Alibaba Group: A Sustaining Corporation Analysis Essay

This essay delves into the sustainability practices of the Alibaba Group, assessing its characteristics as a sustaining corporation. It examines Alibaba's commitment to environmental and social responsibility, including its efforts to minimize its carbon footprint, invest in energy-efficient technologies, and promote eco-friendly logistics. The essay also explores Alibaba's contributions to social sustainability, such as its human capital investments, transparent working environment, and initiatives addressing social issues like missing children. Furthermore, it analyzes Alibaba's role in fostering entrepreneurship and generating job opportunities. By referencing the characteristics of a sustaining corporation as identified by Benn, Edwards, and Williams, and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, the essay evaluates the extent to which Alibaba aligns with these principles and contributes to a more sustainable future, considering its economic, social, and environmental impacts.

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Essay
[Type the document subtitle]
8/24/2019
Student name

Essay 1
Alibaba sustainability
Sustainability is an enterprise’s ability to constantly exist in a dynamic environment.
Considering the current scenario, sustainability is considered the capacity of human civilization
and biosphere to coexist. Sustainability also includes resources usage in a way to enable society
to have satisfactory existing needs while considering the future generation ability to meet those
needs. For organization being sustainable, it is important for the enterprise to consider triple
bottom line criteria or conduct of business in a way that will not home environment on society in
which the organization exists. The three pillars of development of sustainable organization are
social, economic and environmental (Betton, 2017). The key purpose of the essay is to sustaining
Corporation and the relevant characteristics of sustaining Corporation while considering an
organizational case. Alibaba group is one of the online retail companies who have ability to
transform the traditional business to the way they sell; market can operate the business activities
across the globe with the use of Internet of things and virtual intelligence. The vision of the
company is to develop future infrastructure of commerce (alibabagroup, 2019). Therefore, the
sustainability concern and characteristic of sustaining cooperation considering Alibaba group
will be discussed in Essay further, while identifying if the company apply any of the
sustainability characteristics as identified by Ben, Williams and Edwards. The key principles and
ethics of the company include commitment by the employees of the company, integrity that
include expectation from people of the company expecting to uphold and deliver honest
standards and delivering commitment to the commitments. The customer is considered to be
most important stakeholder for the company as the company work for the best interest of the
customers, enterprise and merchants are the priority for the company. The company believes in
teamwork that enables an individual to achievements through teamwork. Moreover the company

Essay 2
has considered the change as one of the key element depicting that the company works towards
the economical factor of the company that is gaining profit through innovation in business model
and technology (alibabagroup, about/culture, 2019).
The evidence suggests that Alibaba group has always considered the responsibility
towards the society in solving problems, which are also part of mission of the company that is to
make it easy to conduct business anywhere. Moreover, the company considers opportunities and
threats that are associated with social, environmental and governance factors. As discussed the
three pillars of sustainability, one of these is social filler pillar (Bombiak, 2018). Considering this
pillow it includes people in the society, people who work with the organization that is the
employees and other stakeholders of the company, Alibaba group has driven its passion and core
values and use of technology in order to solve problems in the society. One of the contributions
of the company identified considering the social factor is human capital investment of the
company. As per the record, the employees associated with the company are 86,833 as of June
2018. The industry in which Alibaba is operating is very competent even nature especially when
it comes to talent acquisition and ability of the company to retain, retrieved, provide training and
rewarding a diverse group of workforce it is found to be difficult regarding long-term success of
business. The company is taking care of its people and making their corporate journey
comfortable with offering clear vision mission, career development opportunities and also
provide them the opportunity to resolve the problems are the digital economy scale of Alibaba
(Doppell, 2017).
Other than this, the transparency in the workplace is another factor that reflects that the
company has to consider sustaining through social factor. The company fosters a transparent and
open working environment that emphasizes participation and communication. The company

