This session focuses on the transformative evolution of financing for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), shifting from mere liquidity issues to fostering resilience within a net-zero economy. As the global landscape increasingly embraces decarbonisation, SMEs encounter distinct challenges and promising avenues for securing finance. Our discussion will highlight how financial institutions are proactively reshaping their lending strategies to meet net-zero objectives, deftly balancing risk management with profitability and regulatory demands. We’ll explore the critical need for SMEs to invest in ways that bolster competitiveness and promote sustainable growth, while effectively leveraging intangible assets in the intricate realm of green finance. This session is vital for uncovering innovative financing approaches that empower SMEs to play a pivotal role in driving a sustainable, net-zero future.

Session Learnings:

• Revitalizing SME Lending: Embrace the Future: Discover how financial institutions are integrating decarbonization goals into SME lending and learn how SMEs can align their operations with these emerging liquidity solutions.
• Balancing Risk and Reward: The Path Forward: Explore strategies that balance risk management and profitability for small businesses in a net-zero economy. SMEs can enhance their creditworthiness by showcasing strong sustainability practices.
• Investing in Tomorrow’s Strength: Identify investment pathways that empower SMEs to strengthen their market position and ensure long-term sustainability.
• Unlocking Intangible Assets for Growth: Learn to assess and leverage intangible assets and innovative financial tools to create new opportunities in the green finance sector. SMEs can enhance the value of their intangible assets for growth.
• Empowering SMEs as Change Agents: Acknowledge the crucial role SMEs play in economic progress and the innovative financing models needed to position them as leaders in the climate transition.

Post-Event Actions:

• Align Decarbonization Strategies: Financial institutions should update credit policies to support sustainability objectives, balancing profitability with net-zero targets. SMEs need to develop sustainability roadmaps with measurable decarbonization goals to attract green finance.
• Innovate Green Finance Products: Create financial products like sustainability-linked loans tailored to SMEs to unlock green investment opportunities.
• Strengthen Capacity Building: Establish advisory programs to help SMEs identify sustainable investments and enhance ESG reporting, encouraging their active engagement.
• Optimize Data Collection: Implement systems to track the environmental and social impacts of SME portfolios, improving transparency and financing strategies.
• Foster Collaborative Ecosystems: Work with regulators and industry partners to create standardized frameworks that lower barriers for SMEs seeking green capital, facilitating their transition to sustainability.

Capital with Purpose, an officially approved United Nations Social Innovation Initiative (ID62), brings together global leaders, innovators, investors and cross-sector decision-makers to confront one of today’s defining challenges: how to rebuild resilient economies, strengthen SMEs and restore inclusive growth in an era of climate disruption, economic uncertainty and widening inequality.

Delivered through a high-energy “Power Particle Exchange” format, the session moves beyond incremental sustainability to spotlight practical, scalable pathways for systems transformation — from lowering barriers to innovation for SMEs and revitalising the middle class, to unlocking cross-sector collaboration that translates bold ideas into measurable societal impact. Designed for action, the session equips leaders with real-world insights to help reshape institutions, accelerate innovation and drive long-term prosperity.

Session Learnings:

• How to turn breakthrough ideas into scalable, practical solutions that strengthen SMEs, expand opportunity and generate long-term societal value.
• Strategies for rebuilding resilient economies by empowering SMEs, revitalising the middle class and enabling more inclusive growth.
• How business, investors, governments and institutions can unlock new models of collaboration to remove systemic barriers and accelerate innovation at scale.
• Practical pathways for translating innovation into measurable outcomes that strengthen workforce resilience, economic mobility and social stability.
• Global insights into reshaping systems for a more resilient, inclusive and future-ready society.

Post-Event Actions:

• Identify scalable pathways to strengthen SME resilience, expand economic opportunity and support a thriving middle class within their sector or ecosystem.
• Launch or deepen cross-sector partnerships that unlock innovation, remove systemic barriers and accelerate practical solutions at scale.
• Apply systems-thinking approaches to redesign strategies, policies or business models for more resilient and inclusive growth.
• Translate high-impact ideas into measurable actions that strengthen workforce resilience, economic mobility and long-term societal stability.
• Champion implementation-focused innovation that moves beyond ambition to deliver tangible outcomes across institutions, markets and society.

Data: The Strategic Architecture of a Sustainable Future explores how ESG data can move beyond disclosure and compliance to become a driver of real-world impact. As organisations across Asia—and particularly in Hong Kong—face growing investor scrutiny, regulatory complexity, and stakeholder expectations, the challenge is no longer whether to collect data, but how to use it well. This panel brings together perspectives from business, finance, technology, and social impact to examine how data quality, technology, and human judgment intersect. Through practical examples and candid discussion, speakers will address the shift from measurement to decision-making, the balance between quantitative and qualitative insights, and what needs to change for ESG data to enable systemic, long-term sustainability outcomes.

