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In-Depth Report: JD’s Enhanced Commitment to ESG

Posted on Apr 16, 2020Nov 14, 2022 by Ella Kidron

by Ella Kidron

For JD, ESG is not just a commitment to shareholders, but a commitment to society, and to the world we live in as a whole, to deliver trust.

JD’s annual report (Form 20-F) released on April 15^th reveals the company’s enhanced commitment to ESG (Environment, Social responsibility, corporate Governance). While environmental issues like climate change and resources scarcity form an important element of this, the term is actually much more encompassing, and covers social issues like a company’s labor practices, talent management and more. JD’s efforts cover not only environmental sustainability and a commitment to responsible consumption of resources, but also the unrelenting pursuit of and management of top talent and its commitment to improving society through poverty relief and more.

Sustainability

In 2019, JD launched the China E-Commerce and Logistics Packaging Standards Alliance together with several internationally recognized brands. The alliance aims to optimize the usage of packaging materials in China by establishing nationwide e-commerce packaging standards. JD also expanded its box recycling initiative across China with customer incentives provided in the form of rebates.

The rapid growth of e-commerce has meant that an unprecedented number of packages are in circulation. According to industry data, the number of annual delivery packages in China in 2012 was 5.7 billion. That number rose to 63 billion by 2019. To combat this, JD has introduced reusable packaging and box recycling programs, among other initiatives.

In 2019, JD used green recycling boxes and cold chain containers a total of 47 million times. The company also saved 600,000 tons of paper through using lighter-weight boxes and reusable boxes, going paperless, using electronic order slips and more. JD has also committed to the standardization of green logistics, promoting the tape used to be narrowed from 53 mm to 43mm (a reduction of 15%), banning layer by layer winding of tape as a standardized packaging process, and by reducing the use of tape by nearly 400 million meters throughout the year, setting the standard and benchmark. In 2013, JD issued the first ever digital invoice in China. Since then, the company has already issued more than 4.6 billion digital invoices across China, and replaced paper invoices with digital invoices for all retail orders.

These efforts are part of JD’s broader Green Stream Initiative launched in 2017, in partnership with brand designers, manufacturers, logistics companies, packaging companies and industry associations, with the goal of improving the utilization rate of supply chain resources and reducing carbon emissions.

JD’s reusable green logistics boxes

The World Economic Forum named JD’s Green Stream Initiative as one of its Lighthouse Projects for 2020. The Lighthouse Project initiative catalogues “lighthouse” examples, which show how innovation and investment across key areas of social, human, environmental and physical capital can be brought together to bring results for everyone. The Lighthouse Project initiative is very closely aligned with JD’s overall mission to promote sustainable development and to benefit society.

In 2019, JD also joined the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), an ambitious global campaign aimed at driving corporate action on climate change. As part of its commitment to the initiative, sealed by a strategic partnership with WWF China and One Planet Foundation, JD Logistics plans to release comprehensive carbon emission targets regarding its operations. JD Logistics is the first company to join SBTi in the area of logistics in China. As part of joining the initiative, JD Logistics will provide an overview of its existing measures to combat climate change – including its self-developed “Green Stream Initiative” – as well as set new targets in accordance with SBTi’s goals, and explain how these targets will be met.

Further to its commitment to sustainable energy, JD Logistics is also gradually upgrading its nationwide fleet of delivery trucks, as well as those of its third party partners, to new energy vehicles.

Pursuit of top talent

In 2019, JD instituted employee surveys through its internal communication tools on a daily basis, covering a broad range of topics such as company culture, team cooperation, compensation satisfaction and other areas. The surveys enable employees to provide feedback on the state of their individual departments, allowing for a channel to turn the feedback into actionable changes. They also help the management team better understand employees’ needs and thus help to improve the health of the overall organization.

As a result of its efforts to continue improving its employee benefits and training programs, JD won a number of employer awards in 2019, among which the most influential ones include: Universum’s 2019 Campus Most Attractive Employer Award at the international level, Zhaopin.com’s 2019 Best Employer Award, and 58.com’s 2019 China Employer Brand Award in China. JD’s training program is also an important aspect of its employee benefits. In 2019, JD provided more than 7,925 training courses held online and offline for employees.

Among the highlights of JD’s talent management program is JD RUN, an internship program that includes training and a project competition. JD’s goal is to build the most valuable internship platform in the industry, and is also viewed as a pipeline to bring top quality, energetic talent into the company.

