Sustainability investment in China is no longer a "whether" question for most international companies. Factories have been built, certifications obtained, low-carbon product lines launched, and supplier standards tightened. The harder question is what happens after that investment is already in the ground: which parts of it actually enter a customer's procurement decision — and which parts remain a cost the supplier carries alone?

Join the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in China and the CSR Centre at the Embassy of Sweden in Beijing for a focused breakfast hybrid seminar session in Shanghai on 19th Nov. on turning sustainability from a premium into a preference in markets.

The evidence is more complicated than the narrative. Survey after survey shows high stated willingness to pay for sustainable products, yet in real tender processes a modest price differential is often enough to override the green attribute. The gap is not a lack of sustainability ambition among suppliers. It is a monetization gap: the investment has been made, but the commercial mechanism to capture its value has not been built.

What the session will deliver:

• A data-driven keynote on how Chinese consumer and procurement attitudes toward sustainability are shifting — and where the gap between stated preference and actual purchasing behaviour is widest.
• A platform and policy-trend keynote examining how e-commerce and procurement ecosystems are (or are not) making green attributes comparable, visible, and decision-ready at scale.
• A moderated panel with four Swedish companies that have already crossed the investment threshold — in materials, industrial equipment, urban infrastructure, and packaging. The panel will focus instead on how existing investments are being leveraged commercially: what buyers actually ask for, what they ignore, what makes a green attribute survive a procurement committee, and what Swedish suppliers should stop and start doing.

Date

19th Nov. 2026 (Thursday)

Time

08:30 - 11:30, Beijing Time

Speakers:

Stina Hinderson, Head of the CSR Centre, Embassy of Sweden in Beijing

More to come...

Agenda:

08:30 – 09:00: Check-In & Breakfast

09:00: Event Starts

09:05 – 09:10: Welcoming Remarks

09:10 - 09:15: Opening Remarks

09:15 – 09:45: Keynote speech 1

09: 45 – 10: 10: Keynote speech 2

10:10 – 10:50 Panel Discussion: From Premium to Preference: Leveraging Sustainability in B2B Markets

10:50 - 11:30: Q&A and Mingle

(The agenda is current & continuously updated)

Language:

English & Chinese

(simultaneous interpretation service is available)

Price:

Member-only: Complimentary

(Breakfast is served to offline guests at the event)

Venue:

Offline in Shanghai

The Sukhothai Shanghai 2F, Grand Shanghai Ballroom I

No. 380 Weihai Road, Jing'an District, Shanghai, China

上海素凯泰酒店 2层大上海宴会厅1

上海市静安区威海路380号

Online via Zoom

The Zoom meeting link will be shared one day before the event to your email inbox

Cancellation Policy

If you cannot attend a seminar for which you have registered, please cancel your registration no later than three business days prior to the event. If you fail to notify us of your cancellation in a timely fashion, you will be charged for the ticket costs.

At the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in China, membership includes both the company's employees in China and globally. If you cannot attend or believe someone in your team would like to attend, please feel free to share this event with your colleagues.