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by Hui Zhang

JD’s online donation platform, the “JD Giving Platform”, was highlighted in the company’s first Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report issued on Apr. 16. Leveraging JD’s self-operated e-commerce network, the JD Giving Platform was created to provide charity programs with integrated support.

“One-click donation and direct supply distribution with transparency is a new model that JD has created to fulfill its social responsibility,” said Baozheng Long, vice president of JD.com and vice chair and secretary of JD Foundation. “JD’s strength in technology, logistics network, and ecommerce platform make it possible for JD to not only offer help itself, but also mobilize people from all walks of society to make their own contribution to make the world better.”

This platform, created by JD’s charity affiliate JD Foundation, is the first Internet fundraising information platform recognized by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of People’s Republic of China. The platform creates social value and drives everyone to participate in philanthropy.

Through the platform, charity organizations can not only raise money from individual consumers but also use JD’s supply chain, distribution network, technical support and customer service to guarantee the donations reach their intended recipients. More importantly, the platform has provided consumers with a transparent and reliable donation experience. Through JD’s official app, more than 470 million consumers can learn about various charity programs and purchase materials to help people in need. The materials are delivered directly to the charity program by JD’s efficient logistics system. In this way, JD’s business network and logistics system offer a convenient way to connect consumers with trusted charity programs, and donations can be completed with just one click.

The platform features two major functions, with one of them supporting used materials recycling, including clothing, toys and books, and the other function supporting money donation and one-click purchasing of materials from JD to be donated to people in need. So far, people have purchased 3.61 million new items for donation, and nearly 4 million idle items have been recycled through the platform.

So far, JD has partnered with dozens of Chinese official NGOs, such as China Social Welfare Foundation, One Foundation, China Women’s Development Foundation, and Wardrobe of Love, to enlarge JD’s radius of impact in helping people in need.

From 2019-2020, JD.com initiated several rounds of a clothing recycling project, “Exchange Old Clothes for Love” Clothes Donation, in partnership with China Charity Federation to help children with premature heart disease. Through customer orders placed on the platform and the free home collection service of JD’s express service, the project successfully recycled more than 473,000 pieces of clothes in 90 cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chongqing and Shenyang. While nurturing community awareness of public welfare, it is also a lively practice of promoting low-carbon lifestyles, emissions reductions, and waste classification.

In cooperation with Li-Ning, the well-known Chinese sportswear and sports equipment company founded by Olympic gymnastics champion Li Ning; World of Art Brut Culture (WABC), a Shanghai NGO devoted to supporting special needs individuals through creative art therapy treatment; and Paipai, a second-hand commodity trading platform; JD has initiated a CSR project to raise public awareness and money for children with autism. Socks made from recycled bottles with paintings drawn by children with autism were sold on JD, with thousands sold out within the first 6 hours of launching. All the money raised through this program on the JD Giving Platform was donated to children with autism.

JD Foundation was created on September 24, 2014 with the mission of advocating corporate responsibility for a higher quality of life, and supporting public welfare. Led by the ideas of social innovation and entrepreneurship, JD Foundation organizes charitable activities in the fields of poverty alleviation, education, and environmental protection. In 2020, JD Foundation donated around RMB 200 million yuan. JD Giving Platform raised RMB 19.77 million yuan and more than 850,000  charitable items.

 

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

by Martin Li

JD’s continued efforts to build green data centers cover design, construction and operation of low-carbon facilities, said Zhou Xiaobin, who is in charge of data center construction at JD Technology (JDT), on April 9.

“From the very beginning, we applied a low power usage effectiveness (PUE) design, and then put it into practice in construction and operations,” said Zhou. PUE is the ratio of total amount of energy used by a computer data center facility to the energy delivered to computing equipment. It’s considered higher effectiveness when this number is closer to 1.

Completed in 2016, JD’s data center in Suqian, Jiangsu province, has reached the lowest PUE – 1.28 – in east China, according to Zhou.

