On December 24, the 2022 People's Corporate Social Responsibility Summit Forum & the award ceremony of the ^17th People's Corporate Social Responsibility Award, guided by People's Daily and hosted by people.cn, took place in Beijing. A total of five sub-awards have been given out this year: Special Contribution, Enterprise of the Year, Green Development, Rural Revitalization, and Case of the Year. Following a strict evaluation, NAAS (NASDAQ: NAAS), a new energy charging service provider won the People's Corporate Social Responsibility Award for Green Development.

Mature corporate responsibility awareness and great potential for carbon emission reduction in the field of transportation

The People's Corporate Social Responsibility Award selection process began in 2006, making it one of the first and most significant corporate social responsibility initiatives in China's Internet industry. It is also regarded as an important yardstick to measure the fulfillment of the social responsibility of Chinese enterprises. The event has been held for 17 consecutive years so far.

During this process, the total number of market entities in China has made a historic advancement. As of August 2022, the number of registered market entities in China had topped 160 million, of which the number of private enterprises had quadrupled from 10.857 million in late 2012 to 47.011 million. Apart from the increase in the total number, the overall strength of private enterprises has also been greatly enhanced. For example, a number of private enterprises have successively found themselves on the list of the world's Top 500.

As the economy enters the stage of high-quality development, the spillover effect of corporate social responsibility has become more pronounced. "At present, 10.4% of China's total carbon emissions are attributable to the country's traffic sector. We hope that through our own efforts, the traffic energy efficiency will be increased by 10%, the carbon emissions in China will be reduced by 1%, and everyone will have access to green energy," said Wang Yang, founder and CEO of NaaS, at a theme sub-event of COP27.

NaaS was listed on NASDAQ on June 13, 2022, and is the first new energy charging service provider in China that has been listed in the US capital market. The company primarily focuses on offering online and offline charging solutions and non-charging services, providing full-link services for charging pile manufacturers, operators, car owners, and logistics fleets to promote the efficient use of green energy and reduce carbon emissions. It is a combination of a virtual power plant aggregator and a new energy service provider.

The traffic sector is the third largest source of carbon emissions in China, accounting for approximately 10.4% of the nation's emissions. The traffic sector has great potential for energy conservation and emission reduction. Therefore, promoting carbon emission reduction in the traffic sector is not only an inherent requirement of new energy enterprises to achieve sustainable development, but also a crucial factor in determining their fulfillment of social responsibility.

According to the semi-annual ESG report 2022 released by NaaS, the cumulative trading power of the company exceeded 458 million kWh as of June 2022, with clean energy (photovoltaic, wind power, and hydropower) accounting for 360 million kWh, accounting for 78.6% of the total. In the first half of 2022, NaaS reduced its carbon emission by 700,400 tons, which is around 80% of the emission in the entire year of 2021.

In recognition of NaaS's tangible contributions to promoting carbon emission reduction in the field of traffic, the People's Corporate Social Responsibility Award Working Group presented the Green Development Award to the company, along with China Three Gorges Renewables, Mengniu Group, and Alibaba Cloud.

Explore a new path of green development

In terms of sustainable development, enterprises' economic benefits and their social and environmental benefits complement one another. In terms of the social environment, enterprises should act as pathfinders for green development and innovative development; as market entities, enterprises also need to provide paths, modes, and synergies for the upgrading and transformation of the entire industry.

Therefore, the key to undertaking social responsibility lies in "what the society needs enterprises to do", rather than focusing on "what enterprises want to do to show their sense of social responsibility", upon which the selection of the Award guided by People's Daily is based: the Green Development Award is presented to commend enterprises that have strengthened the system and capacity building of energy conservation and emission reduction and promoted green development in the construction of ecological civilization.

The energy industry has taken more direct measures in energy conservation and emission reduction. Guided by the idea of "NewLink as a Service", NAAS, a new energy service provider, provides roof distributed photovoltaic construction services for charging stations and offers a solution to the green energy consumption of the stations; and creates carbon accounts for drivers and car owners to encourage users to participate in carbon emission reduction. Meanwhile, the company is committed to improving the efficiency of new energy delivery through its interconnected charging network, thus supporting the reduction of carbon emissions in the traffic sector.

According to the semi-annual report and ESG report released by NaaS, in the first half of 2022, the company provided services to 981 charging operators, a year-on-year increase of 114%. The total amount of charging reached 1,062GWh (about 1.06 billion kWh), a year-on-year increase of 160%, reducing carbon emissions by 700,400 tons. As of June 2022, NaaS had expanded its business to 358 cities across the country, with access to more than 44,000 charging stations and over 400,000 chargers.

In addition, the company has implemented dozens of innovative practices in conjunction with its own operations to promote energy conservation, emission reduction, and green development.

Take the zero-carbon conference as an example. The greenhouse gas emissions during the 2022 China International Economic Management and Technology Summit at the China International Import Expo (CIIE) were equivalent to 5,503 kilograms of carbon dioxide. According to the carbon emission statistic provided by Beijing Green Exchange Co., Ltd., the carbon reduction of charging services for electric vehicles provided by NaaS and TechWeb has offset the amount of carbon emission.

This is the first conference in the industry to achieve zero carbon through carbon emission reduction brought by the charging services for electric vehicles. More importantly, this practice has given enterprises a new way to fulfill their corporate responsibility by jointly promoting carbon neutrality and green development. According to NaaS, in the next step, the company will explore new business models, such as virtual power plants, integration of optical storage and charging, for application scenarios such as new power systems, and participate in the power regulation of large power grids to better contribute to low-carbon practice and green development.