RATING
Outlook
Negative
SECTOR
Financial Service Activities
Chief Sustainability Officer
T: N/A
E-mail: N/A
Stock Exchange and Ticker
HKG: 9988
Website
Contact
T: (+86) 571-8502-2088
E.mail: N/A
Listing
N/A
Awards
- MSCI, BBB
- Sustainalytics, 26,2
- HSI/HKQAA, BBB+
- Awarded as a National Exemplary Organization in Poverty Alleviation
- The largest buyer of renewable energy among Chinese companies in the BloombergNEF 2021 ranking
- In 2021, Intime Zhongda Store in Hangzhou was recognized as an energy conservation demonstration project.
- In 2021, four stores in Zhejiang Province were nationally recognized as green shopping malls, and eighteen stores were recognized in Zhejiang Province’s list of green shopping malls
- Alibaba Cloud’s Green Data Center is the only cloud computing data center selected by China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment as one of the 2021 Green and Low-Carbon Best Practices
- Alibaba Cloud’s Green Data Center received the Green Innovation Recognition of Excellence from the 2021 Paulson Prize for Sustainability for its energy-efficient practices and achievements
- Alibaba was ranked among the Top 10 Chinese companies in the Forbes 2021 Global Best Employers
- Alibaba was ranked as the most attractive employer for business and art students in China in Universum’s list of the Top 20 Most Attractive Employers for Chinese Students in 2021
- In April 2022, Cainiao Logistics won the 2022 AsiaPacific Stevie® Awards silver medal in the field of “Most Valuable Enterprise Response” for its outstanding global pandemic prevention efforts
- In the 2021 Gartner Solution Scorecard for integrated IaaS and PaaS, Alibaba Cloud achieved the highest scores in the core security criteria assessment
- In 2021, DAMO Academy’s Medical AI Team received the “National Exemplary Organization for Pandemic Response in Science and Technology” award from China’s Ministry of Science and Technology
Revenue
$109.48B
Market Capitalisation
$216B
Employees
254,941
Content source
Alibaba Group Sustainability Report
Evaluation of Alibaba Group
Since the last reporting was done Alibaba has improved in certain areas. The reporting improved significantly, even though it has not been consistent over the years. The latest ESG report includes ESG metrics (only from 1 year), ESG Environmental Data Verification Statement, Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Carbon Methodology, Stakeholder Engagement and Materiality Assessment and Progress of United Nations Global Compact and is compared against five frameworks: HKEx ESG Indexing, SASB, GRI, TCFD , SDGs. We hope that the future reports will follow this years path. The company also obtained notable certificates, listings and sustainable awards. Alibaba continued improving in areas of renewable energy and sustainable packaging materials, however not impressively and it has not started a decarbonisation process.
Progress on targets is a bit chaotic and all over the report, thus it is not obvious how all the targets are impacted. For the worst, the targets do not have KPIs nor a cleath path how to reach them. We could go as far and accuse Alibaba of confusing the readers. It seems like the goal of the report is to overwhelm the reader with the amount of small initiatives, but it is impossible to compare them and any improvements with previous years (lack of data).
Furthermore, the achievements and initiatives even though they belong to some targets, they seems minute in the face of the problem they try to tackle. We also did not recognise any social targets in the report. The overall impact of the company is unknown, due to reporting on so many smaller and bigger initiatives, however commendable they are. For example, if the internet services provided by Alibaba would use 100% renewable energy, the rating would go higher, impacting positively the products, services and also the use of clean energy through the company, but for now it is only 22% and for data centers only.
Just as stated by the previous Impakter Index report series, for a giant company and tech leader such as Alibaba, sustainability should be a priority with clear targets and policy. Even though we observe some improvements, the company is still not committed enough. We hope that Alibaba Group will implement changes quickly and that next time we can rate Alibaba higher. For now, the company remains rated C, with a negative outlook.