Alex Rudnicki is a current JD employee in the company’s International Logistics division. He reflects on his experience in the JD RUN program, “It is safe to say that if I had not received the JD RUN 2018 internship opportunity, I would likely be back home in America feeling my personal mission in China was unfinished.” Rudnicki moved with his wife from Silicon Valley to Beijing with just five hours of Chinese language study under his belt and a vision to help Chinese companies expand abroad, and began his first year of study at the Tsinghua-MIT Global MBA.

“I realized that my summer internship would be a critical factor in whether it would make sense to stay in China longer term. With barely conversational Chinese skills at that point and little to no reading ability, I needed the right company to take a chance on my long-term growth potential. After considering opportunities at many of the major Chinese tech companies, I decided that JD RUN was what I’d been looking for,” he said.

Alex Rudnicki and other JD colleagues

Following a successful internship, Rudnicki joined JD full time in a one-year rotational program. “The program helped me understand the big picture of where the company is going through close exposure to leadership, as well as the goals and challenges of employees across different departments. More importantly, it helped me find the team and boss that I wanted to work with. This is while earning compensation competitive with what I would expect if I had returned to work in Silicon Valley post-MBA,” he added.

Poverty relief

Leveraging its strong supply chain, cutting edge technologies and logistics network, JD has participated in extensive poverty alleviation efforts in rural areas. The company has pioneered its rural e-commerce strategy, aiming to make agricultural products in rural areas available online, while allowing authentic, quality products to reach residents in rural areas.

One of JD’s efforts is its Poverty Relief Malls – an important commitment to society. The malls help promote and market local agricultural products on a national scale, both benefitting disadvantaged farmers and providing access to more locally-sourced products for consumers. JD has helped launch over 279 specialty malls on its platform, selling over three million local specialty items, with sales exceeding RMB 75 billion, and contributing to helping 900,000 households earn a living so far.

JD helps farmers from poor regions sell their crops online, helping them earn a living and ensuring quality produce for customers

The company has also launched an initiative to support farmers in the poorest regions of China to raise livestock for sale on JD.com. One of these projects, JD’s “Running Chicken” initiative, launched in Wuyi County, Hebei province, was also named as a WEF Lighthouse Project this year. Through the initiative JD supports farmers to raise free-range chickens by offering interest-free loans, breeding experts, part-time jobs on farm maintenance and support on produce sales. Raised in an ethical and healthy environment, chickens can spend 50% of their time outdoors, and enjoy fresh air, free range and sunshine.

Each chicken takes one million steps, monitored by a specially designed pedometer before they are ready to be sold. Furthermore, a scan of the QR code on the poultry’s packaging allows buyers to view detailed information on sourcing, feeding intervals, and more. Sales of free range chickens on JD have been a resounding success in the past several years and the initiative has directly improved the farmers’ quality of life.

Another important element of JD’s support to society is JD’s trusted donation platform through which its hundreds of millions of customers can purchase products and donate them directly to non-profit organizations and groups in need across China, leveraging JD’s in-house logistics network. To ensure the transparency of the process, JD enables customers to track the delivery status of their donations online to make sure they reach the intended recipient. As of February this year, JD’s trusted online donation program had served more than 120 million NGOs, initiated more than 800 campaigns and collected more than 2.5 million items.

COVID-19 Support

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, JD has done its utmost to help people in Wuhan, Hubei provice, and throughout China. Immediately after the lockdown was announced in Wuhan, JD put together a task force to lead its epidemic relief efforts and took swift action to donate critically needed medical supplies to hospitals and charity organizations in Wuhan, including a large amount of face masks and protective medical supplies.

To ensure timely supply, JD opened up a dedicated channel for relief materials coming in from across the country. In doing so, JD galvanized resources across the business, leveraging its strength as a supply chain-based technology and service provider to deploy various technologies including AI, Big Data and IoT, to develop solutions to support the fight against the COVID-19.

At the same time, putting employee health and safety as its top priority, the company provided all frontline employees with masks and other protective equipment.

The company also introduced a series of new policies, such as subsidies, fee reductions and waivers, to help third-party merchants on its platform during COVID-19.

From ensuring sustainable operations to creating a work place where people are eager to collaborate and innovate, to including customers in the mission to support millions of people in need, there is one common thread that brings it all together. For JD, ESG is not just a commitment to shareholders, but a commitment to society, and to the world we live in as a whole, to deliver trust.

(ella@jd.com)

JD Logistics and Blue Yonder reach strategic agreement

Posted on Apr 15, 2020Oct 7, 2021 by Ling Cao

JD Logistics, a business group under JD.com, China’s largest retailer, and Blue Yonder, Inc. (formerly JDA Software, Inc.), the leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)-powered supply chain solutions, have formed a strategic cooperation agreement. Both parties will work together to provide supply chain transformation solutions for merchants in China to solve a series of business pain points in order to improve efficiency and end-to-end supply chain collaborative management.

