Pinduoduo ranks last among China’s big e-commerce firms in sustainability, with no climate strategy revealed: Greenpeace

China’s e-commerce giants ‘still don’t do enough’ and may be ‘bottlenecks for progress’, Greenpeace project manager says

Alibaba Group Holding, which owns the country’s largest e-commerce platform Taobao, topped the rankings for a second consecutive year

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Published: 8:00am, 10 Nov 2023

Pinduoduo, China’s second-largest e-commerce platform, performs the worst among its peers in environmental actions, lacking in strategies and disclosures on climate change, biodiversity and waste management, according to Greenpeace.

Alibaba Group Holding, which owns the country’s largest e-commerce platform Taobao, topped the rankings for a second consecutive year, according to a report released by the environmental group on Thursday. Vipshop came in second, followed by JD.com, ByteDance, Kuaishou and Pinduoduo, which also ranked at the bottom of last year’s report.

Despite some effort, Tang Damin, Beijing-based project manager at Greenpeace East Asia, said he is worried that the platforms “are becoming bottlenecks for progress”.

“Overall, China’s e-commerce giants still don’t do enough to leverage their platforms toward sustainability,” he said. “This stagnation is most obvious for the climate. But the impact on other environmental issues is also profound.”

Alibaba topped the Greenpeace list thanks to its climate commitments and its strategies to engage both shoppers and sellers on its platform in reducing carbon emissions. Photo: Getty Images

The Greenpeace report ranked the six platforms on their climate commitments, actual performance, disclosures and auditing, as well as their response to environmental risks for biodiversity, waste and hazardous chemicals.