On September 11, the 2025 Global Headquarters Economy Conference and China Building Economy Beijing Forum was held in Beijing. The event was organized by the World Trade Network Alliance and China Association for the Promotion of Industrial Development, co-organized by the Building Economy and Headquarters Economy Branch of China Association for the Promotion of Industrial Development and Cluster Think Tank. The conference invited renowned headquarters enterprises and asset management institutions to focus on opportunities and challenges in the development of headquarters economy and building economy from a global perspective, exploring paths and models for "breakthrough and evolution," constructing a "city-headquarters-building" industrial community, and establishing a high-end dialogue and cooperation platform for headquarters economy and building economy. Lv Jianzhong, former director of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), was invited to serve as the moderator for the roundtable dialogue on "ESG Empowering Real Industry and Real Estate Value Creation."
The dialogue transcript is as follows:
Transitioning from the topic of building economy to ESG, I would like to respond to the key points from Mr. Huang Liping's speech. Mr. Huang proposed an economic paradox that often troubles us - the "trilemma," which reminds me of a three-element relationship theory in the field of sustainable development economics. This theory examines how the three important elements of economy, society, and environment can form a sustainable balance: establishing an equity relationship between economy and society, a vitality relationship between economic development and environmental protection, and a bearable relationship between society and environment. This is also a three-element structured systematic framework. I believe today's discussion topic is about finding breakthroughs and establishing evolutionary paths in the game between traditional economics and sustainable development economics. This is the important significance of our roundtable.
Mr. Huang mentioned multiple stakeholders in his thinking, which is exactly the problem that ESG needs to solve. So we discuss this topic in two rounds. The first round focuses on stakeholder ecosystems. The guests at this roundtable come from headquarters, parks, asset management institutions, and ESG service organizations, forming a stakeholder group. Within this group, value creation involves both mutual synergy and mutual constraints. Can we form an ecosystem of common development and co-created value? In such an ecosystem composed of multiple stakeholders, what are the opportunities for value co-creation and how do we construct such an ecosystem that generates value co-creation? What key elements are needed?
The discussions highlighted this key point: placing building economy within the field of sustainable development to deeply explore its commercial logic. The commercial logic, as pointed out by Mr. Xu Zhonghua, must be based on social needs and stem from the commercial sector's own sustainable development demands. However, this is not enough. We also need to form an ecosystem of risk co-governance, value co-creation, standard co-construction, platform co-building, and resource sharing. In this ecosystem, I want to borrow Mr. Zhang Zhengwei's "three A's" to remind everyone present. All attendees are leading the sustainable development of their respective enterprises - you are the most critical figures. As leaders, your vision and pragmatic actions determine the success of enterprise sustainable business. This "leadership" should be Available, should Adopt, and must Apply. "Available" means being online to personally lead; "Adopt" means embracing and accepting the concept of sustainable development to bring business transformation, upgrading, and change; "Apply" means using actions to practice sustainable development. I share this with everyone for mutual encouragement. Thank you all.
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