Li Qiang, Secretary of Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, made a field survey of the Yangtze River Delta Institute for Sustainable Development led by Tongji University

On the second construction anniversary of the Yangtze River Delta Ecological and Green Integration Development Demonstration Zone, Li Qiang, Shanghai Municipal Party Secretary, yesterday (October 27) conducted a field survey on the construction status of the demonstration zone. In there, Yangtze River Delta Institute for Sustainable Development, whose construction was led by Tongji University and mainly constructed by our department, is the first stop of Li Qiang's investigation. Li Qiang pointed out that, to further implement the important instructions and instruction spirits of Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), about the development and integration of Yangtze River delta, we should always maintain the resilience to promote work, the courage to innovate, and the struggle to overcome difficulty, thereby accelerating the construction of the demonstration area, continuously making new achievements about the integration system. We should also strive to set a new model for ecological and green integration, demonstrating a new vision of high-quality development better, and building a new development landscape with better services, so that people could have a greater sense of fulfillment, happiness and security.

During investigation, Li Qiang listened to the introductions of exploring the regional, collaborative mechanism of scientific and technological innovation, constructing the sustainable scientific and technological innovation platform, and current situations about the cultivation of low-carbon talents and the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. He also inspected the demonstration application of cutting-edge, low-carbon and environmental protection technologies. Li Qiang also learnt about the institute’s novel scientific and educational cooperation mechanisms on exploring integration of Yangtze river delta, its cooperation with model enterprises in the delta to build an innovation research and development center, and its strive to form a batch of green and low-carbon original technologies that are leading and demonstrative. Li Qiang supplemented that it is necessary to stick to carrying out goals of carbon neutrality and carbon emission peak, building open cooperation platform, making good use of collaborative innovation mechanism, stimulating new energy for green development, and truly transforming the discipline advantage, talent advantage, research advantage into local development practice. We are expected to promot high-quality and sustainable development, make breakthroughs in major frontier theories, overcome key technical problems, promote the application of scientific and technological achievements, enhance scientific and technological innovation capacity, and foster and develop low-carbon industries, so as to better facilitate the in-depth implementation of the national strategy for integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.

Municipal leaders of Shanghai, Chen Yin and Zhuge Yujie, Party Secretary General of TJU, Fang Shouen, Executive Vice President, Lu Peiming, Party Secretary General of our department, Liu Jianxiong, Vice Dean Xu Bin, and Deputy Party Secretary Lu Lijun participated in theevent. Wu Jiang, who is the former Executive Vice President of Tongji University and currently the President of Yangtze River Delta Institute for Sustainable Development, introduced the working progress of the institute.

To service the national development strategy of Yangtze river delta integration, Tongji University actively gives play to the resource advantage of major Environment and Sustainable Development, and positive participates in the construction of Yangtze river delta integration development demonstration area. Under the guidance of Shanghai municipal government, the executive committee of the demonstration area, and Qingpu District, Tongji University led the construction of Yangtze River Delta Institute for Sustainable Development, aiming to meet the major innovation needs of the ecological and green development of Yangtze River Delta integration, uniting with the top universities and high-quality scientific innovation resources in the Yangtze River Delta, striving to form a trans-regional and multi-disciplinary innovation mechanism in personnel training, scientific research, social services and others, so as to jointly serve the high-quality integration construction of the Yangtze River Delta.

The institute was set by the university and managed by the department. Our department immediately established a base construction team for the first phase construction of the institute. The whole process was planned and implemented from site selection in the early stage to fundraising, integration of market resources, establishment of interdisciplinary technical team, and finally, the low-carbon transformation of the original building of south classical garden architectural style was completed in nearly 100 days. With unremitting efforts, the institute has now settled in Yingyuan, Daguan Area, Jinze Town, Qingpu District (located at 708 Jinshang Road). The follow-up work is progressing steadily and orderly, and important progress will be made in the research of carbon peak carbon neutrality strategies, zero-carbon technology and community demonstration, and the landing of national key platforms.

At the same time, under the active organization of our department, the demonstration base of the Institute (Phase I) brought together technical teams from related disciplines of environment, heating and ventilation, automotive studies, civil engineering, architecture and others to display a batch of green and low-carbon cutting-edge demonstration technologies and their applications, which include coffee residue recycling decoration panel, full cycle and zero emission ecological public toilet technology, alkaline electrolytic water hydrogen production system, hydrogen storage compression and filling system, miniature air quality monitoring system, real-time monitoring platform of carbon footprint, green prefabricated building technology, 3D printing technology for ash and slag, and etc. There are now four research centers of carbon neutrality and ecological environmental protection in the institute, which are jointly built by Tongji University, China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group, China National Administration of Coal Geology, Baoye Corporation and Shanghai Guohui Environment Company.They all have been settled in the research institute to promote in-depth substantive cooperation between the university and enterprises.

Recently, “Working Guidance of Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutralization in the Demonstration Zone”, which was led by Tongji University team, was officially issued. This marks an important progress of Tongji University in the comprehensive research on carbon peak and carbon neutrality strategy commissioned by the Demonstration Zone Executive Committee. At present, the institute is drafting a "Carbon Action Plan" for the demonstration area, which will be launched in the near future. The Institute will clarify the roadmapS of carbon peak and carbon neutrality for the demonstration area and combine forces to build the Yangtze River Delta integrated carbon neutrality demonstration base, in order to provide a solid theoretical basis and quantitative basis for the Yangtze River Delta integrated demonstration area to accelerate the realization of carbon peak and carbon neutrality and take the lead in forming a new paradigm of green and low-carbon development.