Operating excellence via empowering local enterprises

A global company with headquarters in the United States, Blue Yonder now has more than 3,300 customers, including 73 of the top 100 retailers, 77 of the top 100 consumer goods companies and 8 of the top 10 global third-party logistics providers. Blue Yonder is the industry’s first and only digital fulfillment platform provider, powered by AI/ML. Taking advantage of cloud-based SaaS solutions and advanced technologies such as IoT, AI, ML and 5G, Blue Yonder is dedicated to improving the automation and efficiency of the supply chain.

JD Logistics’ value supply chain team has served hundreds of merchants, helping its biggest client save approximately RMB 40 million each year in logistics costs.

Using AI and ML, Blue Yonder can create simulations based on forecast data. JD Logistics can complement this theoretical data, known as “planning data,” with its real experience and insights regarding front-line execution. Empowered by the joint efforts of JD Logistics and Blue Yonder, JD Logistics’ partners and merchants can achieve operational excellence.

JD Logistics has been sharing its in-house technologies and systems with its partners and merchants for several years, as well as customizing algorithms and models based on its partners’ different channels and business scenarios. JD Logistics has developed more than 1,000 mature models to support the supply chain optimization for different industries, categories, and scenarios. By integrating Blue Yonder’s capabilities, JD Logistics will be able to help its partners and merchants increase their ability to monitor and respond to ever-changing customer needs while predicting and preventing potential supply chain disruptions.

Sustainable development and mutual benefit strategy

Both companies are committed to furthering their contributions to combating environmental pollution and resource waste, and to collectively helping clients reduce waste and achieve mutual benefit.

“Supply chain optimization, more so with AI and ML, reduces waste, increases utilization, and improves margins (no trade-off or compromise is necessary). Consumers now more than ever are requiring companies to take up more social responsibilities, leadership, sustainability, company culture, vision, innovation, customer relationship and community participation,” said Antonio Boccalandro, President of APAC, Blue Yonder. “This is another milestone in our cooperation in these areas, and it will facilitate the supply chain transformation of Chinese companies.”

“We are honored to have the opportunity to form an alliance with JD Logistics to explore the China market,” said Nitin Gangla, VP of APAC, Blue Yonder. “I have visited JD Logistics many times and was really impressed by their forward-thinking ideas and down-to-earth professionalism. We expect to expand our cooperation with JD Logistics to lead the next-generation supply chain transformation.”

“As leading global supply chain service providers, JD Logistics and Blue Yonder share important common ground. We both focus on creating value in the supply chain industry, as well as the exploration and application of smart digital devices and innovative technologies,” commented Bing Fu, Head of strategy at JD Logistics and leader of the company’s value supply chain department. “The resource sharing enabled by this strategic partnership will enable a brighter future.”

JD Cloud & AI Releases Edge Computing Portfolio for Enterprises

Posted on Apr 15, 2020Nov 9, 2021 by Yuchuan Wang

by Yuchuan Wang and Ella Kidron

JD Cloud & AI has begun launching edge computing products to help enterprises develop innovative businesses in the era of 5G & IoT. The edge computing portfolio released includes a product named “Edge Physical Computing Service” which is focused on the delivery of customized bare-metal service and a product named “Distributed Cloud Physical Server” which is focused on the elastic provision of bare-metal service.

Leveraging JD’s mature public cloud computing R&D capability and data center infrastructure delivery and maintenance capabilities, JD Cloud & AI is extending its cloud computing ability to edge nodes.

JD Cloud & AI’s “Edge Physical Computing Service” provides enterprises with the access to high-quality edge node resources which are composed of computing, networking and storage brought down from the cloud to edge. It offers with low latency, high bandwidth and high real-time computing resources together with on-site operation and maintenance services, which can be customized according to the client’s needs. By using a management console, clients are also able to manage all kinds of resources and monitor the network traffic conveniently.

JD Cloud and AI’s “Distributed Cloud Physical Server” product is an extension of its bare-metal service called “Cloud Physical Server” in public cloud to edge nodes, providing users with the ability to obtain edge computing resources by self-service. It enables enterprises to quickly build and deploy cloud-edge collaborative applications to adapt to business innovation in new scenarios.

