New initiative to push sustainable urban development

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In line with the common goal of green innovation to help sustainable urban development, China Alliance of Social Value Investment (CASVI) and Shenzhen Green Finance Association is hosting this year’s social innovation acceleration camp.

Supported by the United Nations Development Program, and coordinated with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Shenzhen Branch and Qianhai International Talent Port, the acceleration camp will select early-stage entrepreneurial projects that are centered around sustainable development in cities and use innovative business methods to solve social problems.

Through value assessment, discovery and incubation, the hosts look to gather multiple resources to enhance the social and commercial value of the selected projects, jointly build a social value investment ecosystem, and help achieve sustainable development as China moves toward its peak carbon and carbon neutrality goals.

According to the seventh national census, China’s urban population is approaching 902 million, accounting for 64 percent of the country’s population. According to the sponsors of the camp, cities play a pivotal role in sustainable development — they occupy only 3 percent of the earth’s land area, but account for 60 to 80 percent of the overall energy consumption and 75 percent of carbon emissions. They believe the solutions to sustainable development and two carbon goals must be found in and applied to cities.

CASVI has empowered 372 sustainable development projects and incubated 72 projects since 2018, including Voibook, Carbonbase and HurTain NanoTech. All selected projects of the 2022 social innovation acceleration camp will be included in UNDP’s youth entrepreneurship incubation network and will get opportunities such as resource recommendations, mentor guidance, investor meetings and media coverage.