Essay 3
considers skills as most important aspect while executing once ability through communicating
the values affectively, plans and strategies to the colleagues. The company for reviewing and
appraising employees regularly has structured a rigorous employee feedback framework.
Moreover 360° service are considered by the managers who are managing the team so as to
understand the strength and areas for the improvement. Moreover, considering the social impact
in sustainable business the company includes reunion system that was working for missing
children (Gencer, 2017). The company has considered missing children as one of the social
issues that the employees of the company will work for using their technological capabilities.
The system was developed by the engineers of the company that was liable to connect their
children with their parents through mobile applications in order to search for the missing children
around China. This application was used by hundreds millions of people. This reflects that
Alibaba group is found to be socially responsible company considering the social impact as one
of the pillar of sustainable Corporation (alibabagroup, about/sustainability, 2019).
One of the most important pillars in sustainable development is environmental
sustainability. The relationship between Alibaba group and the environmental sustainability
challenges considered by the company includes minimizing carbon footprint and applicability of
innovation while finding solutions to the challenges arise for environmental sustainability. As
per United Nations there are 17 sustainable development goals for transforming the globe among
the sustainable goals provided by United Nations one of the major characteristic applied by
Alibaba group include climate action plan that is the 13th goal. As per the belief of Alibaba
group, a clean environment is one of the scars resources on this planet. Even if Alibaba group is
not an industrial manufacturing company that has large conduct of business with environmental
footprint but the company recognize this Environmental issue and responsibility towards the

Essay 4
environment to minimize the impact of carbon footprint (Kolk, 2016). The key activities
Considered by Alibaba group are innovation in the business areas, which have the highest impact
over the environmental sustainability challenges. The initiatives taken by the company are
connected to the business practices of company fundamentally and helping inform or make sure
of long-term strategies of Alibaba group. It has been identified that one of the major effects on
the environment is through the power consumption in the technology companies that are truly
their hardware infrastructure. For this, the company has implemented sustainable cloud
computing services that will affect the power consumption and reduce the use of energy while
making energy efficient technology (Kolk, 2016).
Moreover, the company has identified to be investing in energy efficient servers and data
centres. For example Zannghbei Data centre, that is one of the cool regions, where the wind
power is easily accessible. It has been identified that this data centre was hundred percent
powered by wind and solar renewable energy. This was responsible for increase in energy
efficiency of the data centre by more than 4% and it helps the company to reduce cost of
construction and maintenance. This is helping the company to reduce the consumption of energy
that is used for cooling by around 59% (Nyberg, Dentchev, & Van Hoof, 2016). Other than this,
the company has installed cleaning the logistics systems. Aspic this initiative the logistic
business of the company has been adopted look to work this goal by replacing the packaging
material my 50% with hundred percent eco-friendly packaging materials that are also
biodegradable. By launching, the program that is green packaging The Company has also
increase the courier service partners to consider the biodegradable packaging material. This
included be three boxes, biodegradable bags and package recycle bins. This technology was
found to be implemented around two 50 million biodegradable bags and delivery boxes ask put

Essay 5
the record in 2018. The logistic business of Alibaba that Cainiao network is also working
towards the green logistic parks development that will be run with the use of solar energy and
avoid use of carbon emission for more than 1,000,000 tonnes annually (businessfortnight,
20196).
Considering the shared value include, organization integration of the three pillars
discussed comes up which includes operating practices and policies of the company include the
company‘s competitive advantage and advancing the social and economic conditions in the
community in which it is operating. The concept of creating shared value is to introduced to
challenge the idea which includes social responsibility of the company significant to business. In
case the organization is addressing the challenges related to environmental damage or harm in
the social need while bringing the innovation to the problem that is creating value for the
company and society at the broader concept (Epstein, 2018).
The key characteristics of the sustaining Corporation include ecological sustainability and
human sustainability. As per the ecological sustainability, the enterprise considers the ecological
sustainability promoter, which includes seeking on influencing the participants in the society and
industry to work towards the best of environmental practice. This practice is applicable to
Alibaba business group, as discussed previously the group has been working towards the
emission of carbon footprint by transforming the packaging into a biodegradable or greener
form. It has also made the suppliers introduce the same program while promoting the healthy
environment around the society to influence other stakeholders to participate in this
environmental practice initiated by the Alibaba group (esg.alibabagroup, 2019).

Essay 6
Another character includes human sustainability, as per this character the organization is
contributing and finding itself liable for the responsibility to the process of upgrading human
knowledge, renewing and formation of the schools in the society and community. It also includes
work please diversity and works life balance as the principles of the organization. This is another
character that is identified an applicable by the Alibaba group. As discussed above one of the
social responsibility considered by the company is human capital, which includes creating job
unity 40 people in the society (Du & Bstieler, 2016). Truly reaching innovation and Technology
Company has been creating employment opportunities for mission statement in society. The
platform provided for the people and business opportunities generated for the retailers, marketing
people, service providers and logistics, operations outsourcing, consulting, online and mobile
commerce professionals and training across the value chain of the company. As per the
sustainability report of Alibaba group in 2018 the company has generated 36 million jobs
opportunities through its retail ecosystem in various segments like 22 million jobs for
downstream and upstream sectors like designing, research and development, logistics and
manufacturing. Moreover, the company has been working towards the international expansion in
south-east Asia, eastern Europe, and South Asia that also provide job with virtual 80 to those
regions as well (Doppell, 2017).
Other than this, the company has found to be the promoter in the society considering the
job or self-reliance opportunities. For example, one of the initiatives of the company includes
fostering entrepreneurship. Through the mission statement of the company, it reflects that the
Alibaba group is aiming to make entrepreneurs start up easy to implement while considering
cloud computing services of Alibaba in order to reduce operational cost and reduce the cost and
making finance available for the entrepreneurs. The company has initiated rural Taobao program

