Baidu lags Alibaba, Tencent in Greenpeace’s latest Chinese tech rankings

BEIJING – Alibaba Group and Tencent have topped Greenpeace East Asia’s latest renewable energy rankings for China’s technology industry, beating Baidu by a wide margin. The report, Clean Cloud 2024highlights a significant gap in climate action by big Chinese tech companies, with some making only limited progress towards their own renewable energy targets.

Xin Lyu, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia, said:

“AI is driving rising emissions in the tech sector, and pressure is mounting on leading tech companies to reduce their climate impact. Chinese tech giants appear to be taking notice, with some leading companies posting significant breakthroughs in renewable energy usage over the past two years. But progress has been uneven across the industry, with companies like Baidu making less progress on their own climate goals than their peers.”

The report analyzed China’s ten leading cloud service companies and 15 leading data center operators.

Key takeaways:

–Over the past two years, renewable energy purchases by leading Chinese technology companies have increased significantly. As of June 2024, five of the companies ranked had annual renewable energy rates above 10%. At the time of Greenpeace’s rankings in June 2022, that percentage was just one company.

– Alibaba Group ranked first in four years. As of November 2023, Alibaba Group has purchased 1.61 billion kWh of renewable energy year-to-date. (1) This was the highest volume reported by any company in the cloud provider category.

– Baidu still lags behind its competitors in renewable energy sourcing. In 2023, Baidu reported that the share of renewable energy was about 5%. (2) This was significantly lower than Alibaba Group (15.4% in fiscal 2023) and Tencent (12.4%). (3)(4)

– GDS received the highest score in the data center operators ranking. In 2023, GDS reported a renewable energy rate of over 38%.(5) By comparison, GDS competitor VNET Group, which operates data centers for Microsoft 365, reported a renewable energy rate of around 4% in 2023.(6)(7)

– Eight of the 25 companies included in the ranking have committed to achieving 100% renewable energy by 2030. Among companies that have set a goal of switching to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030, ByteDance, owner of TikTok, is the only one that has not disclosed data on its carbon emissions and energy use.

Greenpeace is calling for all technology companies to set a target of 100% renewable energy and carbon neutrality in Scopes 1, 2 and 3 by 2030. To maximise their real climate impact, companies should achieve carbon neutrality primarily through direct emission reductions, including purchasing renewable energy and improving energy efficiency, rather than relying on carbon offsets.

“The decarbonization trend of China’s tech industry is unstoppable, but some companies are lagging behind. Baidu, in particular, needs to increase its use of renewable energy to meet its own climate goals. Similarly, TikTok-owner ByteDance needs to disclose its environmental data as a first step toward meeting its climate commitments,” Lyu said.

Notes

The English version of the report is available here (abridged). The full Chinese version of the report is available here.

Selected cloud service companies collectively accounted for more than 52% of China’s public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) market in the first half of 2023, while select data center operators held more than 60% of the internet data center (IDC) market in 2022.(8,9)

The researchers used publicly available information to rate the companies on their transparency, carbon reduction efforts and targets, renewable energy sourcing and targets, and government and industry influence.

A detailed guide to this methodology is available here.

(1) Bloomberg NEF (2023). “2023 China Corporate Green Power Trading Rankings” Published online on November 10, 2023. Accessed on June 29, 2024 from: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/e-jJaqOOmDJufu6ejeWZnw

(2) Baidu (2024). “Baidu 2023 Environmental, Social and Governance Report” Published online on May 13, 2024. Accessed on June 29, 2024 from: https://esg.baidu.com/Uploads/File/2024/05/17/Baidu%202023%20Environmental,%20Social%20and%20Governance%20Report.20240517150706.pdf
Note: Renewable Energy Usage Rate = Company-reported Renewable Energy Usage / Company-reported Electricity Usage

(3) Alibaba Group (2023). “Environmental, Social and Governance Report 2023” Published online on July 24, 2023. Accessed on June 29, 2024 from: https://data.alibabagroup.com/ecms-files/1509739361/fcaefa3d-0989-48fb-b003-fa96aa04880e/2023%20Alibaba%20ESG%20Report-Final.pdf
In Alibaba Group’s fiscal year 2023 (April 1, 2022–March 31, 2023), the renewable energy utilization rate was 15.43%, according to Greenpeace calculations.

(4) Tencent (2024). “Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance Report 2023” Published online on April 8, 2024. Accessed on June 29, 2024 from: https://static.www.tencent.com/uploads/2024/05/29/045cba29b4153119f3cd17c406ac2433.pdf

(5) GDS (2024). “GDS Annual Report 2023” Published online on April 29, 2024. Accessed June 29, 2024 from: https://investors.gds-services.com/static-files/dbf98788-e2e7-4e36-8e4d-571c3eafc32f

(6) Microsoft 365 (2024). “Microsoft 365 operated by 21Vianet” Published online February 27, 2024. Accessed June 29, 2024 from: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/office-365-platform-service-description/microsoft-365-operated-by-21vianet

(7) VNET Group (2024). “Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report 2023” Published online on April 26, 2024. Accessed June 29, 2024 from: https://www.vnet.com/upload/portal/PDF/2023esgreport.pdf
Note: Renewable Energy Usage Rate = Company-reported Renewable Energy Usage / Company-reported Electricity Usage

(8) IDC (2023). “Post-Pandemic Growth Below Expectations: Growth in China’s Public Cloud Service Market Continues to Slow in the First Half of 2023” Published online November 2, 2023. Accessed June 29, 2024 from: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prCHC51354423 Note: The combined market share of Alibaba Group, Huawei, and Tencent exceeds 52%.

(9) IDC (2023). “China Data Center Services Market Still in Slow Recovery Phase in 2022” Published online August 14, 2023. Accessed June 29, 2024 from: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prCHC51148523 Note: The combined market share of China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom exceeds 60%.