Shanghai International Carbon Neutrality Expo unveils goals along road to sustainability
The 2024 Shanghai International Carbon Neutral Technology, Products and Achievements Expo opens at the Shanghai New International Expo Center on Wednesday.
Recycled boxes for fluids, floor tiles made from used textiles, biodegradable paper cups, along with many other innovative products are being presented at the International Carbon Neutral Expo, demonstrating the unremitting efforts of both Chinese and foreign enterprises in practical achievements along the road to carbon neutrality.
The 2024 Shanghai International Carbon Neutral Technology, Products and Achievements Expo, or International Carbon Neutral Expo, opened at the Shanghai New International Expo Center on Wednesday – a reflection of China's continued commitment toward carbon neutrality on its route of greener development.
The total area of this year's exhibition exceeds 100,000 square meters, with more than 600 domestic and foreign enterprises from 14 countries and regions, and over 80,000 visitors expected.
With the theme of "Toward Carbon Neutrality," this year's expo highlights advanced technologies.
The first Shanghai International Low Carbon Intelligent Mobility Exhibition 2024 (GSA 2024, also known as the New Energy Vehicle Exhibition) is also being held in the same period, in which nearly 200 enterprises and more than 40 domestic and international famous automobile brands participated.
In addition, one main forum and six parallel forums will be held during the four-day event, focusing on such aspects as international carbon neutral technology trends, domestic energy green transformation, and low-carbon supply chain construction.
The total area of this year's exhibition exceeds 100,000 square meters, with more than 600 domestic and foreign enterprises from 14 countries and regions, and over 80,000 visitors expected.
The first Shanghai International Low Carbon Intelligent Mobility Exhibition 2024 (GSA 2024, also known as the New Energy Vehicle Exhibition) is also being held in the same period.
At Lingang Group's exhibition booth, Xiangxiang.com, an enterprise specializing in the field of recyclable packaging, showcased their innovative product: recyclable liquid packaging boxes.
Each box is 1,250 liters with a sealed bag inside and can store up to 1 ton of liquid. The boxes can be easily dismantled to become only one-third of the original volume.
"The blue boxes are used to hold chemical liquids, while the green ones are for foodstuffs," staff explained.
The box combines multiple technologies such as FDA plastic, and a double glossy structure, which solve the inconvenience of traditional disposable packages that become damp, rusted, or corroded easily, or produced a large amount of discharge residue.
Each recycled box is 1,250 liters with a sealed bag inside and can store up to 1 ton of liquid.
The boxes can be easily dismantled and once dismantled are only one-third of the original volume.
Shanghai Chen Xiong Building Materials Co Ltd, an integrated supplier of decorative materials for building use, showcased their innovative low-carbon building materials at the expo, including flooring materials made from used textiles, ceramic tiles made from secondary waste heat, and wall paneling materials made from discarded ore.
"This flooring material we innovated is denser compared with similar plastic wood flooring without being more expensive, and it also solves the problem of large amounts of harmful gases produced by incineration of large quantities of waste textiles," said Tang Jiaqi from the marketing department of the company.
"Our tile factory is next to a steel mill with gas from a blast furnace. We immediately noticed that this heat energy is often wasted. So we channel this excess heat into our tile factory and use the secondary heat to make tiles," Tang said.
"The carbon footprint used for tiles like these is 165,000 carbon emissions per square meter. Without making them through secondary waste heat, that number would be around 270,000 per square meter. So we can reduce about 1 ton of carbon by producing 100 square meters of floor tiles," Tang added.
These materials are made from used textiles.
KFC has customized eco-friendly tiles from Chen Xiong.
The problem of disposable paper cups also had a new solution at this year's Carbon Expo. BASF, a chemical company from Germany, presented high-performance paper cups with water-based barrier coatings that are easy to recycle.
There is a special liquid barrier coating on each paper cup, which is also waterproof and oilproof.
"Our paper cups can be crushed directly after use, and then re-beaten into pulp," said Mao Yu, senior manager of marketing for BASF's China Corporate Communications Department. "It can be made into other paper products to minimize the environmental impact caused by disposable paper packaging, achieving the goal of carbon reduction.
"We also cooperated with Li Ning on designing green shoes using only one material, including the laces. For normal shoes, different materials need to be separated through complicated processes before they can be fully recycled," Mao said.
Environmental-friendly paper cups can be easily recycled.
A special liquid barrier coating is used on the cups.
The concept shoe is made of only one material and is a collaboration between BASF and Li Ning that is expected to go commercial in the future.
At the parallel forum, the Shanghai Foreign Investment Association and BASF also jointly launched the Zero-Carbon Recycling Paper Cup Pioneer Alliance.
"In the future, we will regularly carry out activities such as policy interpretation, enterprise visits, professional capacity development, and public outreach to promote the green and low-carbon development of foreign-invested enterprises," said Lou Jianfeng, president of the green and low-carbon branch of the SFIA.
Shanghai has always been a national leader in carbon reduction and environmental protection.
In March this year, Shanghai successively released a three-year action program to improve Environmental, Social and Governance capabilities of foreign-related enterprises (2024-2026), the first ESG regional action program in the country, as well as an action program for the improvement of the carbon footprint management system.
The exhibition will run through June 8th.
The Shanghai Foreign Investment Association and BASF also jointly launched the Zero-Carbon Recycling Paper Cup Pioneer Alliance.
If you go:
Tickets: Free registration
Address: Shanghai New International Exhibition Center
Transportation: Metro Line 7 Hua Mu Road Station
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