Hong Kong to host international sustainability summit as platform for companies to move beyond ‘empty talk’ on net zero
- One Earth Summit, debuting on March 25, aims to ‘encourage accountability’ by asking companies to show their work annually
- Summit forms part of government’s Financial Mega Event Week at the end of March, which also includes Wealth for Good summit and Global Investors’ Symposium
Hong Kong will be hosting an international sustainability summit this month to provide a platform for corporate leaders around the world to share their progress on reaching their climate goals as well as exchange best practices to achieve net-zero emissions.
Set to take place on March 25, the inaugural One Earth Summit will aim to establish an alliance between sustainability leaders across multiple sectors towards achieving the net-zero transition, according to Poman Lo, founder of the non-profit Institute of Sustainability and Technology (IST), one of the organisers of the event.
“We call it One Earth Summit because it is all about uniting forces, and Hong Kong is the best strategic bridge between the east and the west,” Lo said. “We are in the best position to bring the world back together, and to transcend above all these cultural boundaries and divisions, to together fight this war against climate change.”
The event will not be a one-off, but rather “a milestone event of the alliance that we are trying to build”, which will unite “the most prominent” investors, family offices, philanthropists and business leaders in a collective pledge of support towards the net-zero transition, Lo said.
She added that the organisers plan to host the summit annually.
“We don’t want people just openly and very publicly announcing ambitious targets,” she said. “We also want to encourage accountability, so that each year the participants and business leaders will not just pledge these targets but also share a solid concrete pathway to net zero.”
