PVTIME – LONGi’s founder and president Li Zhenguo attended the Innovation for Industrial Sustainability event together with business leaders, academic experts and United Nations officials in New York, held on the sidelines of the 2023 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit.
The event, jointly hosted by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Tsinghua University and UN Water, featured keynote speeches and panel discussions on topics such as sustainable consumption and production, renewable energy applications in businesses, and green industry practices.
Speaking at the panel ‘Addressing the Triple Earth Crisis: Industry in Action’, Mr. Li Zhenguo said that the key element of climate action is energy transition. Over the past decade, LONGi had transformed the photovoltaic sector with its monocrystalline silicon technology, which significantly reduced global solar power generation costs by more than 90%, turning photovoltaics from an expensive emerging renewable energy to one of the cheapest sources of electricity.
With the continuous efforts of LONGi, the current status and proportion of photovoltaic in the world energy pattern has been comprehensively increased, which has also implemented the UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 ‘Affordable and Clean Energy’. LONGi promises to actively promote the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, continue to carry forward the concept and practice of green manufacturing, establish industry benchmarks, and drive the industry to create a zero-carbon future.
From 2012 to 2022, LONGi has produced 290 GW of photovoltaic products, resulting in a cumulative clean energy output of over 1.15 million GWh. Based on the average emission factor of the global power grid estimated by the IEA, this is equivalent to avoiding 536 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, accounting for 1.46% of the total global energy-related carbon emissions in 2022.
As early as the 24th United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2018, LONGi proposed the concept of ‘Solar for Solar’, that is, to produce clean energy with clean energy. In 2020, LONGi successively joined initiatives of RE100, EP100, EV100 and participated in the SBTi, becoming the first Chinese company to join the four global initiatives all together. This year, LONGi’s near-term target has been approved by the SBTi, aligning with the 1.5℃ target in the Paris Agreement.
The event also witnessed the signing of the ‘Our Responsibility and Commitment to A Green and Sustainable Future We Want’ endorsed by Chinese enterprises. Alongside a collection of case studies that demonstrated Chinese enterprises’ implementation of SDG goals and recommended industrial good practices, the pledge was formally presented to Li Junhua, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs by Mr. Li Zhenguo on behalf of the signatory companies. The 10-point initiative urges the global business community to consolidate industry development consensus in resource use, renewable energy adoption, technological innovation, inclusive growth, and sustainable international collaboration.
