JD.com Releases 2021 ESG Report to Aim a Green Future

Consumer Staples Author: Yiru Qian May 25, 2022 06:32 PM (GMT+8)

It is in line with the national goals to achieve peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060

JD.COM

Chinese e-commerce titan JD.com (JD:NASDAQ; 9618:HK), issued its second annual ESG Report, outlining its 2021 progress in the areas of developing green supply chains, boosting the real economy, promoting high-quality consumption and social efficiency.

This was JD's first report that aligns with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), a standard set by the Financial Stability Board of G20.

The report shows that by the end of 2021, the number of employees in listed and unlisted companies within the JD system exceeded 420,000, and JD.com has provided secured job opportunities to more than 300,000 frontline workers with over 80% coming from rural areas.

On March 9, JD.com's “Asian No.1” intelligent industrial park in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, has been certified as carbon neutral.

Previously, JD.com has set a goal to reduce carbon emissions by 50% by the year 2030, based on the levels of 2019. And it further proposed a series of action targets in this year's ESG report, areas including green operations, low-carbon supply chain, sustainable consumption, and others.

As of the end of 2021, JD has driven China's e-commerce logistics sector to reduce the use of nearly 10 billion disposable packages, replaced with reusable delivery boxes made of 100% recyclable materials that have so far been used 200 million times, involving the participation of more than 200,000 merchants and hundreds of millions of consumers.

"We hope to build the company's climate competitiveness while gaining new growth opportunities in the next decade, " according to Richard Liu, chairman of the Board of JD.com.

Other e-commerce enterprises like Alibaba (9988: HK), Pinduoduo (PDD: NASDAQ), Vipshop (VIPS: NYSE), and Suning.com (002024:SZ) have also committed to reducing their carbon footprints as evidenced by a number of ESG-focused initiatives.