Session Learnings:

• Where ESG data genuinely creates strategic and operational value—and where it risks becoming a box-ticking exercise
• How organisations can translate ESG metrics into better decisions, investments, and partnerships
  Common ESG data quality and consistency challenges, and pragmatic ways to address them
• The appropriate role of technology, analytics, and AI alongside human judgment
• How evolving investor, regulatory, and stakeholder expectations are shaping ESG data use in Hong Kong and Asia

Post-Event Actions:

• Reassess which ESG data points are most decision-relevant for their organisation
• Identify clearer ownership and internal users of ESG data across functions
• Prioritise improvements in data quality, governance, or integration over collecting more data
• Pilot at least one way to link ESG data to a real business, investment, or impact decision
• Strengthen alignment between reporting requirements and long-term sustainability strategy

Effective sustainability standards have systems to capture and share data, ensure good management systems are in place, and provides tools to track sustainability issues along the value chain. This session will explore how investors can leverage credible sustainability standards to drive better long-term management of social and environmental risk. Hearing from standards and finance institutions, the session will help you manage low-carbon and green value chains.

Session Learnings:

• Learn how credible sustainability systems are working with investors and finance institutions to manage risks
• Understand how data from credible sustainability systems can support and power your sustainability objectives.
• Learn which types of sustainability systems can be trusted partners to help ensure socially and environmentally responsible returns on investment.

Post-Event Actions:

• Understand how to integrate sustainability systems into investment risk assessment
• Assess sustainability systems credibility components to understand which sustainability systems can be trusted to help you achieve sustainability goals.

What gets measured, gets managed.” This quote, credited to management guru Peter Drucker, serves as the justification for every dashboard, every KPI, every quarterly report. But here’s the part we quietly forget: “even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so.” Measurement is the name of the game right now: we’re under pressure to quantify everything from revenue to productivity to purpose itself —and much of that is necessary. Metrics are essential; we cannot change what we cannot track. But somehow, along the way, dashboards now shape strategies. Numbers narrow visions. People learn to hit the target but miss the point. Curated by Shared Value Initiative Hong Kong, this session explores how to use metrics as tools that demonstrate real impact beyond compliance, and support internal business cases for community investment. Discover practical ways to measure wisely, interpret what the numbers truly reveal and stay alert to what can’t be counted — so measuring progress doesn’t become a substitute for making it.

Learnings

• Explore practical techniques to balance hard numbers and human insigh
• Shift conversations from “What’s the easiest thing to measure?” to “What truly signals progress?”— and build metrics that serve your purpose
• Build in ways to extract additional insights beyond the quantitative to identify the “why” instead of the “what”

Post-event Actions

• Implement data collection that captures not just what happened, but why it matters
• Leave confident in your ability to judge whether a metric genuinely strengthens both corporate decision-making and community outcomes
• Redesign stakeholder reports to highlight the story and insight behind the numbers, not just the numbers themselves

As climate extremes intensify, the intersection of rising heat and growing water stress is emerging as a critical risk to human and planetary health. Across Asia and globally, these compounding pressures are already straining urban systems, disrupting economic activity, and amplifying health vulnerabilities.

This session brings together leaders from science, policy, industry, and finance to examine how heat and water risks are reshaping resilience planning and capital allocation. Through a moderated discussion, panellists will share perspectives on where vulnerabilities are most acute, what solutions are proving effective, and how system level resilience can be built across infrastructure, industry, and cities.

With a strong focus on action, the session will spotlight real world case studies spanning climate resilient infrastructure, advanced cooling, and sustainable water management. It will also explore how innovative financing approaches (including blended and catalytic capital) can derisk and accelerate solutions at scale.

Attendees will gain practical insights on how impact capital can be mobilised to address climate driven health risks today, while strengthening long term planetary resilience.

Session Learnings:

• How extreme heat and water scarcity interact to compound risks across public health, economic productivity, and planetary health
• Where the most critical vulnerabilities lie across urban, industrial, and energy systems in Asia, and why early intervention is essential
• Which emerging solutions in cooling, water efficiency, and climate resilient infrastructure are already scalable and deployable today
• How blended finance and catalytic capital can unlock private investment and accelerate the adoption of climate health solutions
• Practical case studies showcasing effective cross-sector collaboration between governments, industry, investors, and philanthropy

Post-Event Actions:

•  Identify and prioritise heat and water-related climate health risks within their organisations, portfolios, or jurisdictions
• Explore cross-sector partnerships to pilot, finance, or scale integrated climate and health interventions
• Assess opportunities to deploy or support innovative technologies in cooling, water management, and resilience
• Embed climate health considerations into investment strategies, policy design, and o
• perational planningAdvance internal or cross-organisational dialogue on building long term resilience to climate driven health risks

Impact Safari reimagines how innovators collaborate by replacing siloed sectors with a living ecosystem of innovation partnerships. Taking references from Hong Kong’s emerging Northern Metropolis, we see the catalytic power of innovation partnerships with diverse actors (including but not limited to intermediaries, community organisations, ventures, academia, and the government) coming together to tackle real neighbourhood challenges. This panel will bring us to an open sharing of impact journeys grounded in the neighbourhood that unlocks new business value. Whether you are a corporate looking to diversify your impact strategy or a startup seeking meaningful go-to-market pathways, this panel maps a replicable blueprint for building impact ecology across the Asia Pacific region.

