The Global Meeting for New Sustainability Alliances
UNDP at the Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC)
September 13, 2024
Event Details
07 - 08 October 2024
10:00am - 5:45pm
Hamburg Chamber of Commerce and Hamburg City Hall, Germany
At the Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC), leading minds from politics, business, science and civil society will plan the implementation of joint processes to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The first HSC will take place on October 7 and 8, 2024 at the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce and Hamburg City Hall.
In times of increasing geopolitical crises, the HSC promotes multilateral exchange, encourages open dialog and aims to strengthen trust in international partnerships. The discussions will focus on the design of political frameworks for joint action and the co-creation of breakthroughs to achieve the SDGs by 2030. The HSC aims to strengthen the role and responsibility of the private sector in new sustainability alliances.
More information about the program and attendees is available at https://www.sustainability-conference.org/en/.
The conference is an initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Michael Otto Foundation and the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg.
UNDP expertise and global networks are intended to ensure the quality, inclusivity and diversity of the conference. We are committed to harvest and enhance the outcomes of key multilateral moments such as the Summit of the Future by exploring new approaches at the HSC to generate broad understanding and deeper ownership to accelerate their implementation.
List of UNDP’s led sessions at the HSC:
Link to webstream will be announced at a later stage
Date | Event | Description |
Oct 7, 08:30 – 9:15am | HSC Opening Press Conference | Press briefing by the HSC initiators Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Svenja Schulze, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner, the First Mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg Peter Tschentscher and Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Otto Group |
Oct 7, 10:00-10:30am | HSC: Opening Scene with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz | Welcome by First Mayor of Hamburg Peter Tschentscher; Setting the Scene by UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner; Keynote speech by Chancelllor Olaf Scholz
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Oct 7, 2:00-3:00pm | Building Trust Through Blockchain in Green Finance | Blockchain technology offers transparent, trackable solutions to combat inefficiencies and mistrust in green finance. Innovations like tokenized nature finance and blockchain-based biodiversity credits align private capital with sustainable development goals. This session will explore these topics more in-depth.
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Oct 7, 4:00- 5:00pm | Strengthening the CODES Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability | Digital is a transformative force with vast potential for our planet and its people. However, to avoid deepening digital divides and environmental crises, it is crucial to build public digital capacities, environmental safeguards and meaningful AI governance. This session unites key actors to advance green digital action globally, following the recently adopted UN Global Digital Compact.
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Oct 7, 5:00-6:00pm
| Scaling Grassroots Innovations for Systemic Change | Small is beautiful, but will it scale? In the drive for a fairer world, we have an often-overlooked asset: what 8 billion people around the world know. Innovators and changemakers in the Global Majority tend to be defined by their problems. This session explores an alternative model: learning from innovations that have worked in sustainable development and taking them to scale via digital public goods and private sector partnerships.
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Oct 7, 6:00-6:45pm | Summit of the Future – What next | The urgent need to scale finance for the SDGs was a central topic of discussion at the Summit of the Future. It is an opportune time to explore how to build on the Pact and leverage the Hamburg Sustainability Conference 2024 as a platform to provide a critical inputs to future initiatives aimed at scaling finance for the SDGs, such as the UNFCCC COP 29 and the upcoming Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville, Spain 2025. |
Oct 8, 11:00–12:00am | How Can Innovative Insurance Solutions Future-Proof Development | Climate change, environmental degradation and an escalating debt crisis pose significant threats to lives, jobs and economic growth with ripple effects on financial resilience and investment flows. The current financial architecture fails to adequately value the economic costs of inaction to rising risks, while growing uninsurability is undermining investment in the net-zero transition and threatening to create a “climate debt trap”. To future-proof development, senior leaders across government, development, insurance and investment come together to advocate for the creation of a global de-risking facility that leverages innovative insurance solutions to drive a virtuous cycle of protection and investment in a world of rising risks. The goal? Re-shaping markets that generate economic growth while protecting people and the environment.
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Oct 8, 4:00-5:00pm | Responsible AI for Sustainable Development
| Artificial Intelligence has the potential to significantly advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by addressing global challenges. With proper governance and ethical deployment, AI can benefit people’s lives and the planet while ensuring its accessibility to all. This high-level panel discussion will establish shared principles for leveraging AI in international development, marking the first step toward the Hamburg Declaration on Responsible AI for the SDGs, which is set to be signed in June 2025.
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Oct 8, 4:00–5:45pm | Taste the Future of Global Food Security | “A Taste of the Future of Global Food Security” is an Accelerator Group session that will use future thinking to envision and build resilient food systems by 2050. This dynamic workshop brings together a diverse group of experts from various sectors to collaboratively explore sustainable solutions for the global food landscape of tomorrow.
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