by Vivian Yang

JD.com released its 2021 ESG Report on May 24^th in which the company specified its compliance management mechanism guided by the concept of “achieving success the right way,” and the principle of “compliance represents development”.

JD.com “complies with laws and regulations, builds a culture of integrity and anti-corruption, enables effective compliance management driven by technology and data, and establishes a forward-looking, flexible, and efficient compliance system,” said the report.

Five key actions are outlined to ensure the company’s all-around compliance management, they are 1) laws and regulations compliance, 2) anti-corruption and integrity compliance, 3) information security compliance, 4) auditing compliance and 5) transaction risk control.

The management of these areas is effectively protected through three “defensive lines”, which are composed of 1) every employee of the company; 2) risk management teams including legal, finance, information, security and risk control; and 3) independent supervisory and audit teams.

Multiple enforcement mechanisms are in place including continuous public promotion and education, a joint accountability principle with collateral penalties in major compliance issues, rewards for employees who contribute to the compliance work and more.

JD.com adopts a “zero tolerance” attitude towards corruption. It has established sound anti-corruption management regulations and systems, including the JD.com Business Conduct and Ethics Code, JD.com Anti-Corruption Regulations, JD.com Whistleblower Protection and Reward System, etc. Additionally, all JD employees (including outsourced employees) receive annual compliance trainings including anti-corruption and information security tranings, and are required to pass examinations. All new hires must take online courses and pass the examination before their probation period has been completed. JD also provides regular information security technical trainings for R&D employees (including outsourced employees).

JD.com also attaches great importance to its supplier management and promotes measures for greater social and environmental good through business cooperation. JD formulated its regulations on green procurement management in 2020, integrating environmental protection requirements and also formulating a negative list to guide its suppliers’ practice. Meanwhile, JD strictly forbids its suppliers to engage in behaviors including illegal employment, breaching of labor laws and other violations.

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

 

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

by Xiaoqian Han

In JD.com’s 2022 ESG report released on May 24, JD.com continues to deepen its environmental protection strategy and promote green development through corporate operations, supply chain management, and driving consumers’ green life.

JD.com continues to accelerate the strategy of its low-carbon operation. In 2021, all office buildings built by JD.com acquired three-star design mark certification for green buildings, and the new green data center operated by JD Cloud achieved annual operation with a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) lower than 1.1 (the closer the PUE ratio is to 1.0 the better energy effective it is).

JD.com continues to deploy new energy vehicles on the road, promote circular packaging, and build “zero-carbon” logistics parks to lead the entire supply chain to achieve low-carbon efficiency. In addition, JD.com announced the new five-year “Green Stream Initiative”, and promised to continue to invest RMB 1 billion yuan in constructing a low-carbon integrated supply chain.

JD.com promotes green consumption by expanding the categories of low-carbon commodities, and it drives more businesses and consumers to join the low-carbon consumption actions.

Green operation

JD.com has carried out a series of renovations to promote energy conservation and resource recycling through office practices and green data centers.

JD.com’s own office buildings are equipped with an intelligent operation and maintenance system, which can monitor the energy required for office work and propose energy-saving solutions for specific areas in real-time. In 2021, all the traditional lighting lamps in public areas of JD’s Building No.1 in Beijing have been transformed into LED lamps, with a total of more than 14,000 LED downlights replaced. After the replacement, the lighting power consumption in the office area of Building No.1 was reduced by 5000-9000kWh per day on average.

At the same time, JD.com has also created a wireless and paperless office environment. In JD.com’s office space, 5,520 wireless routers have been connected, and a total of 179 servers have been optimized, saving about 470,000 kWh of electricity per year and consequently reducing carbon emissions by about 286.7 tons. In 2021, JD.com has issued more than 2.8 billion electronic invoices, saving about 16,000 tons of paper, equivalent to saving more than 310,000 trees and reducing carbon emissions by 15,000 tons.

In addition to the green renovation of the office space, JD.com provides commuter shuttle services for employees. There are a total of 200 shuttle buses traveling to and from JD headquarters, including 80 new energy buses with an annual traveled mileage of 1.273 million kilometers, which reduces carbon emissions by about 742.2 tons.

Through green operations, JD has achieved green data center practices with a lower carbon footprint. Taking the East China Suqian data center in Jiangsu province as an example, its footprint has been reduced by 45%, while its power supply efficiency now reaches as high as 95.3%, and the direct-current (DC) efficiency is as high as 97%.

In addition, JD Cloud has established cooperation with Huawei co-launching innovative solutions for energy saving and emission reduction, including an intelligent indirect evaporative cooling system EHU (Environment Handling Unit), which can automatically switch the cooling mode according to the climate, and directly use the natural cold air of the data center to cool the computer room with AI comprehensive energy efficiency optimization technology, and medium voltage direct supply integrated power supply system SST, which strengthens the recycling of cooling energy resources.

Green supply chain

JD contributes to China’s carbon neutrality goal and global climate action by building a cleaner supply chain system with a lower carbon footprint. Last year, JD.com was officially selected as one of the “Best Practices for Enterprises to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals 2021 (carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals)” awarded by Global Compact China Network. Nowadays, JD’s green supply chain efforts span packaging, warehousing, and transportation.

In terms of packaging materials, JD.com advocates the use of green degradable materials to replace petroleum-based plastic bags. Meanwhile, JD Logistics uses reusable circular delivery boxes, foldable thermal insulation boxes, and circular packaging bags instead of disposable plastic packaging. By the end of 2021, circular packaging such as “Green Stream Boxes” have been used 200 million times. During the Singles Day Grand Promotion in 2021, each parcel delivered to consumers reduced paper packaging materials by 210 grams. Each parcel reduced disposable plastics by 11 grams and 25 centimeters of adhesive tape on average.

