“What’s the state of green entrepreneurship in China?” 🌱 Hear from Wandong Yang, Startup Ecosystem Manager at Impact Hub Shanghai, as she shares insights into emerging trends and programs shaping the future.

State of the sector and how they see C&E Learning Lab as an opportunity for the ecosystem

How do we connect the dots between promising innovation and real-world application at scale? Despite a rise in attention on climate-focused ventures in China, early-stage startups still face critical barriers—including access to aligned capital, corporate partnerships, and cross-sector collaboration. The C&E Learning Lab offers a global and regional perspective, filled with best practices and tried-and-true methods from other ESOs and ecosystems. For a locally rooted and globally connected organization like Impact Hub Shanghai, ANDE and C&E Learning Lab greatly enhances our ability to identify parallels, avoid reinventing the wheel, and localize insights into our work with scaling climate startups.

Your ongoing programs supporting entrepreneurship and how others can collaborate with your organization

At Impact Hub Shanghai, we support early-stage impact startups by helping them scale and embed their solutions into real-world applications through collaboration with corporates and key ecosystem stakeholders.

For instance, in the F&B industry, we have been working with Budweiser APAC since 2021 to identify sustainability challenges across their value chain—from packaging and energy use to water management—and then match these needs with high-potential startup solutions and explore more possibilities through pilots. This program built the foundation for an innovation ecosystem, involving more upstream suppliers and corporates, and other stakeholders such as banks, government and investors, creating the enabling environments that startups need to move from idea to impact, to gain credibility, market access, and scale.

This line of work also extends into other critical industries and sectors such as steel, agriculture, and CCUS. For example, in partnership with Tencent, we launched CarbonX, a platform focused on identifying and deploying cutting edge low carbon technologies worldwide.

We welcome anyone interested in addressing systematic challenges in climate related sectors, and supporting early stage climate innovation across China and Asia. Looking forward to more conversations from the C&E Lab.

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to create environmentally conscious businesses?

Environmental impact is not just about technology—it’s about how your solution integrates into existing value chains, and markets. A groundbreaking solution on its own is rarely enough. True impact happens when that solution is deeply embedded within the systems it aims to change. This means understanding not only the science and engineering behind your product, but also how your solution fits into the operational realities of your target users or industries.