On 10 January 2026, the symposium "Discussing the 15th Five-Year Plan: Developing Sustainable Finance under New Circumstances to Support Shanghai as an International Financial Centre" was held at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE). Co-organised by the Institute of Chinese Modernization at SUFE and two other institutions, the meeting brought together academics, industry practitioners and policy researchers to discuss innovation in sustainable finance and to offer recommendations for green development and for building Shanghai into a high-quality international financial centre. WeCarbon's China Partner Ms. Mia Zheng was invited to attend and shared her views at the roundtable.
Photo: Ms. Mia Zheng speaking at the roundtable
The roundtable, themed "Guided by sustainable finance standards, advancing the internationalisation of green finance", centred on China's newly released sustainability disclosure standard on climate (the Climate Standard). Participants discussed the value and impact of the standard, alignment between Chinese and international standards, practical implementation by companies, pathways for internationalising green finance, and the development of Shanghai as an international hub for green finance. Ms. Zheng joined the other guests in discussing how to build that hub, contributing an industry perspective on how sustainable finance can support China's green transition. In her remarks, she said: "The core challenge in communicating sustainability disclosure documents such as the Climate Standard to companies is bridging the 'training gap' with language they can readily understand. ESG looks different everywhere: each industry and each link in the value chain behaves differently, so simply interpreting the documents or running training sessions is far from enough. This challenge is both highly technical and a real barrier, unlike the early awareness stage of past new concepts, and all stakeholders need to work together to overcome it."
Photo: Group photo of the participants
Through keynote speeches and roundtable dialogue, the symposium created a platform for in-depth exchange among government, industry, academia, research institutions and practitioners. As a company dedicated to sustainability and climate technology, WeCarbon will continue to explore how sustainability technologies can be applied across a wide range of scenarios, contributing to the green transition in this new era.