Chinese and German companies need to deepen cooperation: expert

Chinese and German companies need to further deepen their cooperation promoting sustainable development, which can help achieve the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs), experts have said.

"It's absolutely necessary that more cooperation is needed (to boost sustainable development," said Nadine-Lan Honighaus, executive director of Econsense, a network of global companies committed to sustainability.

The first step for collaboration is to identify the areas that are equally important for companies from the two countries and where both businesses have impact, Honighaus said in a recent interview.

Companies in different sectors can analyze how their business can interact with the UN's SDGs and how to contribute in a meaningful way, she said.

"Cooperation takes time. A good ground for cooperation is a level of transparency with the other companies and businesses," Honighaus said.

She said that being sustainable can not only help companies avoid risks, but also give them a business advantage. Sustainable companies can have a stable relationship with their partners.

Honighaus made the remarks in an exclusive interview with China Daily on the sidelines of the Sino-German Sustainability Summit in Beijing.

The event aims to pilot a bilateral mechanism of communication and collaboration between China and Germany on sustainability.

In his speech at the summit, Ralf Scheller, member of the executive board at TUV Rheinland, said stable and win-win international partnerships are key to achieving the SDGs.

"The willingness of the Chinese and German governments and enterprises to engage in mutual support and cooperation, as well as the complementarity of the industrial value chains in the two countries, have engendered huge space and opportunities for cooperation between the two countries," Scheller said.

TUV Rheinland is an international, independent third-party testing, inspection and certification organization.

Zhu Hongren, executive vice chairman of the China Enterprise Confederation, said Sino-German collaboration in promoting sustainable development will play a significant role in achieving the UN's SDGs.

TUV Rheinland hosted the summit on Thursday. More than 200 representatives from Chinese and German companies, financial institutions, think tanks, and non-governmental organizations came together to exchange insights and practices on corporate social responsibility under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.