The Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and its partner institutions released the 2026 Shanghai ESG Development Report at the 2026 Sustainability Global Leaders Conference, which opened in Shanghai's Huangpu District on October 20. This year's theme was “Forging a Resilient Future: Global Governance, Innovation-Led Advancement, and Industrial Renewal.”
The World Green Design Organization (WGDO) and Sina Group jointly hosted the conference, with the IFRS Foundation Beijing Office as co-host. Sina Finance and the WGDO Beijing Representative Office organized the event, and SAIF provided academic support.
Guangshao Tu, former Executive Vice Mayor of Shanghai, former SAIF Board Chair, and Co-Chair of the ESG Leaders Association Forum, delivered remarks and presented the report's findings.
He and Hong Yan, SAIF Chair Professor of Finance and Director of the Sustainable Investment Research Center (SIRC), co-led the report's working group. Fifteen financial institutions, enterprises, and service providers contributed, including Shanghai Exchange Group and Orient Securities Company Limited.
The 2024 edition of the report first mapped Shanghai's ESG ecosystem, and the 2025 edition highlighted practical cases. This year's report remains grounded in practice and focused on concrete problems. It examines how companies translate regulatory requirements and market expectations into their own governance, operations, and core capabilities for sustainable development, and how the financial, technology, and professional services sectors support corporate ESG practice. The report is intended as a practical resource for policymakers, corporate managers, financial institutions, professional service providers, and other stakeholders, and it offers Shanghai’s experience as a reference for sustainable development across China.
Key Findings: Progress and Remaining Gaps
Policy and governance. Shanghai has strengthened the institutional foundations for ESG through better sustainability disclosure rules, a refined assessment system for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and a wider range of market tools. It has incorporated ESG into its evaluation of SOEs’ core competitiveness, with related indicators carrying a reference weight of 10%. It has also improved coordination among policy instruments, including the carbon market, product carbon footprints, green supply chains, and green finance. With China's mandatory disclosure regime now in place, regulators and investors are paying closer attention to the quality and practical value of disclosures. As the policy framework matures, ESG requirements are gradually being embedded in corporate evaluation and resource allocation, although these policy tools have yet to be fully tested in real business settings.
Corporate practice. Shanghai companies enjoy an early-mover advantage, but gaps among market participants remain wide. In 2025, 61.2% of Shanghai-based listed companies published stand-alone ESG reports: 94.9% of listed SOEs did so, compared with 48.8% of listed non-state-owned enterprises. Shanghai-based listed companies score above the market average in Wind's ESG ratings, yet only about 9.6% are rated AA or above. Some companies have moved beyond disclosure and isolated environmental measures into energy management, full product life-cycle management, supply chain governance, and climate risk management, integrating ESG into core functions such as procurement, research and development, and investment. Mature practice, however, remains concentrated among a small number of leading enterprises. Many companies still rely on pilot projects, while small and medium-sized enterprises face limited expertise, weak data, and high implementation costs.
Financial services. Shanghai's financial institutions are turning ESG requirements into tools for capital allocation and risk management. Banks, securities firms, fund managers, and insurers are using ESG information in lending, underwriting, investment, insurance, and portfolio management, and are exploring mechanisms such as transition finance, stewardship, risk reduction, and cross-border green financing. By the end of June 2026, Shanghai had 479 ESG funds with RMB 709 billion in assets under management. Projects certified by the National Green Finance Service Platform grew from an initial 11 to 153. Trading platforms are also linking environmental performance with financial resources through carbon asset verification and pricing, as well as green fuel trading. However, inconsistent data standards, incomplete verification of transition pathways, and weak performance tracking still prevent ESG performance from feeding reliably into financing costs, capital allocation, and risk screening. ESG-related financial services now need to shift their focus from scale to quality.
Technology and ecosystem. The report highlights how technology and ESG reinforce each other. AI, the Internet of Things, digital twins, and biotechnology are being applied in industrial decarbonization, precision agriculture, healthcare, and urban governance, moving ESG management from after-the-fact review to real-time optimization. Green computing capacity, AI-enabled research, and optimized energy systems are helping technology companies cut resource use. Yet AI also brings challenges: the energy demands of computing, data security risks, algorithmic bias, and the digital divide. Technological progress must therefore be matched by responsible governance.
As the number of participants grows, Shanghai's wider ESG ecosystem has extended into professional services, talent development, media and communications, industry coordination, public participation, and international cooperation. Its basic framework is now in place, but there is still considerable room for improvement in professional assurance and verification, in strengthening operational effectiveness, and in coordination across organizations.
The report concludes that Shanghai's ESG development is moving beyond building frameworks and broadening participation toward a higher-quality ecosystem, wider use of ESG in decision-making, and greater real-world impact. The central question for the next stage is how to turn existing institutions, products, and services into reliable implementation capacity that delivers observable, comparable, and sustainable results.
SAIF at the Conference
Beyond providing academic support, SAIF took an active part in the conference program. At a dedicated SAIF session themed “Global Vision, Local Depth: Cultivating and Empowering Sustainable Development Leaders,” Shijun Cheng, SAIF Executive Dean, Chair Professor of Accounting, and Chairman of the SIRC Board, delivered opening remarks, and Hong Yan delivered a keynote speech. Donglai Sun (SAIF Affiliate Professor, Chairman of Shanghai Maxtropy Technology, and Researcher at the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute) and Yujun Wu (SAIF Affiliate Professor, Deputy Director of the SIRC, and Research Fellow at the SAIF Think Tank) took part in a panel discussion.
At an Orient Securities session themed “Advancing High-Quality Development with Eastern Strength,” Guangshao Tu delivered opening remarks, and Shijun Cheng signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Orient Securities on behalf of SAIF.
The second Green Industry and Sustainable Consumption Expo was held as part of this year's conference. SAIF's interactive exhibition area there showcased the institute's recent research in ESG and other fields, along with the strengths and distinctive features of its academic programs.
