Released in line with World Earth Day 2021, Ant Group has published its very first carbon neutrality report, which heavily details its commitment to helping build a greener world, whilst also providing a comprehensive roadmap for its path towards its pledge of reaching net-zero emissions by 2030.
In the report, the company, which owns China’s largest digital payment platform Alipay, put forward a series of intermediary goals, including a 30% reduction of absolute emissions in Scope 1 and 2 by 2025 (compared with 2020), a full assessment of its supply chain emissions, and renewable energy power replacements at its leased data centre services (increasing to 30% of total power consumption).
“The overall principle for Ant Group’s carbon neutrality initiative is to develop a scientific approach and prioritise on emissions reduction,” said Peng Yijie, Ant President of Social Good and Green Development. “We will also prudently evaluate and adopt carbon offsets for areas where emissions reduction is not possible due to certain constraints.”
The release of Ant Group’s report comes after it recently pledged in March to achieve carbon neutrality in Scopes 1 and 2 starting 2021, and reach net-zero emissions in its entire supply chain by 2030, making it among the first Chinese tech companies to make such a green commitment.
Based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, Ant’s carbon neutrality actions will focus on seven major types of greenhouse gases, namely: CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs, SF6, NF3.
To reduce emissions, Ant Group will promote the use of renewable energy to power its campuses, and encourage its employees to adopt green work and travel practices. It will also encourage data centres within its supply chain to adopt natural cold sources and liquid cooling, among other energy-saving measures.
In addition, Ant Group will step up its green investments and set up a technology innovation fund for carbon neutrality. Taking advantage of blockchain technology’s anti-counterfeiting and anti-tampering features, Ant Group will use the technology to help record its carbon reduction activities and establish a greenhouse gas emissions tracking and monitoring mechanism.
To ensure the transparency of its efforts, Ant Group has invited an external specialist, the China Environmental United Certification Centre (CEC), to join in discussions when designing its carbon-neutral plan. The CEC is an official service provider to the 2022 Winter Olympics, supporting the Games in assessing its carbon reduction solutions.
