CI held Sixth Lunchtime Forum

On September 26, 2022, the Confucius Institute at the University of Southampton held the sixth lunchtime webinar of this year——Overcoming barriers to supply chain decarbonization: Case studies of first movers, which was given by Dr. Yu(Jack) Gong. This lecture was held on the Microsoft teams platform and was hosted by the core teacher of the CI, Ms Fu. Ying.

After introducing the international environment of environmental protection issues, Dr. Yu Gong presented the audience with a series of graphs and data to demonstrate why he chose the supply chain industry as the starting point for the research. He and his team selected six supply chain companies from different countries which have already engaged in the decarbonization action to conduct interviews and surveys, and found four common barriers for most companies during this process: “major upfront investment costs,” “lack of awareness,” “lack of expertise,” and “resistant mindset.” Based on that, Dr. Yu Gong's research team developed the corresponding framework and discussed the practical implications of jointly overcoming barriers to supply chain decarbonization by governments and businesses.

In the final Q&A session, the audience exchanged views with Dr. Yu Gong on "what role does the government play in this action" and "how can companies benefit from decarbonization actions". This forum by Dr. Yu Gong cut into the details of life, ran through the research process, and ended in an active interaction with the audience. While promoting environmental protection, it also benefited the audience a lot.