Global

Swiss Building Tech Roundtable

From Planetary Ambitions to Building Practice – What does it take to turn our responsibility to the planet into the everyday decisions that shape how we build?

The built environment is where planetary challenges become tangible. The materials we extract, the energy we consume, and the buildings we construct all shape our relationship with the Earth’s finite resources. Yet moving towards a more sustainable built environment requires more than new technologies or ambitious targets. It requires these solutions to become part of how buildings are designed, specified, financed, and built.

At Cabanon 2050, where zero-emission design, circular materials, and energy autonomy come together within just 15 m², these possibilities take a tangible form. But how can the principles embodied in this small-scale demonstration translate into projects across China’s vast and rapidly evolving built environment? What stands between planetary ambitions and standard building practice?

Co-organised by SwissCham China and Swissnex in China, the Swiss Building Tech Round Table brings together nine Swiss companies active in China’s built-environment sector for a focused peer exchange on the realities of bringing sustainable building technologies to market. Within the broader context of the Planetary Embassy, the conversation asks how industry can help bridge the gap between imagining more regenerative ways of living and making them possible at scale.

Three companies (IQAir, Shine, and Sika BFM) will share their perspectives, followed by a moderated round table open to all participating companies. Together, participants will explore the barriers that prevent promising solutions from becoming standard practice: higher upfront costs, lengthy specification processes, competing priorities, and the challenge of communicating long-term value to clients.

When does the conversation around sustainable building technologies gain traction, and when does it fall apart? Who has the responsibility and influence to move solutions forward? And what would it take to make planetary considerations not an exception to conventional construction, but a fundamental part of how we build?

By bringing market experience into dialogue with the wider ambitions of the Planetary Embassy, this exchange seeks to move beyond the question of what technologies can do towards what it takes to put them into practice.

Program

Moderation: Vittoria Pesenti, Executive Director, SwissCham Shanghai

09:30 – Registration

10:00 – Welcome

10:05 – IQAir presentation – Crystal Han, VP Sales and Marketing, IQAir China

10:12 – Shine presentation – Sophia Slingerland, Founder & GM, Shine | National Representative, Vice-President, SwissCham Shanghai

10:19 – TBD

10:26 – Moderated round table – all participants

11:20 – Wrap-up & next steps

11:30 – End

Speakers

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    Bio

    Vittoria Pesenti

    Executive Director, SwissCham Shanghai

  • Bio

    Crystal Han

    VP Sales and Marketing, IQAir China

    In 2016, Crystal Han joined IQAir China and took charge of Visual Merchandising in China, promoting IQAir’s brand image in branded stores, ShunDian, Suning and other channels. From 2018 onwards, Crystal has successively transferred to the position of Product Manager in China, and was promoted to lead China Marketing team. After successfully launching flagship products such as Atem Car, IQAir Mask, CleanZone, Infinity, etc., IQAir’s brand reputation has been further expanded, and its high-end image has gained more attention, Crystal Han continued to take over offline retail, B2B and e-commerce sales team from 2021 onwards. Crystal and her team promote the brand’s transition from high-end niche market to public awareness in the health technology field by formulating and executing the long-term strategy for the IQAir China market. In recent years, Crystal Han has led the team to analyze the changing needs of Chinese consumers for indoor air quality, and led the iterative upgrading of the product line, launching the GC XE Chinese market, and ultimately making it the breakout product in the high-end air purification market. In the B2B field, she led the team to innovate and launch a total solution for air purification, which solved many practical problems for more enterprise-level customers through real-time air quality monitoring, intelligent regulation and control, high standard air purification, combined with outdoor air quality big data technology. Crystal Han also put forward ESG and public health related advocacy from the perspective of the environmental, social, and governance aspects of air quality. Crystal Han also advocated the “Clean Air Facility” program, which started with IQAir China itself, empowering customers and contributing to raising public awareness of clean breathing space, and helping more enterprises to strengthen their brand image of social responsibility.

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    Bio

    Sophia Slingerland

    Founder & GM, Shine | National Representative, Vice-President, SwissCham Shanghai

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