Sustainability of Alibaba Group

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY 0
Sustainability
Alibaba Group
Student Name:
Student University:

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In 1999, Alibaba Group was founded by Jack Ma as one of the largest e-commerce
business across the globe with a strong positions and success in the market. In the world, the
company is trustworthy showing its long-lasting reputation with millions of customers. It is
based in China operating at a global scale started with 80% share of the online business on
diverse markets overall (Epstein, 2011). The company on a digital platform shows more
customer involvement and high performance where the success was on horizon of Alibaba
Group and established new business line named AliExpress in 2010 (Daxue Consulting,
2014). Alibaba is committed to the participating and supporting strongly in socially and
charitable projects with responsibility aligning mission and core values of the company. It is
done by starting a charitable ecosystem extending the advantages of technological
capabilities. Also, it is essential for the company to address social causes while making
efforts to take social responsibility discussing value recognition and renewing knowledge for
better results in the society (Chou, 2018). This is possible by taking initiatives that impact
while shaping the future for better by making the company’s employees active. The
initiatives on group-level are “Alibaba Poverty Relief Fund”, “Alibaba Foundation”, “Blue
Sky and Blue Map for Environmental Protection”, “Model Mom Entrepreneurship”, “Mission
Million Books”, and “Reunion Platform”. In relation to sustainability, the initiatives taken
under the company’s CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) are “Cainiao Green Logistics”,
“Energy-Efficient Cloud Facilities”, and “Ant Forest”. Also, others based on group are “Jack
Ma Rural Teacher Initiative” and “Jack Ma Foundation” (Mujnani, 2019). In UN (United
Nations), Alibaba made contributions in SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) of 16 out of
17 as per the agenda of 2030 realizing the company’s efforts in relation to sustainable
consumption, poverty and economic growth (Wang, 2019). This essay is based on discussion
of sustainability characteristics the company applies by identifying and understanding
Alibaba Group as a sustainable corporation.
In today’s business world, every company is integrating sustainability to do well
while implementing strategy. Sustainability is effect of business on the society and
environment required to make a positive influence where the company fails to adopt
responsibility appropriately. This might lead to issues such as social injustice, environmental
degradation and inequality. It is essential to drive business through sustainability successfully
for helping to face challenges globally using ESG factors (environmental, social and
governance) for analysing sustainability practices and ethical impact of the company. In an
organisation, the factors consists of water usage, board diversity, carbon footprint, and

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community development efforts (Spiliakos, 2018). The initiatives taken by the company
helps in improving financial performance and nurturing support of public as well. In China,
Alibaba Group’s sustainability is aligned with its mission, goals, or values for improving,
building, or maintaining reputation while meeting expectations of customers and developing
new growth opportunities. Sustainability in business is important for the success of company
in long-term where the characteristics of sustainability helps in making decisions of the
business with opportunities maximisation and negative influence minimisation while
performing its core operations (Posner, 2014). Thus, it requires innovation and technology in
the company for making business’s sustainability sensible that also improves human lives. In
business, the value of sustainability brings change in the company promoting resource’s
future by value chain relating to social sustainability. Alibaba Group’s sustainability is
defined from its business model where being social responsible is a part of it. In the society,
the company solve problems as per its mission of making business working easier anywhere
considering opportunities and risks management. By 2036, Alibaba’s vision is to serve 2
billion consumers at global base while supporting operations of 10 million businesses for
profitability, and help to create 100 million jobs (ESG Report, 2018). Moreover, the priority
of the company is its employees, shareholders and customers.
Further, the ESG issues in the company’s culture and business model considered in
Alibaba based on sustainability are intellectual property rights protection, corporate
governance, data protection, cyber-security, social impact, human capital, and environmental
impact. This will lead to periodic updates related to activities and strategy of ESG in the
future. The characteristics of sustainability include environmental, social and economic
aspects. In environmental factor, characteristics under making business practice sustainable
are holistic environmental management, advocating regenerative business practice, and
ecopreneurship based on taking emergence initiatives (Quental, Lourenço, & da Silva, 2011).
The strategy of sustainability consists of risk and cost reduction, innovative capabilities,
brand value and reputation, and retention and talent attraction. Sustainable corporation have
the capability of restricting resource waste and utilisation, increasing operational efficiencies
and product differentiation, environmentally and socially innovative products development
that is helpful in gaining competitive advantage, saving cost, increasing brand reputation,
growth opportunities identification, and contribution in sustainable development goal
(Onunaiwu, 2018). Hence, the sustainability characteristics include human engagement and
rights, innovation, and transparency by integrating sustainability vision and strategy. Further,

