On October 14, Midea Group unveiled its Green Strategy. With the mission of "Building a Green Global Supply Chain, providing Green Products and Services, and jointly building a Green Planet", and the target of "Facilitating the 3060 Strategy: peaking Carbon Emission by 2030 and achieving Carbon Neutrality by 2060", the Green Strategy aims to build whole-process Green Industrial Chain with a focus on six pillars:

- Green Design

- Green Procurement

- Green Manufacturing

- Green Logistics

- Green Recycling

- Green Service,

which is well-aligned with China and global’s "Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality" goals.

Moving fast towards carbon neutrality in four stages

Over the years, Midea Group has prioritized environmental protection and the pursuit of green development. It aims to enable green transformation of products through technological innovations and realize energy conservation and emission reduction of manufacturing process by virtue of equipment upgrading and lean production. According to Michael Li, Vice President of Midea Group and Leader of Green Strategy Implementation Team, "Green Strategy" represents an integral component of Midea Group’s sustainability, and also a prominent initiative of Midea Group to protect the shared home of humanity. Midea Group will achieve the goal of "making life better" and promote the philosophy of "creating better life for humanity", through actively reducing carbon emission in the whole process of carbon footprint.

The Green Strategy aims to peak company-wide carbon emission by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. In this process, Midea Group will “take inventory, set standards, review implementation progress, enhance assessment and ensure achievement of goals”, and divide the Green Strategy Implementation Plan into four stages:

Stage I: Midea Group will steadily peak carbon emission by 2030 through advanced deployment of green energy

Stage II: Midea Group will increase the share of green power and diminish GHG emission with an aim to realize gradual reduction of carbon emission by 2040

Stage III: Midea Group will significantly reduce carbon emission by 2050 on the basis of power neutrality

Stage IV: forces will be pooled to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

During the 9th meeting of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs of China in April, it mentioned that efforts shall be made to build clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system, control total amount of fossil energy, energetically improve utilization efficiency, implement renewable energy substitution action, deepen power system reform and build new power system dominated by new energy. Michael Li said, with energy structure adjustment and under the premise of ensuring corporate development increment, Midea Group responds to the national call by pursuing green operation. Midea expects to peak total company-wide direct and indirect carbon emission around 2028 and secure a group-wide green power share of 30% by 2030.

Midea Innovation Center (Foshan, China)

Joining hands with industry players to build whole-process green industrial chain on the basis of six pillars

With a focus on six pillars, Midea Group determines to facilitate green reform and corporate development by applying solutions such as technological innovation, standard setting, supply chain upgrading and transformation, household appliance recycling, digitization & intelligence solutions. The practices are transferred to partners in full value chain, providing customized green services for their low-carbon transformation.

Green Design

Midea Group will seek national and international green product certifications for all product categories to lead the industry's green development with green products. Midea will coordinate with standards committees to lead the formulation and revision of green standards, including the forerunner series, green design series and product energy conservation standards. As of October 2021, Midea has obtained more than 200 domestic and international patents for environmental protection technologies, led or participated in formulation of over ten green product evaluation norms and standards. Midea also plays a major role in revising the energy efficiency national standards for air conditioners, which improves energy efficiency new standard by 14% and promotes the wide application of variable-frequency and energy-efficient ACs. Besides, Midea's R-290 products possess technological advantages such as extra-low GWP freezing medium, high energy efficiency, low noise, strict safety control, which are widely recognized internationally.

Green Procurement

Firstly, Midea will formulate green materials standards and improve procurement share of green materials to help implement energy conservation and emission reduction. Secondly, Midea will facilitate the building of green procurement system by formulating green supplier access standards. Lastly, Midea will enable supplier green manufacturing and enhance the integration of wide green supply chain. Midea has already incorporated supplier social responsibility assessment and assurance system into Midea Group Supplier Cooperation Agreement on a trial basis and implements onsite inspection of social responsibility, which covers key areas such as environmental protection, occupational health and safety, labor rights and interests and business ethnics, thereby gradually establishing Midea's green supplier access standards.

Green Manufacturing

Focusing on the five aspects: intensive land utilization, use of harmless raw materials, clean production, resource recovery, and low-carbon energy, digitalization technology will be applied to drive the comprehensive transformation of green manufacturing models, thus accelerating the building of green benchmarks and innovation of green smart technologies for all manufacturing plants, in addition to energetically promoting advanced manufacturing deployment. Midea will also implement carbon emission reduction initiative by formulating energy conservation standards and goals, improving energy management assessment system, increasing utilization share of new energy and promoting energy-saving and low-carbon technologies.

Since December 2018, Midea Wuhu Plant has transformed digital and intelligent efficiency management at multiple levels, including industrial park, plant, workshop, production line, and equipment, establishing hundreds of electricity meter collection stations. In half a year, the Plant reduced electricity consumption per production unit by 16.2% and total energy consumption by 5.4%, representing a reduction in electricity consumption of 21,000 kWh per day and cost reduction of RMB 4.32 million per year. This model has been applied to 16 Midea plants including air-conditioning, washing machine and refrigerator plants. The successful application showcases the feasiblility of industry application to make profound significance for green manufacturing transformation.

GMCC Factory of Midea Group, Xingtan, China

Green Logistics

By upgrading transportation and business models and adjusting energy consumption structure, Midea integrates IoT, big data, cloud computing and AI with practical business scenarios to establish end-to-end green and smart logistics system. The goal is to boost quality and efficiency and reduce carbon emission in the full process to achieve the carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals. From 2021 to 2030, Midea will upgrade the Green Smart Logistics from 1.0 to 3.0, achieving gradual reduction of carbon emission in four dimensions:

- Smart Transportation

- Smart Map

- Green Energy

- Smart Warehousing
 

By 2030, Midea will comprehensively implement paperless office and efficient transportation initiatives including green energy vehicles, effectively getting through "the last kilometer" of smart transportation.

Green Recycling

Midea optimizes recycling channels and facilitates household appliance production, distribution, consumption and recycling. With the "Internet+Recycling" model, Midea has established an end-to-end household appliance recycling system since 2018. Currently recycling service mainly covers large household appliances such as used ACs, refrigerators, and washing machines. Chinese users can submit recycling requests for used household appliances via the 400 Customer Service Hotline or Midea service official account through Midea after-sales service system. Midea also encourages customers to trade in old devices for new ones via Midea Mall/Midea home delivery service. Recycled devices will be delivered by Annto Logistics, a proprietary logistics channel of Midea Group, to qualified disassembly entity for processing.

Green Service

Midea aims to build full-process green service system covering core technologies, solution integration, and scenario services. Midea Group aims to achieve the goal of installed capacity of green power of 1,000 MW with power generation accounting for 30% of total power consumption by 2025. In smart building field, Midea Group will build multi-dimensional smart scenarios at the Midea Group’s Global Innovation Center in Shanghai, China and the Heyou International Hospital in Foshan, China with an aim to build full-process smart building service model by integrating internal and external resources on the basis of its digitalization capacities.

Environmentally friendly development is in line with government requirements and is what a socially responsible company should pursue. More importantly, it is a driving force for technology and innovation. Midea Group will continue to pursue the Green Strategy and strive for higher corporate development goals, contributing to China's and the worldwide goals of carbon peak & carbon neutrality, sustainable ecological environment, and the development of green, low-carbon society.

For further Information:

Michael Zhou

Public Relations Manager

Midea Group-Brand & Communication Division

Zhoupei6@Midea.com