In addition to packaging, JD.com is also actively promoting green warehousing. At present, JD.com is promoting more intelligent industrial parks to achieve zero carbon emissions. Take JD.com’s Xi’an Asia No. 1 Logistics Industrial Park as an example, which has become the first “zero-carbon” logistics park in China. In addition, JD’s Logistics Industrial Parks were equipped with a rainwater collection system and photovoltaic power generation systems. The rainwater collection system can use all the collected rainwater for irrigation and road cleaning in the park. The photovoltaic power generation system can help parks reduce carbon dioxide emissions which have been installed in 12 smart industrial parks. Through low-carbon design, JD.com has helped partners achieve greener and pioneering brands. JD.com provided BMW Hefei with customized services for constructing the regional aftermarket parts center, which has obtained LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. BMW Hefei Aftermarket Parts Distribution Center has become BMW’s first “green warehouse” of aftermarket parts in China that meets LEED certification standards, providing an excellent model for green warehousing development.

Green transportation is also an important part of JD’s supply chain management. JD Logistics has deployed new energy vehicles in more than 50 cities across the country to replace traditional fuel cargo vans. By the end of 2021, the number of new energy logistics vehicles has reached 20,000 distributed in over 25 cities across the country, which can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 400,000 tons per year, equivalent to the annual carbon dioxide absorption by 20 million trees.

Green consumption

JD.com advocates sustainable consumption concepts and green lifestyles through JD’s Singles Day Grand Promotion. In 2021, JD.com offered more than 150 million types of products that meet the “green consumption” standards during the Singles Day Grand Promotion. As of November 7, 2021, consumers had purchased more than 3.5 million energy-saving products and more than 400,000 water-saving products from JD.com. On the aspect of logistics services, recycled packages were used 11.35 million times accumulatively during the festival, which is equivalent to reducing the disposable garbage by 3,400 tons. At the same time, JD Logistics’ all-chain carbon reduction measures throughout the logistics processes reduced carbon emissions by 26,000 tons during the event.

 

(hanxiaoqian3@jd.com)

by Mengyang He

JD.com released its ESG report 2021 on May 24, highlighting its commitment to providing equal employment opportunities and cultivating more young and professional talents through various means.

“By the end of 2021, the number of employees in JD.com’s listed and non-listed companies has exceeded 420,000, with over 300,000 front-line employees included, and 80% of whom are from rural areas,” the report shows.

By providing front-line employees with a solid living guarantee and stable income, JD.com drives forward the employment of China’s rural population and promotes the rapid development of the livelihood and economy in rural areas.

JD Explore Academy

As JD.com also puts an emphasis on research and development, the company continues to provide a broader and more inclusive scientific research platform for professionals. According to the report, JD.com has built up a well-established professional team composed of over 500 experts with doctor’s degrees and 18,000 R&D professionals, with nearly half of the staff of JD Explore Academy holding doctorate degrees.

Regarding the recruitment of young professionals, JD.com has always placed a high value on talent acquisition and development, creating 358 jobs for fresh graduates in the past three years, and providing nearly 40,000 job opportunities.

With tailor-made training programs in place, JD is committed to empowering talents to achieve a more fulfilled career. For example, the report reveals that “on average each of JD’s full-time employee received 54.44 hours of training in 2021, and the listed and non-listed companies under JD.com organized more than 20,809 training sessions, and added another 10,262 training courses, with total course sign-ins of 160 million internal person-times and 16,000 daily active users.”

Employees from JD’s customers service centers

Inclusive opportunities are also at the heart of JD’s employment principles. JD Retail’s customer service center set up a designated department to recruit people with disabilities. “In 2021, 186 employees with disabilities hired by JD served in the customers service centers in China’s southern cities of Suqian, Yangzhou, and Chengdu,” the report states.

 

(hemengyang5@jd.com)

by Yuchuan Wang

On May 24, JD.com released its second annual ESG report , making it become the first Chinese e-commerce company to disclose climate-related financial information based on the framework by Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

As a leading technology and service company, JD.com started by selling authentic-only products more than twenty years ago. The company attaches great importance to intellectual property protection and is committed to preventing any kind of infringements.

At JD, a policy of “zero-tolerance” towards counterfeits has been reiterated again and again. Any merchant selling counterfeits on JD will be punished severely and removed forever. In 2021, more than 460 internal training sessions on intellectual property were offered by the company, covering nearly 10,000 employees accumulatively.

As said in the ESG report, JD.com has built an internal algorithm model and connected it with an external patent database to use systematic interception to prevent infringing behaviors. The model was designed to reduce the misleading and potential damage to consumers caused by fake patent numbers, expired patents and improper labeling, with a recognition accuracy as high as 94%.

The company’s anti-counterfeiting traceability platform based on blockchain technology has registered over 400,000 kinds of products and has received 10 million “quality traceability” inquiries from consumers.

During the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, JD.com worked closely with the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee and established a green channel for complaints handling Olympics-related goods.

At the same time, JD.com actively encourages employees to apply for patents and protect R&D innovation by offering incentives, talent evaluation and actively promoting R&D innovations.

Thanks to its commitment in providing trustworthy products and services, JD’s business has been developed across retail, logistics, health and more industries, serving hundreds of millions of users globally.

 

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)