JD Cloud & AI’s edge computing products have already been acknowledged by clients, and are widely used in real business scenarios like Content Delivery Network (CDN), Live Video Broadcasting (LVB) transcoding, bullet screen recognition (a feature which allows real-time comments from viewers to fly across the screen like bullets) and more. With the advent of 5G, ultra HD Video on Demand (VoD) and online education are becoming more popular. At the same time, remote medicine, HD electronic surveillance and other enterprise applications are emerging. Innovative AV entertainment methods such as VR, AR and 3D are also being activated. These scenarios, which require larger amounts of data and require faster networking, are all the best potential usage/deployment scenarios of edge computing.

JD Cloud & AI is focused on connecting the physical and digital worlds. Through projects centered around the “new infrastructure”，which includes AI, data centers, 5G applications, cloud computing, IoT and more, JD is promoting the upgrade of industries to be more digitalized, networked and intelligent.

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com; ella@jd.com )

JD Provides One-Hour Delivery with Dada Group

Posted on Apr 15, 2020Nov 4, 2022 by Rachel Liu

by Rachel Liu

JD.com announced today that it will partner with Dada Group to provide JD’s customers with one-hour delivery service of daily necessities powered by Dada Now.

Through the latest cooperation with Dada Group (JD’s joint venture for local on-demand retail and delivery), JD customers can now directly buy over three million products from participating stores on JD.com and receive the products within an average time of one hour. Some products can even be delivered within 15 minutes.

To enable this, Dada Group will launch around 100,000 stores from JDDJ (JD Daojia, Dada’s local on-demand retail platform) on JD.com. A group comprised of nearly 100 chain supermarket and store brands, including Walmart, Yonghui Superstores, Better Life and BHG will be the first to join.

This cooperation is an expansion of JD’s Omnichannel Fulfillment supply chain innovation program. Launched in 2019, the program integrates multiple types of offline channels, including supermarkets, convenience stores and brands’ offline stores, enabling them to deliver orders that originate from JD directly. This improves the efficiency of the supply chain and shortens delivery time to an average of two hours.

For the stores and retailers that work with JDDJ, launching on JD.com provides them with a new channel for sales and attracting new customers, which can improve the stores’ sales performance and turnover rate. For customers, they now have the chance to enjoy even faster delivery service when shopping on JD; for JD, the JDDJ stores have brought many products from offline stores online, which significantly enhances JD’s product layout and can provide customers with more choices.

JD’s Omnichannel Fulfillment program has attracted many leading brand partners since launching, including Coca-Cola, Nongfu Spring, P&G, C’est bon, Budweiser, and others, covering offline stores in 242 cities across China. During the fourth quarter of 2019, some brands have seen their orders increase 300% y-o-y after joining the program. The program first covered heavy and bulky products, such as rice, flour, beer, due to storage and shipping challenges. Now, it has been expanded to include medicine sold by JD. Currently, there are around 13,000 offline drug stores in 157 cities across China, which are connected with this program, enabling Chinese consumers to get their medicine delivered within 30 minutes at the fastest.

In the future, the Omnichannel Fulfillment program will be expanded to categories including electronics, fashion, auto products and books.

(liuchang61@jd.com)

JD: Blue Ocean and C2M for Maternal and Baby Products

Posted on Apr 14, 2020Nov 10, 2022 by Rachel Liu

by Rachel Liu

On April 13^th, JD held its annual strategy conference for maternal and baby category online. During the conference, the company announced that in 2020, the maternal and baby category will focus on new retail solutions, new channels, lower-tier markets and innovative marketing strategies to better drive its development on JD.com and in the whole industry.

Based on new customer insights, in 2020, JD will continue to help maternal and baby brands to continue to win in Chinese market, focusing on four aspects: 1) Develop more niche and blue ocean product categories to expand the product selection on the platform, and help brands develop C2M (Consumer-to-Manufacturer) products that can better meet the specific demands of Chinese consumers, 2) Continue to develop omnichannel solutions and leverage JD’s smart supply chain to help brands develop through maternal and baby stores, 3) Conduct more refined customer operations and continue to attract new customers in lower-tier markets, as well as develop more diverse products to suit the different needs of customers in those markets, and 4) JD will leverage its user asset management capabilities, new content development with KOLs and entertainment resources to gain better knowledge of its customers and provide a better shopping experience for parents who shop on JD.

According to JD data, post-90s customers account for 70% all customers of maternal and baby products on JD, and they have become the main customers for the category. The proportion of post-90s customers in lower-tier market is even higher. Post-90s parents prefer trendy products and are less price sensitive. They also prefer to watch livestreams and short videos. In Q1, in the maternal and baby category, the viewing time for livestream and short videos increased 135% on JD, and the amount by which the livestreams drive sales increased 417% YOY – something that would not be possible to achieve without the contribution of post-90s customers.

