Alibaba's 2026 Fiscal Year ESG Report Details Significant Operational Emissions Reduction and AI Integration

Alibaba Group has released its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) report for the 2026 fiscal year.

The report indicates that over the past year, Alibaba Group's own operational emissions reduction reached 3.195 million metric tons, representing a 57.5% year-on-year increase. Its net emissions were reduced to 2.296 million metric tons, a decrease of 4.6% compared to the previous year.

Concurrently, the company's AI capabilities are increasingly being applied across sectors such as healthcare, transportation, and education, benefiting a broader segment of society.

Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang wrote in the ESG report's introductory letter that AI is beginning to function like water and electricity as fundamental infrastructure supporting societal operations, and it will form the most significant contextual backdrop for addressing environmental, social, and governance challenges. The goal of Alibaba's ESG initiatives is to continue being a responsible company in the AI era.

Alibaba is noted as an early proponent of green data centers in China and was the first to set a goal for data centers to achieve 100% clean energy usage. In the 2026 fiscal year, the group's overall clean electricity usage ratio reached 62.2%.

The clean electricity proportion for Alibaba Cloud's self-built data centers rose to 73.6%, an increase of 9.6 percentage points year-on-year. The Power Usage Effectiveness for its self-built data centers further decreased to 1.187, maintaining a leading position in Asia.

Furthermore, through digital technology and business model innovation, the platform has helped its clients and consumers implement pathways and solutions to avoid emissions, achieving an estimated total avoided emissions of approximately 100 million metric tons in the 2026 fiscal year.

Examples include the e-commerce platform actively expanding the supply of low-carbon products, the Xianyu platform facilitating the trading and recycling of second-hand goods, the Cainiao stations launching packaging box return and used clothing recycling services, and Taobao's flash sales encouraging users to select options like "no cutlery needed" and "smaller portion sizes" to reduce single-use item consumption and food waste.