Sustainability Scorecard
Alibaba Group Company Activity
Alibaba Group Sustainability Activity - As per company declarations
Alibaba states that it believes ESG is a good yardstick for measuring value, responsibility, and risk. It helps to develop a practical, clear, and persistent action plan with high-quality and transparent metrics for continuous self-evaluation and improvement shared through two reports: Annual Report on the health of business, and the ESG report on progress in sustainability and the associated value created.
Alibaba Group’s mission is to “make it easy to do business anywhere.” Having a positive social impact has always been embedded in Alibaba Group’s organizational DNA, or so it says. Alibaba Group believes that a profitable and prosperous business can only be achieved and sustained by solving large-scale societal problems.
Certificate & Labels, Standards and Frameworks
- In Southeast Asia, Lazada is replacing nonrecyclable materials with FSC-certified packaging
- The Hangzhou Xixi B campus (80,000 square meters) meets the standards of the WELL system
- ISO 9001; ISO 27001; ISO 27017; ISO 27018; ISO 27701; ISO 29151; ISO 20000; ISO 22301; ISO 27799; BS 10012; CSA STAR; PCI DSS; TRUSTe; SOC1/SOC2/SOC3 (Global)
- GDPR; EU-US Privacy Shield; DPP; EU Cloud CoC (Europe)
- GxP; HIPAA/HITECH; MPAA; CIS Benchmark; SEC Rule 17a-4(f); NIST 800-53/CSF (US)
- C5; Trusted Cloud; TISAX (Germany)
- MTCS; PDPA; OSPAR; DPTM; CBPR/PRP (Singapore)
- NESA/ISR (Dubai)
- APRA; TPN (Australia)
- HKMA; HKIA; SFC; SRAA; PDPO (Hong Kong, China)
- ESG reporte verified by Bureau Veritas Certification (Beijing)
Alibaba Group in the news: Press Reviews and Social Media
Looking at news websites articles about Alibaba and its co-founder Jack Ma, news are found frequently, but with rather negative connotation.
Alibaba fires woman who claimed sexual assault (Source: BBC)
One of Alibaba’s female employees was sexually assaulted during a business trip and was fired after raising the issue. She was accused of spreading false information about the assault and the company.
Highlights from Alibaba Group Sustainability Report
Achievements
- Multiple renowned certifications and frameworks
- Commendable initiatives towards reducing inequalities and responsible production
Weaknesses and Setbacks
- Inconsistent reporting
- Reporting on progress towards targets and SDGs is not fully clear, sometimes vague
- Targets have no KPIs
- Company stated that its emissions would rise
- Many initiatives are minute compared to the problem they target
Targets vs Progress Reported
| Target | Results reported |
|---|---|
| By 2030 Achieve carbon neutrality in operations | - As projected in Alibaba's Carbon Neutrality Action Report, company’s carbon emissions have not yet peaked and are likely to continue rising with business development in the short term - Cannot compare emissions from previous years - The largest buyer of renewable energy among Chinese companies in the BloombergNEF 2021 ranking. In the first half of 2022 alone, Alibaba purchased more than 800 million kWh of clean electricity, a 150% increase over the full year of 2021. - Achieved 619,944 metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) in emission reductions through energy transition in FY2022. - In FY2022, more than 70,000 employees completed nearly 1.13 million carbon reduction actions |
| Alibaba Cloud to achieve carbon neutrality | - Cannot know how much Alibaba Cloud emits now - Alibaba Cloud saw its proportion of electricity from clean energy reach 21.6% in FY2022 - Our data centers reached an annual average power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.247 in FY2022, an Asia-leading standard - According to the Carbon Trust research report, Alibaba Cloud's Carbon Benefits, cloud customers in China can avoid 85.5% of their computing emissions by moving to Alibaba Cloud from on-premise equivalents - Alibaba Cloud's own data centers reduced around 534,000 MtCO2e of emissions - Alibaba Cloud can help avoid 85.5% of carbon emissions for customers switching from on-premise equivalents in China /PREDICTION/ |
