education at scale in Mexico and Columbia.
After his presentation, Sadadou spoke exclusively with The Nanjinger as to the challenges in implementing climate change education worldwide. “We need a shared understanding globally of what we aim to achieve with climate change education. And that’s to equip the next generations with the key competencies of the future; understanding complexity, developing critical thinking, empathy and curiosity”, said Sadadou.
“There is also a component of climate justice; what we do here in China affects people in Brazil, what they do in Brazil affects people here in China as well.”
Walking away, however, such challenges not withstanding, there was the very real impression that there is no reason why such efforts cannot be replicated across the world.
Then there were the revealing insights for Shanghai climate Week which came out of the ancient city of Suzhou. It was there that Dr. Ellen Touchstone, Deputy Dean of International Business School Suzhou (IBSS) at Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University (XJTLU), figured prominently, both in the workshop entitled “How to Benchmark Companies’ ESG Performance and Impact” hosted by Green Light Year that took place in the Suzhou ESG Industrial Innovation Centre on 23 April and on home turf at “XJTLU Earth Week 2025: Our Power, Our Planet on 26 April”. Her commitment served well as illustration for her and her institution’s commitment to the Shanghai Climate Week cause.
Meanwhile, back in Shanghai at the “Sustainable Food Service Development Forum”, among other eye-openin,g feel-good factors heard by attendees was news of headway made to embrace plant-based menus in the hospitality sector.
Indeed, most of the major hotel chains in China are reporting significant use thereof. One of the biggest industry players in particular; Orange; will this year be deploying plant-based food across 70 percent of its food and beverage offering.
With a climate diet initiative as its core, the little bar of vegan chocolate given to every guest attending the Forum may have been chocolate in nature, but with a taste less so. As this present unwrapped and savored, the little treat served well to illustrate that we will all need to get used to the new tastes of the future.