JD.com is China’s top retailer for maternal and baby products and also the world’s top retailer for leading international brands including Wyeth, Mead Johnson, Unicharm, Kao and Abbott. A report on maternal and baby industry trends released by Nielsen during the conference shows that, in terms of e-commerce penetration rate, JD is leading the category. Among all customers who used mobile apps to buy maternal and baby products in 2019, 51% of them used the JD app.

During COVID-19, JD’s logistics and supply chain capabilities have made it a trusted platform for Chinese parents. As demand for baby products during the pandemic is high, JD uses its resources to ensure continuous delivery, and cooperates closely with brand partners to ensure supply. From late January to March, sales of daily necessities for babies, such as infant formula and diapers, increased 10 times YOY on JD, and health-related baby products increased 600% YOY. –JD’s unique advantages also helped it attract new parents during the pandemic – new customers in the category increased 110% YOY.

(liuchang61@jd.com)

JD & Nankai Tie the Knot and kick off Internet Hospital

Posted on Apr 14, 2020Sep 20, 2022 by Tracy Yang

by Tracy Yang

JD Health and Tianjin Nankai Hospital jointly launched the “Nankai-JD Internet Hospital” on April 13^th.

The partnership is focused on building a new medical service model, integrating online and offline and covering all stages of diagnosis. Services include follow-up visits, health consultation and checkups for patients in Tianjin and across China. Patients in Tianjin with medical insurance can also take advantage of the online service to handle payment for consultation and medicine.

The Nankai-JD Internet Hospital is fully integrated with JD Health’s online consultation platform. Patients can conveniently receive integrated online and offline medical service on both platforms, the first of its kind in China. In addition to consultation and medicine purchasing, patients can also enjoy additional unique services, such as making an appointment for a health examination, Traditional Chinese Medicine, home service and others.

The partnership is mutually beneficial. JD Health’s online consultation platform provides Tianjin Nankai Hospital with a unified and comprehensive one-stop medical service and health care solution, and also strengthens the operational capabilities and product offering for the hospital. JD Health benefits through enhanced medical resources provided by Tianjin Nankai Hospital.

Indeed, the partnership provides 49 doctors from Tianjin Nankai Hospital to join JD Health’s online consultation platform, providing free services during the pandemic. As of April 12^th, the platform has provided online consultation services for a total of more than 8.6 million inquiries.

(tracy.yang@jd.com)

JD’s Head of Autonomous Driving on Hardware, Data and Algorithm

Posted on Apr 14, 2020Oct 19, 2022 by Martin Li

by Martin Li

Qi Kong, Chief Scientist and Head of Autonomous Driving at JD Logistics, was invited to share the role that autonomous driving technology plays in the fight against viruses like COVID-19 at a press conference organized by the Beijing Municipal Government on April 13^th.

“The virus has demonstrated the advantages of autonomous driving technology like unmanned delivery robots and unmanned airplanes in reducing human contact and easing labor shortages,” Kong said at the press conference.

Regarding unmanned delivery, Kong pointed out three outstanding challenges: consistent and stable hardware, rich data for road scenarios and algorithm upgrades, and regional commercial mode trials.

It took only three days for JD to deploy a robot on the streets of Wuhan to deliver medical supplies in February. On Feb.5^th, the robot completed its first delivery from JD’s Renhe Delivery station to Wuhan No.9 Hospital. In addition to delivering medical supplies, the robot also delivered goods to residential communities located along the same route.

Qi Kong, Chief Scientist and Head of Autonomous Driving at JD Logistics.

“The programming and maintenance of the robots deployed in Wuhan were handled by our team in Beijing. We simply provided the local couriers with ones that were already programmed well,” added Kong.

The robots have been deployed successfully in Wuhan for over two months now.

“The fight against COVID-19 provides us a chance to deploy unmanned delivery technology. We notice recent growth in the number of orders delivered by robots in Wuhan, which reflects gradual resumption of daily life,” he said.

Kong also shared his personal perspective on the commercial use of autonomous driving technology.

“First, the real commercialization and scalability of autonomous driving can only be achieved without needing to be operated manually. Second, the future application of autonomous driving at a large scale has to be managed and deployed on a Cloud-based platform. Third, ensuring the technology is open and multi-stakeholder collaboration is crucial to the development of the entire industry,” Kong advocated.

In addition to delivery robots, JD flew two drones to spray disinfectant in the High-Tech Industrial Development Zone of Ordos City, an important industrial city of Inner Mongolia, China on February 16^th.

The city of Beijing has been holding this press conference on a regular basis to brief the public on virus prevention and control as well as to answer media questions.

(bjlihao3@jd.com)