Green Design and Sustainable Development

 

Green Design and Sustainable Development

 

Keynote Address – 2025 Sustainability Global Leaders Conference

17 October 2025, Shanghai

Janos Pasztor

 

Theme: Joining Hands to Address Challenges: Global Action, Innovation and Sustainable Growth

 

Distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

 

It is a privilege to be back here in Shanghai for this important dialogue on sustainability and leadership. Few places symbolize the scale and speed of transformation as vividly as this city. It reminds us that human ingenuity can achieve remarkable things — but also that our choices now will shape the conditions for life on Earth for centuries to come.

 

1. The Climate Challenge and the End of Holocene Stability

 

The scientific message is clear. The year 2024 was the hottest ever recorded — about 1.6C  above pre-industrial levels. The warming trend for the coming years and decades is now unavoidable .

 

For roughly ten thousand years — the period scientists call the Holocene — Earth’s average temperature varied within plus or minus 0.5C degree. It was a remarkably stable climate, and that stability allowed agriculture, cities, and complex societies to emerge and flourish.

 

But we are now in the Anthropocene — a new epoch where human activity is reshaping the atmosphere, the oceans, and the biosphere itself. Whatever we do now, it will continue to get warmer for decades. The task before us is not only to slow this trajectory but eventually to reverse it — while keeping our societies and economies resilient in the process.

 

2. The SDGs and Earth-System Resilience

 

The Sustainable Development Goals give us the most comprehensive framework humanity has ever agreed upon. Yet, accelerating warming threatens progress on almost every one of them — from food and health to water, cities, and biodiversity.

 

The Earth Commission and the Lancet Commission on Planetary Health amongst others remind us in recently published reports that crossing planetary boundaries erodes the planet’s resilience — its ability to absorb shocks and maintain ecosystem functions.

 

The climate crisis, therefore, is not simply one SDG among seventeen. It is the systemic stressor that determines the success or failure of them all. Rebuilding the resilience of the Earth system must become the unifying goal of sustainable development in this century.

 

3. The Path Forward – Climate Stabilization within the Broader Goal of Planetary Resilience

 

While the broader mission of sustainability involves restoring ecosystems, managing resources, and strengthening societies, the climate component remains central. Climate change amplifies every other environmental and social challenge.

 

Addressing it requires a three-part strategy.

 

First, we must stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. That means decarbonizing energy, industry, transport, agriculture, and cities. It is not only about technology; it is about design — the way we plan, build, move, and consume.

 

Second, we must remove the excess carbon already in the atmosphere. Even if global emissions stopped today — which is, of course, impossible — the existing atmospheric  carbon would continue to warm the planet for centuries. Large-scale, long-term carbon removal, through natural and technological means, will be essential to restore balance.

 

Third, because both emission reduction and carbon removal take time, we may need to consider temporary cooling methods such as various solar radiation modification (SRM) techniques to reduce near-term risks while decarbonization proceeds. SRM, however, is not a solution to the Climate Crisis.  Only emissions reductions and carbon removal are.  However, SRM could help reduce heat stress as part of an integrated, carefully governed global effort.  This requires transparent, internationally governed research into SRM to better understand the risks, benefits and governance challenges, before decisions are taken for or against deployment.

 

Together, these steps — stop emissions, remove carbon, and research responsible cooling — form the climate-stabilization pillar of a much wider agenda to rebuild planetary resilience: restoring soils, oceans, forests, and the life-support systems that sustain us all.

 

4. Green Design – The Integrator of Climate Action and the SDGs

 

This is where green design becomes central.

 

The World Green Design Organization - of which I am honoured to be the VP -defines it as design that integrates environmental, social, and economic performance from the start — moving from “less harm” toward “regenerative value.”

 

Green design is not only about products; it is about the metabolism of our entire society. It shapes how we construct buildings, organize mobility, produce food, and manufacture goods.

 

Through green design:

• Buildings become energy producers rather than energy consumers.

• Industrial processes close their loops — reusing, recycling, regenerating.

• Mobility systems become cleaner, smarter, and connected.

• Agriculture restores the soils and ecosystems on which it depends.

 

In China, we already see this vision taking shape — through the World Green Design Forum, the Green Leaf Mark, and the World Green Design Capital initiatives. Examples are also found in many other countries, such as, for example, the “Living Building” of the Georgia Institute of Technology in the USA. These efforts link policy, industry, and innovation to turn sustainability into practice.

 

Design, in this sense, is the bridge between science and implementation. It translates goals into daily reality. It is how global ambition becomes tangible action.

 

5. Governance and Institutional Transformation – From Fragmentation to Integration

 

Yet design and technology alone cannot deliver this transformation. The governance challenge is immense.

 

Our current global architecture is still fragmented — climate, biodiversity, pollution, and economy each addressed in isolation. The Earth, however, operates as one integrated system.

 

We therefore need revised and, in some cases, entirely new institutions capable of managing complexity across boundaries.

 

This means:

• Increasingly integrated policy frameworks that link the Paris Agreement, the SDGs, and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

• National coordination mechanisms aligning ministries of energy, industry, finance, and environment around shared decarbonization and resilience goals.

• Financial and accountability systems that reward long-term stability — combining green finance, ESG reporting, public investment in resilience, and exploring innovative funding mechanisms, especially at local levels.

• And research and governance platforms for new interventions such as carbon removal and SRM — ensuring legitimacy, transparency, and multilateral oversight.

 

The World Green Design Organization itself offers one model of this integrative approach — uniting science, policy, and design around shared global sustainability goals.

 

To rebuild the resilience of the Earth system, we must redesign, and in some cases invent institutions capable of governing complexity with foresight, coherence, and trust.

 

6. Geopolitical Realities – Headwinds in a Fragmented World

 

We must also acknowledge the current geopolitical context.

 

The global environment for cooperation has been difficult. Some major economies are retreating from climate and sustainability commitments, such as the USA and also to some extent Europe. Polarization is increasing, and the multilateral system is under strain.

 

There are at least two important implications of this trend. First, achieving our global objectives – such as Climate and Biodiversity objectives and the SDGs - will be harder. Second, leadership will have to focus closer to home — to nations, cities, and enterprises that continue to act decisively regardless of shifting geopolitics.

 

Yet multilateralism remains essential. The SDGs, the Paris Agreement, and the Kunming–Montreal Framework provide our shared compass. In this context, China’s continued leadership, innovation, and cooperation are vital to sustaining global direction and confidence.

 

7. Conclusion – Designing for Resilience and the Continuity of Life

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

We are moving beyond the stable climate of the Holocene into a hotter, less predictable world. To safeguard civilization, we must stop emissions, remove carbon, and — if needed — cool the planet, while rebuilding the resilience of the Earth system as a whole.

 

Green design and sustainable engineering give us the creative and practical tools to achieve this transformation. New governance and renewed cooperation will determine whether we succeed.

 

Our task is not to design for efficiency or growth alone, but for the continuity of life itself — for resilience, regeneration, and hope.

 

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen

Given recent developments in the world, I wish to add one more point.  Green design is even more important when one is designing and building new, or rebuilding old – so that sustainability can be built-in from the start.  At the moment, I can only think of our brothers and sisters in Palestine.  Their homes, hospitals and cities have been destroyed. Now, a fledging cease fire will hopefully evolve into long term peace and sustainable, green reconstruction.