Alibaba Group reported a 5.0% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from its operations for the year ending March 31, 2024, according to its latest Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) report released on Monday. The company cut annual operational emissions by 2.32 million tons, a 63.5% increase in reduction compared to the previous year, thanks to investments in clean energy and the promotion of low-carbon practices.
During the 2024 fiscal year, Alibaba made progress toward its goal of carbon neutrality by 2030, with clean electricity comprising 39% of its total electricity consumption—an 11.8 percentage-point increase from the previous year. Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics arm, reused 47.6 million cardboard boxes and saved approximately 101,000 tons of packaging materials.
The food delivery app run by the group, Ele.me, enabled consumers to opt out of using disposable cutlery on more than 1.8 billion orders, while the navigation service Amap assisted 51 million users in finding low-carbon mobility options like walking, cycling, and using public transport. The platform ecosystem achieved a 45.5% year-on-year increase in Scope 3+ emissions reductions.
Alibaba also reduced emissions from its cloud computing data centers during the fiscal year. The average power usage effectiveness (PUE) of Alibaba Cloud’s self-built data centres improved to 1.200 from 1.215 the previous year, with clean electricity accounting for 56% of the total electricity consumed by these centers. In Hebei Province, the group developed a 500 MW “source-grid-load-storage” project, and in Jiangsu Province, it implemented a 20-year power purchase agreement to secure long-term renewable energy supplies. Throughout the last fiscal year, Alibaba’s green computing infrastructure services enabled customers to cut their emissions by 9.884 million tons, a 44% year-on-year increase.
“The core of our ESG efforts is focused on how to be a better company. Over the past 25 years, our ESG-related activities have shaped the essence of Alibaba and are as equally important to Alibaba as the creation of business value,” said Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu.