On October 13, 2022, the Release Conference of Major Research Achievements Shanghai Blue Book • Annual Report on Resources and Environment of Shanghai (2022) to Celebrate the 20th National Congress of the CPC was held online. The event was jointly hosted by SASS Institute of Ecology and Sustainable Development, Shanghai Society for Ecological Economics and Shanghai Coordinated Innovation Research Base for Ecological Economy and Green Transition and co-organized by the Publicity Department of CPC SASS Committee (SASS Office of Research Achievements Dissemination). Experts of universities, research institutions and government authorities were invited to exchange views upon the topics related to improvement of Shanghai ecological soft power.
With a total of 12 chapters, Annual Report on Resources and Environment of Shanghai (2022) presents research findings on urban ecological soft power from the perspective of ecological quality, ecological culture and ecological discourse power. A three-level evaluation indicator system of Urban Ecological Soft Power Index for Ecological Quality, Ecological Culture and International Influence is established in this report. Comparative analysis is thereby made for urban ecological soft power performance of Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Singapore and other cities. It is found that “Ecological Culture” exposes the widest development gap of urban ecological soft power among the global cities, whereas relatively narrower gap exists in “International Influence” among the global cities. Although Shanghai has significantly improved its ecological and environmental quality, achieved balanced development in the abovementioned three dimensions and considerably enhanced ecological soft power in recent years, it is still dwarfed by the leading global cities in terms of ecological soft power. In particular, there is still much room for Shanghai to gain ground in terms of ecological quality, ecological cultural atmosphere, ecological behavior awareness and ecological international discourse power.
SASS Institute of Ecology and Sustainable Development and other organizations continuously monitor and analyze the annual development status, hot spots and difficulties of resources and environment in Shanghai, expound on different forward-looking issues each year, and have compiled and published the Annual Report on Resources and Environment of Shanghai for 13 consecutive years, providing references for decision-making on ecological and environmental governance in megacity.
