Alibaba Group Sustainability Analysis Essay: Course [Code/Name]

This essay provides an analysis of the Alibaba Group's sustainability practices, focusing on how the company addresses environmental and social responsibilities. The essay begins by defining sustainability and its core elements (planet, people, and profit), then highlights the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and their relevance to Alibaba's operations. It examines Alibaba's sustainability report, mission, and financial performance, emphasizing the company's commitment to environmental sustainability through initiatives such as clean environment programs, cloud computing for reduced power consumption, and eco-friendly packaging. The essay also explores Alibaba's contributions to social sustainability, including its efforts towards gender equality, poverty reduction, and job creation. The company's programs like the "Reunion System" for missing children, the promotion of women entrepreneurs, and the "Rural Taobao" program are discussed as examples of its social impact. Additionally, the essay considers Alibaba's role in industry innovation and infrastructure development, focusing on its promotion of brand awareness, sales, and the utilization of innovative software. The essay concludes by assessing whether Alibaba can be described as a sustaining corporation, referencing the characteristics of a sustaining corporation as identified by Benn, Edwards, and Williams, and the United Nations, providing a comprehensive overview of Alibaba's approach to sustainability.

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Managing People and Organisations
[Type the document subtitle]
12/29/2019
student name

Managing People and Organisations 1
Alibaba sustainability
Sustainability is the key for organisations in the dynamic and competitive
environment. Sustainability is capability of the organisation to exist constantly. This includes
three major elements that are planet people and property. The sustainability includes the
activities adopted by the organization which are in support of environment, human resource,
and profitability of the company and economy. The sustainability development goals as per
United Nations, there are majorly seventeen identified goals of that are no poverty, good
wellbeing and health, zero hunger, quality education, affordable and clean energy, economic
growth and decent work, reduced inequality, climate action, life on land, life below water,
partnership to achieve goals, justice and peace strong institutions and gender equality
(Colbert, Yee, & George, 2016).
The purpose of the essay is to assess sustainability plan and actions taken by Alibaba
group. The essay will reflect the sustainability characteristics adopted by Alibaba. Alibaba
group holding limited is one of the global ecommerce company headquartered in China. The
company has been working in the retail industry across the globe with technology use as the
key aspect (Darics, 2016).
From Alibaba sustainability goals report, it can be said that the company claims to be
responsible for helping the problems of the society and have been implied through the
mission as well. The company’s mission is to making the business easy anywhere and the
company consider managing opportunities and risk. This included social, governance, and
environment factors through their sustainability efforts. Considering the statistics from the
financial report of 2018, it can be said that the corporation served 552 million customers
annually in China and around ninety million consumers have been associated internationally.
This reflects that the company has major share in the retail sector of china. The digital

Managing People and Organisations 2
economy objective of the company included providing business through retail, ecommerce,
financial services, cloud computing, local services, healthcare and entertainment (Khan &
Talib, 2015).
The most important aspect of sustainability is environment, considering one of the
goal from you and sustainability goals that is climate action. Climate action gold reflects the
strengthening resilience and capacity to adapt to climate related disasters across the nation.
Moreover this also includes integration of climatic change in policies, planning and strategy
is. Considering Alibaba group sustainability plan , The characteristics of this sustainability
Cole has been acknowledged by the company through clean environment as one of the plan
as the company believe that clean environment is Global significant resources (undp, 2019).
However it has been analysed that Alibaba is not a manufacturing company, but still the
company believes in cleaning the environment and considering responsibility for the
environmental footprint by recognising and taking responsibility for minimising the impact of
harmful environmental hazardous and carbon footprint in order to acknowledge
environmental issues (Oldham & Silva, 2015).
The evidence reflects that these major activities that the company has adopted are
initiatives for innovation acknowledgement in various business areas. The company believes
that the highest influence over environmental sustainability is due to business practises and
through various initiatives taken by the company which includes helping informing and
promoting environmental safety. Moreover the company has considered environmental
sustainable practices as part of the long-term strategies in order to make sure that your
business of connected to sustainable challenges of environment (researchgate, 2019).
Moreover the harmful effects on environment are due to power consumption which was
considered as one of the environmental issue by the company as the company is working in
technology industry and being using had where infrastructure which may consume power.