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meeting the current needs without any compromise for future is sustainability based on the
ability of the company. The social, economic and environmental factors are referred as
profits, people and planet when investing in sustainability as the company’s competitive
edge. Sustainability generates advantage for the company that can be attained with
community engagement, movements in business, and talent acquisition as a purpose of
delivering goals such as shareholder value, efficiency and sustainable growth. The company
gain benefits of better reputation and public goodwill with the improvement in factors to
fulfil the commitment. Alibaba needs to organise varied efforts for have an opportunity while
performing its operations to gain public credit. Thus, sustainability covers business’s supply
chain, accountability requirement through suppliers from the top level to the retailers based
on low-cost production. So, Alibaba Group is a sustainable corporation based on its
operational performance and reputation in the market.
In sustainability, environmental factor is most focused one by the companies like
Alibaba where the main aim is to reduce the company’s carbon footprints, water usage,
packaging waste and all of the overall effect on environment. Also, it is possible to have
positive impact financially in the company based on the benefits provided to the planet. If the
amount used of material gets reduced in packaging can lessen its spending overall. The
challenge faced in this factor by the company is externalities as the impact of business is not
fully costs often that includes land reclamation, waste water, carbon dioxide and waste
generally that is not calculated otherwise while producing so it is essential to make a progress
in reducing them (Caldera, Desha, & Dawes, 2018). Social factor is another aspect of
sustainability that requires approval and support of community, employees and stakeholders
the company is operating in. The company requires maintaining and securing by approaching
to employees and treating them equally in a good manner with members of community and
society as well globally and locally. In business, company refocuses on engagement and
retention strategies for employees with approachable benefits for them such as opportunities
in learning and development, paternity and maternity benefits, and flexible scheduling.
Moreover, the ways company works on engaging community consists of scholarships,
fundraising, investment and sponsorship in public projects locally. In business, running it on
a global scale socially requires awareness to fill its supply chain. Lastly, economic factor
regarding sustainability needs the company to be profitable but more necessarily includes risk
management and proper governance (Eddy, 2019). It is essential to take care of shareholders’
interests along with end-user customers, community, value chains. Further, the company

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needs to use transparent and correct methods of accounting and provide opportunity to the
stockholders when taking decisions related to issues. Thus, sustainable corporation develops
effective measures while adopting such as forsaking chemical fertilizers or fossil fuels instead
of making changes.
In Alibaba Group being a sustainable corporation, characteristics of sustainability the
company considers are related to environmental, social and economic factors. Sustainability
helps the company in making equitable and balanced decisions regarding social, financial and
environmental results to achieve both long-term and short-term. It is a responsibility of
management for being socially responsible to take actions and make decisions. Also, it is
essential for enhancing interests and welfare of the company and society (Zhou, Chen, & Li,
2018). Alibaba’s major concern is to bring change for growth with important drivers by
focusing on issues such as corporate scandals, high pressure from regulators or government,
issues related to media, globalisation, attaining competitive advantage, offshoring, customer
power increment the company is concerned about, and actions that are effective by activists
and non-governmental companies. Thus, the objective of the company to achieve growth in
triple bottom line (people, profit and planet) is based on these regulations (Li, Ding, & Li,
2019). In China, it is important to encourage the growth promotion of distribution system,
growth rates backwardness, online marketplace accessibility and social responsible
investment for more opportunities in relation to profit. It consists of unaccounted costs to the
environment, people and resources in relation to current costs accountability needed for
consumer to provide them product or service. The challenges faced by Alibaba Group are
behaviour of employees and offline retail impact, rural to urban inequality, “Intellectual
Property Protection Platform” protection, distribution and manufacturing infrastructure,
focusing on one-way trade internationally, and compliance of corporate governance with
unclear regulations and laws in China (Alibaba Group, 2017). Other than this, issues
requiring improvisation majorly consists of unproven business benefits and cost implications.
Sustainability enhances the performance of the company by achieving reduction in cost
externally and equity funds along with helping in retaining and attracting workforce. Hence,
it is possible with the help of training, technology and financing.
To ensure sustainability, the measures involve compliance recording with regulations
and laws, actual activities related to environment, recognised standards application in some
areas like corporate governance, social or ethical, communications’ quality and frequency
with stakeholders, internal standards formulation and communication, philanthropic, and

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corporate responsibility in terms of market reputation (Liao & Yi, 2018). Moreover, Alibaba
is committed to social causes while responding fairly to any issues by evaluating the support
and empowerment of stakeholders and its operational efficiency. The company works on
business conduct high standards while maintaining relationships overall as well. Also,
Alibaba taking feedback with processing decision-making to build code of ethics based on
policy and principle. It is essential for the company to survive and adopt change in the
environment acknowledging less apparent and unintended costs for no adoption of
sustainable strategies. Though, the impact is directly on performance and financial stability of
Alibaba Group in relation to users of the company (Choi & Mai, 2018). To conclude, this
essay discussed the characteristics of sustainability to know Alibaba is a sustainable
corporation or not. So, Alibaba is a sustainable corporation based on its ESG factors by
offering communication methods constantly and informed opinion to gather regarding current
issues. Also, the company uses good CSR and sustainable development practices with
stakeholders for success of the business in future. Thus, it is linked with technology and
innovation along with continuous management and investment to develop while taking
different initiatives related to sustainability.