Essay 7
for which the company works with the village level communities and with nations to facilitate
entrepreneurs starting their business in young age that is selling through the e-commerce
platform of the company. Alibaba Group has also supported Taiwan and Hong Kong
entrepreneurs in the form of financial support and providing opportunity and platform to start
their business and selling their products digitally. Jack Ma foundation was another initiation by
the company for support of African entrepreneurs. The company establishes $10 million
netpreneneur prizes, which was the 10-year program providing funding to entrepreneurs in
Africa who are aiming to support business, in increasing use of digital economy. Therefore, it
can be said that through applicability of Human sustainability character the company have
perceived the human welfare, social practices, upgrading human skills and providing opportunity
to the society to increase their capability, career development and earn money for the living
(Loewenberger, Newton, & Wick, 2013).
Some of the elements that contribute to the company to be a sustaining Corporation is a
new social contract that will include written procedures and policies, key stakeholders that will
be identified for the workforce development. The second element is focused on human
sustainability, as discussed the human sustainability applied by Alibaba group, which includes
development of human knowledge and skills, attracting people values, work place diversity and
flexible practices and structures. The third element includes focus on ecological sustainability
that helps in enriching and restoring the environment. The fourth includes reinventing business
models that include the corporation, sharing economy, circular economy model. It includes
value-based and purposes action, which includes conduct of company values, forming alliances,
implementing ethical audit. Six elements include building strategy into the culture, which
includes purposeful community, and this of decision-making and thinking that reflects

Essay 8
sustainability. Through the analysis of the sustainability report of Alibaba group it can be said
that the characteristics that have been applied by Alibaba include human sustainability,
ecological sustainability, building strategy into the culture (Mio, Corazza, & Scagnelli, 2017).
Through the sustainability report of Alibaba group it can be concluded that Sustainability
is an enterprise resources usage in a way to enable society to have satisfactory existing needs
while considering the future generation ability to meet those needs. The three pillars of
development of sustainable organization are social, economic and environmental. Alibaba group
is one of the online retail companies who have ability to transform the traditional business to the
way they sell, market can operate. The evidence suggests that Alibaba group has always
considered the responsibility towards the society in solving problems. The company is taking
care of its people and making their corporate journey comfortable by offering clear vision
mission, career development opportunities. Among the sustainable goals provided by United
Nations one of the major characteristic applied by Alibaba group includes climate action plan
that is the 13th goal. Employees associated with the company are 86,833 as of June 2018.
Alibaba Group has also supported Taiwan and Hong Kong entrepreneurs in the form of financial
support and providing opportunity and platform to start their business and selling their products
digitally. The company establishes $10 million netpreneneur prizes, which was the 10-year
program providing funding to entrepreneurs in Africa who are aiming to support business, in
increasing use of digital economy. Through the analysis of the sustainability report of Alibaba
group it can be said that the characteristics that have been applied by Alibaba include human
sustainability, ecological sustainability, building strategy into the culture. Therefore, it can be
said that Alibaba group is the sustaining organization.

Essay 9
References
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https://www.alibabagroup.com/en/about/culture
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https://www.alibabagroup.com/en/about/overview
alibabagroup. (2019). about/sustainability. Retrieved from alibabagroup:
https://www.alibabagroup.com/en/about/sustainability
Betton, P. (2017). Competitive Strategy: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. Macat
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Bombiak, E. (2018). Green Human Resource Management as a Tool for the Sustainable
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Doppell, B. (2017). Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for
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Du, S., & Bstieler, L. (2016). Sustainability, social media driven open innovation, and new
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Epstein, M. (2018). Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring
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esg.alibabagroup. (2019). Alibaba-ESG-Report-2018. Retrieved from esg.alibabagroup:
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Online First 30/09/2013DOI.

Essay 10
Mio, C., Corazza, L., & Scagnelli, S. (2017). Simulacra and sustainability disclosure: analysis of
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Environmental Management, 24(5), 414-434.
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