With the help of green computing technologies, Chinese fintech giant Ant Group reduced carbon emissions by over 62,100 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) in 2022

Ant Group has published its latest sustainability report, revealing that the company has reached operational carbon neutrality for the second consecutive year in 2022. Besides, the fintech giant spent 20.46 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) on research and development (R&D) in 2022, doubling the relevant expenditure from 2019.

The investments were primarily focused on innovations in key operational areas such as distributed databases and computing infrastructure, blockchain, privacy computing, data and network security, green computing, and artificial intelligence.

Green computing investments, which focus on optimizing data centre power efficiency and AI model training, have apparently paid off, as the company managed to reduce carbon emissions by over 62,100 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) in 2022.

Previously, Ant Group pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions across Scope 1, 2 & 3 by 2030. According to the Group’s Carbon Neutrality Roadmap, the company will complete a full assessment of all greenhouse gas emissions in its entire supply chain by 2025.

“Over the years, we have gradually explored a green and low-carbon growth path driven by technology and platform. Despite this, there are still significant challenges ahead to achieve our 2030 carbon net zero goal. We need to invest more efforts and resources, as well as make plans for the long-term,” says Yijie Peng, Chief Sustainability Officer of Ant Group.

Pursuing its ESG goals,?Ant Group also collaborated with its affiliate MYbank to establish the first nationwide green rating standard for SMEs in China. Using this standard, MYbank facilitated the evaluations of 6.23 million SMEs for their green operations and environmental contributions. The Ant subsidiary also provided green loans to 420,000 SMEs, enabling the borrowers to reach their sustainability goals.

We have previously explained?How Fintechs Benefit from ESG Focus?and?How Fintech Can Become More ESG-Focused.