Managing People and Organisations 3
The company has taken this as part of sustainability plan that is to implement cloud
computing facilities for minimise power consumption and reduce energy usage through
development of energy efficient technology (businessfortnight, 20196).
Considering one of the goals from UN sustainable development goals, That is
responsible consumption and production, The company has considered consumption of
resources through efficient manner for instance using data centres and efficient servers. One
of the examples from sustainable goal of Alibaba group is Zannghbei Data centre. This is
getting accessible through Bing powers as this data centre is one of the cool region in order to
reduce consumption of power and energy. As per the project of Alibaba group, the data
centre developed and powered by solar and wind energy which is in renewable form.
Through this data centre the company has taken responsibility for energy efficiency
increment by 4% increase and also helping the organisation in cost reduction through
efficient construction and maintenance accessibility. The project has helped the company in
minimising energy consumption by approx. 59% (esg.alibabagroup, 2019).
Other than this the company has been working towards clean environment by
launching various programmes and initiatives towards eco-friendly products and packaging.
One of the initiatives by the company is to install clean logistics system that has been adopted
eco-friendly packaging material which has been replaced by 50% that are found to be
hundred percent biodegradable materials. Through this program the company has been
initiating and promoting green packaging so as to increase biodegradable packaging material
with your courier service partners as well (Tukker & Charter, 2017). The initiative included
three major packaging box, recycle bin and biodegradable bags. According to the initiative
250 million biodegradable bags what implemented as per this technology which included
delivery boxes and biodegradable bags according to 2018. Alibaba’s logistic business that has
been working towards development of green logistic parks which will be implemented

Managing People and Organisations 4
through solar energy which is considered as renewable energy and avoid usage of carbon
emission, which recorded statistically More than 1000000 tonnes annually as per 2019
sustainable report of the company (alibabagroup, about/overview, 2019).
Another goal that has been considered by the company through its sustainable goal or
plan is gender equality and no poverty goal as per UN sustainable goals. Considering these
two girls the company has been working towards human factor that is the company believe in
social responsibility towards promotion of employs as one of the major stakeholders. For
instance from the online business of Alibaba group the business has been walking towards in
flowering of employs culture and their capabilities in order to resolve social problems. For
instance one of the initiative by the company is reunion system that is focused towards
ingenious conceived initiative for tracking missing children and finding those children in
China. This not only reflects the social responsibility of the company but also has created a
significant in fact on society (Stephen, 2016).
Other than this the company has been working towards creating job opportunities
which is one of the major initiative in order to create employment and work towards no
poverty goal. As per the report in 2018 the company had work towards providing job to
36,000,000 individuals in 2017 which included 22 million downstream and upstream sectors
like planning, research and development, logistics and developed. 14 million jobs were far
retailers through e-commerce platform. Considering the gender equality the company has
identified that in 2018 the statistics reflect that the active sellers in Chinese retail market
place offered by Alibaba group where woman. Moreover considering no poverty goal the
company has bring job opportunities to not only Chinese market but also to south-east Asia,
eastern Europe and South Asia through e-commerce platform by international expansion and
enabling local merchant to conduct business through e-commerce platform (Thomson, 2016).

Managing People and Organisations 5
The company has also been working towards woman empowerment by promoting
women entrepreneurs which eventually work towards gender equality. What the campaign
initiated by the company that this model mom entrepreneurship competition is one of such
competition that has been provided to disadvantage female entrepreneurs with the purpose to
inspire such woman to initiate their ventures through online portal offered by Alibaba group.
Moreover the company has been working towards small business expansion through e-
commerce platform availability to local services. Through this the company has been
working towards promoting small merchants to reach maximum customers through online
portal and effective use of e-commerce platform offered by Alibaba. As per the statistics the
company had helped around 155000 International and local sellers (alibabagroup,
about/sustainability, 2019).
Another popular initiated by the company include helping people out of poverty,
which is considered to be a step two words no poverty goal. The company connected with the
rural centres and merchants in order to while connect them to global marketplace using
Alibaba platform by providing them additional channels of income and helping those people
with fighting poverty issue. Through rural taobao programme which included business
infrastructure in rural areas that has enabled them to sell agricultural products of high-quality
to urban consumer’s at large scale. The program has work towards employment and
generation of business opportunities through establishment of two way distribution channel.
This two-way distribution infrastructure has enabled rural areas and cities to connect through
e-commerce activity. The statistics reflect that under this programme the company has
established Service in around 30,000 villages Including 300 state designated in more than 730
nations in China (alibabagroup, about/culture, 2019).
Considering goal 15 that is life on land from UN sustainability goal. According to the
school sustainably manage Forest, sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystem, combat this

