The main goal of the East-West Sustainability Summit was to advance the global sustainability agenda in concert with IUCN’s World Conservation Congress 2016 (WCC), where 10,000 government, business, academic, and philanthropy leaders convened in Honolulu from September 1-10, 2016. Connecting the EWSS to the first WCC ever held in the US in the IUCN’s 68-year history was an unprecedented opportunity to engage China and to increase international collaboration in philanthropy, especially in the areas of conservation and sustainability. Held only once every four years, the IUCN WCC 2016 was the first ever to be led by an IUCN President from China, Zhang Xinsheng.
East-West Sustainability Summit I
This new platform connected philanthropic leaders from China and the US with global leaders from Europe, the Pacific, and other countries in Asia. Co-organized by EWC and CGPI, and generously co-sponsored by the Lao Niu Foundation and Beijing Qiaonyu Foundation, this historic summit emphasized the importance of achieving sustainability through actions by governments, private philanthropy, and public-private partnerships. The EWSS convened 130 high-level participants to collaborate and share their insights on topics such as the protection of biodiversity on land and sea, green finance and infrastructure, sustainable business models, clean energy investments, and sustainability action networks.