“With the help of technologies like machine learning and experience learning, we are able to achieve  accurate monitoring of the data center’s temperature and humidity. Then based on collected data, we plan our power management strategy and have our operations and maintenance team execute it, in an effort to increase efficiency as much as possible,” said Zhou.

“Without these green efforts, the PUE of the Suqian data center would reach around 1.4,” said Zhou.

The Suqian facility is JD’s first self-built data center. The average temperature is 14.2 degrees Celsius in the area, which means equipment can be cooled purely through outdoor cooling sources almost five months of each year. This also means lower operations costs.

Currently, Zhou’s team is pushing further by applying energy recycling at the Suqian facility.

Solar photovoltaic panels are being installed at the center to power some office buildings and supporting facilities.

“We will install more panels to increase green power supply,” said Zhou.

Another two green data centers under construction are located in Langfang, Hebei province and Kunshan, Jiangsu province.

The designed PUE of the two new centers is around 1.21, according to Zhou.

 

(bjlihao3@jd.com)

by Kelly Dawson

JD.com’s 2020 ESG report released today underscores the e-commerce giant’s commitment to rural revitalization and poverty alleviation, as already recognized last month when the Beijing Municipal Government awarded JD with the Poverty Alleviation Collaboration Award.

“Through e-commerce, finance, public welfare and other platforms, we provide education subsidies, employment opportunities, production resources and development channels for poorer regions, developing our own value in eliminating absolute poverty and realizing rural revitalization,” the  report states.

“As outlined in the report, JD remains absolutely committed to rural revitalization efforts,” said Baozheng Long, vice president of JD.com and vice chair and secretary of JD Foundation, which was created in September 2014 with the mission of advocating corporate responsibility for a higher quality of life, and supporting public welfare. “Going forward, JD will continue to promote the development of the countryside economy, and will aim to ensure sustainable business for people in these areas.”

Much of JD’s efforts in these areas follow founder Richard Liu’s long-held belief that the company should provide people with the tools to not only survive but build thriving businesses. “We want to provide a sustainable way to help people in rural areas,” Liu previously said. “We’d rather teach them to fish than give them fish.”

For example, as of Sept. 30, 2020, JD had helped 110 impoverished counties put more than 3 million local commodities online, and achieved RMB 100 billion yuan in poverty alleviation-related sales, directly driving more than 1 million impoverished households to increase their income, according to the report.

Additionally, from September 2019 to February 2021, JD’s social e-commerce platform Jingxi has helped tens of thousands of farms sell products to consumers across China, selling out over one million local specialties.

JD’s in-house logistics network has played a key role in helping rural farms bring produce to the rest of the country, with the company’s expertise in other areas also proving essential. In Hubei province’s Zhuxi township, JD has provided support for local farmers of the plant Konjac in the form of improved logistics, supply chain, marketing and digitalization, resulting in significantly increased revenues for the farmers, according to the county.

Additionally, more than 80% of JD’s front-line employees are from China’s rural areas.

“We help establish a more productive and sustainable future in terms of promoting employment, enhancing rural revitalization, improving social efficiency, driving high-quality consumption, facilitating the digitalization of the real economy, and supporting supply-side structural reforms, thereby proactively being accountable for social responsibility,” the report notes.

Led by the ideas of social innovation and entrepreneurship, the JD Foundation has also organized Internet charity fundraising projects like “Exchange Old Clothes for Love,” a clothing donation project that successfully recycled more than 47,300 pieces of clothing in 90 Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and more. In addition to being a public welfare project, “Exchange Old Clothes for Love” also aimed to promote environmentally friendly, low-waste lifestyles.

In 2020, JD Foundation donated around RMB 200 million yuan; and its online donation platform raised RMB 19.77 million yuan and collected more than 1.27 million charitable items, with the total participation of around 3.75 million people.

 

(kellydawson@jd.com)