JD.com Green Planet-Sustainable Week

NEW YORK, Oct. 18, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) kicks off a week-long sustainability program on October 10, raising awareness around sustainable consumption while developing its ongoing efforts to reduce consumption-related waste. JD.com's initiatives aim to diminish the negative environmental impact of the rocketing consumption patterns inherent to the world's most populous nation. Partnering with the e-retailer to launch the second-annual "Green Planet-Sustainable Week" event are World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and The China Children and Teenagers' Fund (CCTF).

As China's largest retailer, JD.com has positioned itself as a leader in the industry, developing sustainable solutions and initiatives unique to the challenges in lessening the impact and environmental footprint created by e-commerce. During the week-long push, JD, WWF and CCTF will work together to accelerate the trend toward more sustainable solutions.

"The spectacular rise of Chinese consumption has been a major force behind the country's incredible economic story but has also contributed to unprecedented environmental challenges," said Zhonghao Jin, Head of Market Practice, WWF China. "By actively encouraging its over 300 million customers to recycle and reduce waste, JD.com is admirably leading the transition towards a sustainable future for China and the world. WWF is honored to partner with them. I believe this week's activities will help raise consumer awareness and accelerate the mainstreaming of sustainable consumption."

Green Planet-Sustainable Week activities will include:

• Offering eco-friendly, reusable shopping bags. In response to a call from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and WWF to reduce pollution caused by plastics, JD's new bags have been specifically created from the fabric of discarded apparel. Free bags will be distributed throughout the course of the week-long event and will come with special RFID Chips that can be scanned as coupons in offline stores through JD's partners. Additionally, the company is also working with dozens of suppliers, including Procter & Gamble, Unilever, PepsiCo and Haier, to develop more environmentally-friendly products using recycled materials thus continuing the program to reduce their use of plastics and lessen the country's pollutions.
• Collecting clothing using its in-house logistics network. JD's clothing drive is part of its larger recycling initiatives, collecting new and used donations from customers in its nationwide in-house logistics network which covers a whopping 99% of China's population. Materials collected will either be sent to facilities to be ethically recycled or will be distributed for reuse in impoverished areas of China. In the drive, some clothing collections will also be donated to charity organizations to be sold. A similar drive in 2017 led to collections of nearly 400,000 items of clothing from 150 million people in four cities. This year, the program is set to expand to cover 47 cities throughout the country. Proceeds will be donated to lower-income families, people with disabilities and charity groups.
• Gathering appliances to be recycled. Customers will be able to trade in major appliances for recycling with the help of third-party companies through JD's platform. All collected appliances will be disassembled, collecting parts to be used for repairs, helping to reduce the waste generated by household appliances and the pollution created by their production. Working with JD Foundation, the retailer's charity affiliate, the participating companies will donate a portion of proceeds to charitable activities on the customer's behalf, while customers will be eligible for payment and coupons from JD in exchange for the trade.

"As the largest retailer both online and offline in China, JD.com holds a special responsibility to use our influence and infrastructure to mitigate the environmental impact of consumption," said Libo Ma, head of the CSR department at JD.com, who is also general secretary of the company's charity affiliate, JD Foundation. "Together with the WWF and CCTF, we are excited to expand our environmental protection efforts, and to leverage our pooled resources to help benefit some of the most underprivileged groups in society."

Beyond the week-long program encouraging recycling and teaching sustainability throughout the country, JD is actively converting a delivery fleet of 2,000 vehicles to electric vehicles, while long-term working with partners to convert hundreds of thousands of others in the next three years, which would save several million tons in emissions per year. The company is also researching biodegradable packaging, continuing its industry-leading move toward addressing and reducing e-commerce waste. In 2016, JD switched to thinner strips of tape in its packaging, a seemingly small measure that has in turn saved over 100 million meters of tape since its inception.

Based on insights from JD's hundreds of millions of customers, the company's 2018 Trends in Green Consumption Development report revealed an increasing consumer demand for green products. JD has been active in introducing more green products through its platform to meet consumers' broad range of demands and preferences. Last year, the total volume of green products available on JD increased by more than half and the total volume of green purchases made on JD increased by 71%, contributing to 15.1% of total sales on the platform during the same period. 

All logistic information tracing donations and trade-ins throughout JD's Green Planet-Sustainable Week are available through JD.com's proprietary supply chain management technology.

About JD.com:
Founded in 2004 in Beijing by CEO Richard Liu, JD.com is China's largest online retailer and its biggest overall retailer, as well as the country's biggest Internet company by revenue. After owning a string of tech storefronts in China in the early '00s, Liu moved to e-comm to counter rising demand and the effects of the SARS virus in 2003 that left most of the country homebound. The meteoric rise of the retailer is evidence of trustworthy sales practices and innovative delivery and logistics projects, now leading the global industry in AI and eco-friendly solutions. The unrivalled nationwide fulfillment network provided by JD.com issues same- and next-day delivery that covers a population of more than 1 billion customers – a level of service and speed unmatched globally.

Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE JD.com