Managing People and Organisations 6
certification, rivers and hold land dictation and protection of hold biodiversity loss is
included. Considering this is called the company has been acknowledging life on land
according to Google article sustainability of the company (Zahay, 2015). This included and
forest program or initiative by Alibaba group. According to this cause the company purpose
is plantation of 55 million trees on on financials users behalf where three 50 million users
participated. Through affiliated and financial what that is true Alipay mobile payment
application to users can able to collect green energy points. This has considered to be using
the payments which decreases the carbon options and using such payment system instead of
use of paper, this also included selecting Walking, biking and public transportation instead of
driving in order to decrease vehicle emission.
The green energy power points are used by users in the form of donation in order to
plant trees and users can also track the real-time progress through using these apps and
sharing the progress through social media platform. The company has been able to create
social games by tapping into digital platforms and featuring around carbon awareness for the
users, sharing and contributing towards better daily lifestyle of individuals and also helping
them to track towards the same (Dahlan, Abdullah, & Suhaimi , 2018).
Another goal from UN sustainable goals that has been considered by the company is
goal nine that this industry, innovation and infrastructure. According to the school the
development of resilient infrastructure, Foster innovation and sustainable industrialisation has
been considered. Focusing on the school the company sustainable plan included enabling
business tourism and retailers to connect with Chinese visitors. The company with its partners
has been working towards maximising brand awareness and sales of the company. For
instance Alipay exposes international merchant with registration of 1 billion users. The
company as a part of innovation program has engaged with Ali Pay through offline store as
well. Promotion of brand engagement as a discounting strategy that is to use Alipay coupon is

Managing People and Organisations 7
another innovative initiative by the company in order to maximise sales and profit (Ryan,
2016).
Utilisation of Alipay global campaign is another way by the company to increase
brand exposure. Moreover interactive map of the company has retail merchants that have
been using Alipay to locate and use initiative coupons in order to foot traffic towards the
store. Moreover, through the infrastructure provided by the company as a part of e-commerce
platform the company has able to engage traditional retailers to expand their retail outlets
online using innovative software increase their reachability to less number of consumers
around the world. Alibaba cloud enabling business is another innovative example that has
digitally transform not only Chinese retailing market but also other international markets per
the company has expanded through cloud technology and security services. What the
company has provided more than 200 technology solutions which has supported the business
across the globe. Moreover more than 1 million paying consumers and company being
revenue ranked at third largest position across the globe has benefited with latest technology
kill solutions provided to the market (Cheuk & Reedy, 2018).
Through sustainable report of Alibaba it can be concluded that the Alibaba has been
working towards digital economy and has been filled by seven sustainability priorities that is
corporate governance, social impact, human capital, data protection, environmental impact,
cyber security and intellectual property rights protection. Considering corporate governance,
the company has been working in partnership system which has benefited it not only the
company but also towards the sustainable goal of innovation and infrastructure. Moreover the
company culture and transparency has promoted human working environment goal. While
considering human capital sustainable approach of the company the company has consider
this as biggest asset that is to impress and increase the capability of the employees.

Managing People and Organisations 8
The company has work towards recruitment and retention of the best talented
employees. Moreover with the transparency in the workplace, provision of training to the
employs and embracing the diverse workforce the company has been able to become third-
largest of a new company across the globe. Through this the company has not only work
towards no poverty gold but has also impacted gender equality and reduce inequality goal
through it sustainable program. The statistics reflect that 66% of men and 34% of women
have been working as human capital of Alibaba group which reflected gender equality.
Considering environmental sustainability the company has been working towards data centre
which promoted wind power and solar energy with efficient use of power consumption.
Moreover the company has found to be work towards green logistic system through
packaging and working towards clean environment. Through and financial the company has
been working towards green energy points and work towards plantation of trees in China
(Mukherji & Arora, 2017).

