Yang Lan, senior person and chairman of Sunshine Group.
On December 12, at the Beijing News "2023 Green Development Forum of the Zero Carbon Research Institute" with the theme of "Carbon Road Pioneer Green Enlightenment", Yang Lan, senior person and chairman of Sunshine Group, said that green development, low-carbon development, sustainable development and the realization of the "double carbon" goal have become a national consensus. "The concept and practice of green and low-carbon development are developing from the initial energy industry to various industries, and the whole society is actively promoting the development of this great cause. ”
Without a global carbon standard, it is impossible to calculate carbon footprints, form cross-border pricing, and realize cross-border trading and settlement of carbon sinks. Yang Lan said that at present, there is a lack of scientific standards that can be universally recognized and practiced. The EU's carbon sinks** are 10 to 12 times larger than China's, and at the same time, China** and its companies' huge green investments have not produced carbon sinks that are not internationally certified, not only cannot be converted into carbon revenues, but even have to pay additional carbon taxes. This poses tremendous challenges and pressures on China's society and enterprises to invest in green investment and low-carbon transition.
In order to better promote global carbon standards, Sunshine Group, together with the World Sustainable Development Standards Organization (WSSO), the Institute of Global Sustainable Development of Tsinghua University, and the Energy Investment Committee of the Investment Association of China, jointly released the low-carbon and sustainable development index of China's listed companies. The standard focuses on the main force of China's low-carbon economic development through the three processes of design, data selection and calculation, and the standard takes carbon governance as the core concept, focuses on long-term value creation, and serves the international cutting-edge ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) concepts and methods.
According to the research report on 1,628 A-share listed companies, 114 companies received A or above ratings, and only 12 of them received AAA. 64% of companies rated below CCC, with the highest number of companies falling in CC (430). From the perspective of industry distribution, the industries that have obtained AAA rating are distributed in the financial industry, real estate industry and manufacturing industry, among which the financial industry has the largest number, with a total of 6 companies obtaining AAA rating. Culture, sports and entertainment companies are the most downstream in the CCC and below, accounting for 95% of the total number of industries. The accommodation and catering sector has the highest number of companies rated C, accounting for 67%.
Judging from these data, we still have a long way to go in low-carbon and sustainable development, and most of the listed companies are still in the embryonic period from the perspective of goal setting, green practices and sustainable development results, and there are still many aspects that need to be improved. Yang Lan said that he hopes that this standard can help the effective formation of a sustainable development ecology, which can not only provide reference and support for managers to formulate policies, but also provide direction for financial institutions to develop and formulate green financial products, provide decision-making considerations for investors, and provide more objective cognition for different enterprises in various industries to provide a more objective understanding of their own and their peers' low-carbon and sustainable development performance levels.
We call for more scientific, objective, and systematic standards as a guide. She said that she hopes to build a healthy, efficient and low-carbon sustainable development ecosystem under the guidance of the 17 indicators of sustainable development of the United Nations and China's dual carbon goals.
Proofreading by Li Lijun.