• D.com releases its second ESG report, with a chapter aligning with TCFD framework for the first time.
• The company pledges RMB 1 billion yuan in its green supply chain upgrading, known as the “Green Stream Initiative”.
• Positioned as “a new type of real economy enterprise”, JD.com is committed to serving tangible businesses of all industries.

JD.com issued its second annual ESG Report, outlining the company’s 2021 progress in the areas of developing green supply chains, boosting the real economy, promoting high-quality consumption and social efficiency, and more.

First report aligning with TCFD

JD’s proactive reporting and dedicating a chapter on climate change-related opportunities and risks that aligns with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), a standard set by the Financial Stability Board of G20, for the first time in this year’s report is evidence of the company’s deep commitment to environmental and social responsibilities and its business philosophy of long-termism.

“We incorporated the TCFD framework in this year’s ESG report to develop a risk governance strategy for 2030, and through carrying out systematic transformations, we hope to build the company’s climate competitiveness while gaining new growth opportunities in the next decade, ” wrote Richard Liu, chairman of the Board of JD.com, in his letter accompanying the report.   

The “Green Stream Initiative”

The ESG report revealed that JD.com has set a goal to reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent by the year 2030, based on the levels of 2019. To do so, JD Logistics pledged to invest RMB 1 billion yuan ($150 million) in the next five-year plan of its multi-pronged sustainability efforts, known as the “Green Stream Initiative”, to build a greener and more integrated supply chain that can offer a greater amount of low-carbon products and engage a wider range of merchants and customers together to practice responsible production and consumption.

As of the end of 2021, the Green Stream Initiative 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 percent recyclable materials that have so far been used 200 million times, involving participation of more than 200,000 merchants and hundreds of millions of consumers.

Meanwhile, JD’s Xi’an Asia No.1 Logistics Industrial Park is certified as China’s first carbon-neutral logistics park. JD Logistics has put 20,000 new energy vehicles into use in over 50 cities across the country, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 400,000 tons per year. JD Cloud’s green data centers reached a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of below 1.1, lowering 30 percent energy use of its infrastructure and 10 percent of carbon emissions year on year. The company’s newly-finished eco-friendly headquarters building received the highest rate of 3-star grade by the Green Building Label, the sustainable architecture evaluation system in China. These are only a few of JD’s various carbon-reduction achievements over the past year.

See related article: OceanFirst Bank Publishes First ESG Report

Serving the real economy

Stemming from its mission of “powered by technology for a more productive and sustainable world”, JD.com further elaborated on its identity in the report as “a new type of real economy enterprise” that possesses both the attributes of the real economy in its DNA, and the technologies and know-hows to serve the digital transformation of tangible businesses.

With the inventory turnover days in 2021 further decreasing to a world-leading level of 30.3 days, an advanced R&D platform for C2M (Consumer-to-Manufacturer) products, extensive cloud computing infrastructure spreading across 70 cities and more, JD.com is providing digitally intelligent solutions to support the quality growth of enterprises across industries. As many small and medium-sized enterprises bore the brunt of COVID-19’s impact in the past year, JD introduced an array of fee-waiving policies and fully leveraged its smart supply chain competences to keep up their business operations, going above and beyond to ensure stable and timely goods supply to society at fair prices.

Meanwhile, supporting farmers and agricultural development is a high priority on JD’s agenda. The report shows that to date, JD.com has provided secured job opportunities to more than 300,000 frontline workers with over 80 percent coming from rural areas. Far beyond sending parcels to villages, by the end of 2021, the company has collaborated with over 1,000 agricultural production zones, co-created over 70 modernized farms, and established over 700 online pavilions to support the marketing and circulation of premium agricultural products, which have generated RMB 32 million yuan ($4.8 million) production value and increased income for millions of farmers.

Read the full text of JD’s ESG Report 2021 here.

Source: JD.com Inc.