Session Learnings:

• Understand how an innovation ecosystem that embodies cross-sector collaboration between corporates, startups, NGOs and government bodies can address shared community challenges and opportunities
• Learn how regional and local innovators interact to spark knowledge exchange and scalable solutions
• See how anchoring innovation in a specific place (e.g. Northern Metropolis) creates focus, cross-sectoral synergy and unlock new urban development momentum

Post-Event Actions:

• Map your organisation’s existing partnerships across sectors (corporate, NGO, government, academia, startup) and identify where siloed relationships could be rewired into an interconnected innovation ecosystem
• Connect with local and regional peers with shared thematic interest to explore impact synergies
• Evaluate how your organisation support internal and external innovation efforts

As brands increasingly align with sustainability goals, the challenge lies not just in what they communicate, but how they do it. In an era of rising scrutiny, audiences demand transparency, purpose, and proof, yet many organisations risk tipping into greenwashing or greenhushing. In this session, hosted by PRHK, we explore how marketing and communications professionals can craft narratives that are both credible and inspiring. Through strategic insight and real-world examples, speakers will discuss how to reimagine sustainability storytelling that builds long-term trust, supports organisational accountability, and sparks genuine impact, all while staying authentic to brand purpose and audience expectations.

Session Learnings:

• Distinguish between authentic sustainability storytelling and promotional overreach.
• Integrate transparency and accountability into brand communications frameworks.
• Use storytelling to communicate complex ESG goals in engaging, audience-centred ways.
• Navigate the fine line between confidence and caution in sustainability messaging.
• Develop actionable strategies for credibility, consistency, and long-term stakeholder trust.

Post-Event Actions:

• Audit and align sustainability narratives across their organisation to ensure authenticity, consistency, and data-driven credibility.
• Foster internal collaboration between communications, ESG, and leadership teams to build a unified, purpose-led strategy for sustainability storytelling.
• Apply the balance of authenticity, accountability, and aspiration when crafting campaigns — moving beyond awareness to influence culture and behaviour.
• Embed sustainability storytelling into long-term business transformation, using transparent communication as a catalyst for trust, innovation, and measurable impact.

How diversity in senior leadership is a business imperative, and how broader perspectives inform boardroom conversations and improve business outcomes.

The panel will include senior female leaders, male allies and diversity champions across business to facilitate a full and holistic discussion of the topic including case studies that illustrate the benefits of diverse leadership.

Session Learnings:

• The current business landscape and leadership demographics
• Why homogenous leadership results in failure
• Where businesses have purposefully diversified their leadership team and the benefits realised.
• Personal stories, advice and inspiration from the panellists

Post-Event Actions:

• Take a look at your team and the succession strategy – does your planning allow for more diverse backgrounds, experience and thinking from gender to ethnicity to neurodiversity?
• Look at the organisations and sources that can enable you on the journey e.g. The Women’s Foundation, Chambers of Commerce.
• Be informed, and be aware of what is happening in your sector and beyond.

To explore how workforce transformation can be advanced as a force for social good, this session will discuss how education, entrepreneurship, technology, and cross-sector collaboration can better prepare people for a rapidly changing world of work. As AI and emerging innovations reshape skills demand, tertiary education must move beyond traditional knowledge delivery to develop adaptive, responsible, and socially minded talent.

Participants will gain insights into how educators, entrepreneurs, businesses, and NGOs can work together to strengthen workforce readiness, inclusion, and lifelong learning. The discussion will also highlight how future talent development can address not only organisational needs, but also broader social challenges, ensuring that individuals and communities are equipped to thrive in an evolving economy.

Session Learnings:

• How AI, innovation, and changing social needs are transforming the skills required for the future workforce.
• Why workforce transformation should be understood not only as a business challenge, but also as an education and social good challenge.
• How tertiary education can better prepare students and lifelong learners to adapt to evolving workforce demands.
• What entrepreneurs, businesses, NGOs, and educators can learn from one another in developing future-ready talent.
• How cross-sector collaboration can create more inclusive pathways for workforce readiness and social impact.

Post-Event Actions:

• How AI, innovation, and changing social needs are transforming the skills required for the future workforce.
• Why workforce transformation should be understood not only as a business challenge, but also as an education and social good challenge.
• How tertiary education can better prepare students and lifelong learners to adapt to evolving workforce demands.
• What entrepreneurs, businesses, NGOs, and educators can learn from one another in developing future-ready talent.
• How cross-sector collaboration can create more inclusive pathways for workforce readiness and social impact.