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References
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http://www.alijijinhui.org/Uploads/file/20171012/59deed9c7d00b.pdf
Caldera, H., Desha, C., & Dawes, L. (2018). Exploring the characteristics of sustainable
business practice in small and medium-sized enterprises: Experiences from the
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Choi, Y., & Mai, D. (2018). The sustainable role of the e-trust in the B2C e-commerce of
Vietnam. Sustainability, 10(1), 291.
Chou, C. (2018, November 15). SOME OF CAINIAO’S MOST IMPORTANT WORK STARTS
11.12. Retrieved from Alizila: https://www.alizila.com/some-of-cainiaos-most-
important-work-starts-11-12/
Daxue Consulting. (2014, August 9). Online market in China: How Alibaba started.
Retrieved from Daxue Consulting: https://daxueconsulting.com/how-alibaba-started/
Eddy. (2019, March 22). Characteristics of a sustainable business model. Retrieved from
Business Fundas: http://www.business-fundas.com/2019/characteristics-of-a-
sustainable-business-model/
Epstein, G. (2011, March 23). Alibaba's Jack Ma Fights To Win Back Trust. Retrieved from
Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0411/features-jack-ma-alibaba-e-
commerce-scandal-face-of-china.html#108a4c534af5
ESG Report. (2018). Foundations for Sustainable Growth. Retrieved from Alibaba Group:
https://esg.alibabagroup.com/ui/pdfs/Alibaba-ESG-Report-2018.pdf
Li, X., Ding, Y., & Li, Y. (2019). M-Government Cooperation for Sustainable Development
in China: A Transaction Cost and Resource-Based View. Sustainability, 11(7), 1884.
Liao, S., & Yi, S. (2018). Research on the Construction of Characteristic Towns in China:
Models, Problems, Countermeasures. International Journal of Sustainable
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Mujnani, R. (2019, December 27). Alibaba’s 2019 Double 11 Festival aka Singles’s Day or
11.11. Retrieved from Medium: https://medium.com/@rahulmuj/alibabas-2019-

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double-11-festival-aka-singles-s-day-or-11-11-6add040b1c7a
Onunaiwu, E. (2018, June 12). The Most Defining Sustainability Characteristics in the
Coming Decade. Retrieved from Medium: https://medium.com/@ebukaeddow/the-
most-defining-sustainability-characteristics-in-the-coming-decade-ac18871c77e2
Posner, M. (2014, September 5). Michael H. Posner: Why It Pays for Businesses to Boost
Sustainability. Retrieved from GE Reports:
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sustainability/
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sustainability-in-business
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DEVELOPMENT GOALS. Retrieved from Alizila: https://www.alizila.com/alibaba-a-
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Agricultural Sustainability: A Case Study of Alibaba. Sustainability, 10, 1-20.
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Appendices
Sustaining
Organisation
Characteristics
How does it apply to the
Alibaba Group?
What United Nations
Sustainability Goals
are relevant and why?
1. A new social contract As the company is committed to
maintain its relationship within an
organisation among all the
stakeholders
Promoting gender
equality and achieving
education universally in
case of social impact
2. Focus on human
sustainability
The impact of sustainability is on
human capital as well where the
company keeps of retaining and
recruiting talented employees for
making work done
Ensuring availability
and creating job
opportunities while
taking care of
employees safety and
health protection for
better lives in case of
people as economic
impact
3. Focus on ecological
sustainability
The company focuses on reducing
carbon emissions and wastes for
attaining environmental
sustainability
Making the
consumption and
production patterns
sustainable. Also taking
urgent actions in
relation to climate
change and its influence
in relation to other
natural resources as well
4. Reinventing business
models
The company ensure to achieve
the goals, mission and vision with
the help of business model and
corporate governance
sustainability
Promoting, protecting
and restoring by using
resource nominally to
avoid waste and use it
by recycling and reusing
as well
5. Purposive, value- Alibaba take actions for fulfilling For strengthening the

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based action the purpose of being a sustainable
corporation and maintaining the
reputation in the market with
ensuring to meeting the needs of
the consumers
reason of executing and
revitalising partnership
globally for sustainable
development.
6. Building strategy into
the culture
The company’s strategy builds
with respective to culture for
integrating sustainability covering
economic, environmental and
social factors taking care of
stakeholders’ interests as well
For promoting peace in
the societies and
providing access to
build effective and
accountable
corporation. And,
making individuals
living standards high
and better