| By 2030 Reduce value chain emissions intensity by 50% | - Cannot compare emissions from previous years - Paired Scope 3+ emissions with an ambitious decarbonization target, and jointly released corresponding measurement methodologies with leading professional organizations - Alibaba launched the "OPEN C+" carbon reduction measurement to help consumers measure their decarbonization impac - The Alibaba Carbon Neutrality Expert Committee was introduced - Nearly 1,700 firms had adopted Alibaba Cloud's "Energy Expert" to help them save energy, increase efficiency, and move towards carbon neutrality - Guideline on Quantification of Emission Reduction Effects of Green and Low-Carbon Behaviors to promote consumer adoption of low-carbon behaviors at scale - In June 2022, Alibaba launched our "Carbon88" carbon ledger platform - Alibaba and leading consumer goods companies launched the "Decarbonizationfriendly Action" program - China Environmental United Certification Center (CEC) and Alibaba jointly published Scope 3+ Emissions Reduction: A New Methodology for Corporate Climate Actions Beyond Value Chains, with expert contributions from the Carbon Trust |
| 2021 - 2035 1.5 gigatons of platform ecosystem decarbonization | - No information found as to how much the platform emit now - No clear objectives to achieve the goal - We launched a carbon ledger platform that has helped more than 20 million consumers conduct carbon reduction. - In July 2022, we partnered with 19 consumer goods brands to launch the "Decarbonization-friendly Action" program, promoting low-carbon consumption |
| Reduce 15% of GHG emissions per unit area by 2025 compared to 2021 | - In February 2021, an inaugural US$1 billion sustainability bond was issued. By the end of FY2022, net proceeds of US$352 million had been allocated to erect and refurbish green buildings, and US$451 million to construct energy efficient data centers. - To reduce GHG emissions, 17 new stores in FY2022 upgraded to refrigerants with lower global warming potential.² To date, a total of 57 stores have completed the upgrade - By the end of FY2022, an automatic control of exhaust fans in 387 stores was upgraded, reducing energy consumption by more than 21 million kWh of electricity annually - Completed upgrades for energy efficiency improvement for 1,146 automated sidewalks at 377 stores by the end of FY2022, saving an estimated 20 million kWh of electricity annually - Installed automatic control systems in all stores to monitor energy use in real-time, annually bringing 10-15% of energy saving for each store, at the level of 700,000 kWh/year on average |
| Reduce 15% of water consumption per employee by 2025 compared to 2021 | - Cannot compare water consumption from previous years - Cannot find information as to how much water is consumed per employee right now - Fully adopted water-saving hardware and sanitation equipment at our campuses. The 42 hectares of Xixi Office Park B was designed and built in accordance with "sponge city" standards, recycling 10,763 tons of rainwater in FY2022 |
| Reduce water consumption per store by 3% by 2025 compared to 2020 | - Cannot find information as to how much water is consumed per store right now - Adopted water-saving faucets in all RT-Mart stores, for an expected net saving of about 100,000 tons of water consumption annually - Since 2007, a wastewater storage and circulation system were constructed, reducing water consumption by about 1,000 tons per store every year, for a total of 490,000 tons of water annually - In FY2022, reclaimed water recovery reached 11,899 tons and reclaimed water procurement amounted to 359,252 tons |
| Install solar panels in at least 30 stores in two years, and at all stores by 2030 | - Sun Art has installed rooftop solar panel systems at 17 stores, generating more than 11 million kWh of electricity in FY2022 |
| Plan to replace all short-haul logistics vehicles with electric vehicles by 2030 | - In Indonesia, Lazada Logistics launched the Blue Vehicle, an environmentallyfriendly delivery vehicle which will allow Lazada to transition primarily to electric vehicles in Jakarta. - In Vietnam, Lazada is choosing electric bikes to provide delivery services. - Alibaba DAMO Academy and Cainiao have also fielded the Xiaomanlv ("little donkey"), an Alibaba L4 autonomous driving vehicle, to facilitate last-mile unmanned deliveries in communities and campuses |
| All future new construction will meet the LEED Gold standard and the China green building standard. | - |