Managing People and Organisations 9
References
alibabagroup. (2019). about/culture. Retrieved from alibabagroup:
https://www.alibabagroup.com/en/about/culture
alibabagroup. (2019). about/overview. Retrieved from alibabagroup:
https://www.alibabagroup.com/en/about/overview
alibabagroup. (2019). about/sustainability. Retrieved from alibabagroup:
https://www.alibabagroup.com/en/about/sustainability
businessfortnight. (20196). overview-of-alibaba-groups-corporate-social-responsibility-
efforts. Retrieved from businessfortnight: http://businessfortnight.com/overview-of-
alibaba-groups-corporate-social-responsibility-efforts/
Cheuk, B., & Reedy, K. (2018). Transforming the workplace through digital literacy. In:
Reedy, Katharine and Parker, Jo eds. Digital Literacy Unpacked. Facet Publishing, 1,
169-178.
Colbert, A., Yee, N., & George, G. (2016). The digital workforce and the workplace of the
future. Academy of Management, 731-739.
Dahlan, M., Abdullah, N., & Suhaimi , A. (2018). A study on supporting factors of digital
workplace diffusion in public sector. In International Conference on User Science
and Engineering, 886, 327-335.
Darics, E. (2016). Digital media in workplace interactions. The Routledge handbook of
language and digital communication, 1, 197-211.

Managing People and Organisations 10
esg.alibabagroup. (2019). Alibaba-ESG-Report-2018. Retrieved from esg.alibabagroup:
https://esg.alibabagroup.com/ui/pdfs/Alibaba-ESG-Report-2018.pdf
Khan, H., & Talib, F. (2015). An analysis of the barriers to the proliferation of M-Commerce
in Qatar: A relationship modeling approach. Journal of Systems and Information
Technology, 17(1), 54-81.
Mukherji, S., & Arora, N. (2017). Digital communication: easing operational outcomes in the
workplace. Procedia computer science, 122(1), 1084-1091.
Oldham, G., & Silva, N. (2015). The impact of digital technology on the generation and
implementation of creative ideas in the workplace. Computers in Human Behavior,
42, 5-11.
researchgate. (2019). Sustainability-phase-model-11-Reprinted-Reproduced-with-permission-
from-Benn-Dunphy. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sustainability-phase-model-11-Reprinted-
Reproduced-with-permission-from-Benn-Dunphy_fig1_283772310
Ryan, D. (2016). Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the
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Thomson, H. (2016). Marketing small and medium sized enterprises in the digital age:
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Tukker, A., & Charter, M. (2017). System innovation for sustainability 1: Perspectives on
radical changes to sustainable consumption and production. London: Routledge.

Managing People and Organisations 11
undp. (2019). goal-13-climate-action. Retrieved from undp:
https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-13-
climate-action.html
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Brand Strategy, 3(4), 357-372.

Managing People and Organisations 12
Appendix
Sustaining
Organization
Characteristics
How does it apply to the Alibaba
Group?
What United Nations
Sustainability Goals are
relevant and why?
1. A new social contract  Procedures and policies
include workforce
development, ecological
environment, and community
relationship
Reduce inequality
Due to transparency and
working environment
2. Focus on human
sustainability
 Human skill and knowledge
development
 People value and retention
 Workplace diversity
 Stakeholder relationship
development
 Long term influence on
future decisions
Low poverty and gender
equality
Due to employment
generation
3. Focus on ecological
sustainability
 Whole system thinking
approach
 Promote environment
sustainability
 Help enriching and restoring
the environment
Climate action
It is relevant due to carbon
emission initiatives
4. Reinventing business
models
 Use of B corporation
 Circular economy model
 Collaborative consumption
Responsible consumption
and production

Managing People and Organisations 13
5. Purposive, value-based
action
 Alliances and partnership
 Company values are codified
Partnership to achieve the
goal
6. Building strategy into
the culture
 Sustainable decision making
 Purposeful community
Decent work and
economic growth