The opening ceremony of 2013 International Student’s Conference on Environment and Sustainability（ISCES 2013）was held on June 5, World Environment Day, at the Siping Campus of Tongji University. ISCES 2013 was held by the UNEP and Tongji University and organized by UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development (IESD). This year marked the third anniversary of the conference. This year’s conference attracts around 400 students in about 45 countries in the world. In the upcoming four days, they will share their practices and understanding on the “food, health and sustainable development.”

At the opening ceremony, Prof. PEI Gang, President of Tongji University, Dr. Monika MacDevette, Deputy Director of Early Warning and Assessment of the UNEP, Mr. Surendra Shrestha, Senior Advisor and Focal Point for SDGs, UNEP, Mr. Xiaochun Lu, Vice Director of the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality made welcome remarks. Mr. Mahesh Pradhan traced the development of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Programme, a featured training program of IESD in the past ten year. Prof. XU Jianmin, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Dr. YU Jun, general director of the Division of Food Supervision, Department of Food Safety Supervision, China Food and Drug Administration and Dr. SONG Yonghui, Vice President of Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences gave the keynote speeches. Mr. Achim Steiner, Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Director of the UNEP sent video messages to welcome the 2013 ISCES participants.

At the opening ceremony, Prof. WANG Guangtao, former Minister of Housing and Urban Rural Development of the PRC, Director of the Resources Conservation Committee of the 11th NPC，and Chairperson of the Advisory Board of IESD, Prof. PEI Gang, President of Tongji University presented awards for award winners of 2012 “Green Future Scholarship” for Best Papers, 2012 “Green Seedling Fund” for Excellent Research Proposals and 2013 Klaus Toepfer Environmental Scholarship. Dr. Monika MacDevette donated books translated by IESD, including Yearbook and Our Planet of the UNEP. Prof. Wu Jiang, Vice President of Tongji University attended the book launching ceremony of Green University Toolkit of the UNEP.

The topic of this year’s conference is “Food, Health and Sustainable Development, which is in response to the theme of this year’s world environmental day: Think, Eat and Save. Students are divided into five subgroups, which are food, health, ecosystem, green city and green consumption. Participants will be engaged in activities such as field trips and posters display to better understand the challenges and opportunities as well as practices and theories of sustainable development.