On April 20, VNET released the 2021 ESG Report. This is the second ESG report released by VNET, which mainly focuses on the fields of climate action, creating core value, honoring corporate responsibility, and comprehensively discloses the company's ESG management practice and performance in the past year to identified stakeholders. VNET disclosed the group carbon accounting and the first Chinese domestic IDC enterprises’ third-party GHGs verification results in this report. This ESG report has also acquired independent assurance conducted by a professional third-party organization, further improving the transparency and credibility of VNET's ESG information disclosure.
VNET integrates environmental, social and governance (hereinafter referred to as the "ESG") management philosophy into major decisions of the Group, promotes high-quality development of the Group, and safeguards the interests of investors, customers, employees, communities and other stakeholders. The ESG report pointed out that in 2021, VNET has further optimized the ESG governance structure, deeply promoted ESG work from all levels of corporate hierarchy i.e. the board, board committees, management, coordinating departments and business departments, which effectively improved ESG governance capacity. In addition, VNET has launched the "SHIELD" sustainable development system in the second half of 2021. During the preparation of this report, VNET conducted a questionnaire survey on the six pillars and 18 ESG issues covered by the SHIELD system to stakeholders from all walks of life, identified the ESG issues of major concern to all parties, and responded positively.
In line with China's "dual carbon" strategy, VNET makes efforts to contribute to the national goals and the Group strategy of sustainability. VNET also supports clients and partners with cloud services to reduce energy consumption in IT infrastructure, to jointly build a zero-carbon society.
The report points out that based on the carbon accounting and third-party GHGs verification results, VNET has formulated ambitious carbon reduction targets in combination with past carbon reduction practices, so as to comprehensively promote the Group's low-carbon transformation. VNET commits:
Achieving operational carbon neutrality in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2030
Achieving 100% renewable energy use in operations by 2030
VNET has, for the first time, developed and disclosed the "4C" pathway towards carbon neutrality, namely, Carbon Avoidance, Carbon Reduction, Carbon Offset, and Carbon Empowerment. This will fully leverage an array of approaches including renewable energy transition, energy-saving technology use, carbon sinks, carbon trading and empowerment of the upstream and downstream industrial chain.
In addition, the report also details the continuous efforts of VNET to make unremitting efforts to underpin core foundation of digital infrastructure. Based on the "wholesale + new retail" dual-core strategy and the SPEAR plan, VNET has accelerated the construction of the next-generation intelligent information infrastructure. The report also details the practices in promoting industry innovation and change, which has been done so by actively creating a diverse and inclusive workplace, collaborating with VNET’s partners to create a low-carbon and energy-efficient supply chain, practicing social responsibility through public welfare actions, to achieve green development.
