Press Release – Greenpeace East Asia – February 18, 2025

Beijing – Seven of the eight biggest delivery companies in China have established internal frameworks to respond to climate risk, a new report from Greenpeace East Asia shows, but while this demonstrates the foundations for responding to climate risk, the report’s analysis evidences the need for stronger assessment of physical risk from extreme weather; more scientific management of risk, including the need for company climate targets; and stronger disclosure.

Greenpeace East Asia Beijing-based project lead Xia Yiwen said:

“Intensifying climate disasters will continue to impact express delivery around China. Seeing internal structures to respond to climate risk start to appear inside shows it is impacting business. The horizon for both operations and investments is at risk. But unless companies factor climate risk directly into corporate risk management, they only get a skewed and rather rosy impression of climate impacts.”

The report analyzed the eight largest express delivery companies in China – SF Express, JD.com Logistics, Cainiao, ZTO Express, J&T Express, Yunda Express, STO Express, and YTO Express – and reviewed current climate risks management as described in company disclosures. Separately, the report analyzed extreme weather’s impact on operations, looking at extreme heat, extreme cold, and extreme rainfall’s potential impact on infrastructure and operation of service stations and transportation corridors across China with a focus on the three major metropolitan areas around Beijing, Shanghai, and the Pearl River Delta, which includes both Guangzhou and Shenzhen. 

The analysis showed strong regional variation, where the Shanghai and Pearl River Delta metropolitan areas face compounding risks from extreme rainfall and extreme heat, while the Beijing metropolitan area faces highest risks from extreme cold. Each region is impacted differently. In the Pearl River Delta metropolitan area¹, 85% of transportation corridors and 82% of service stations are in areas with high-risk or ultra high-risk for extreme rainfall. In the Shanghai metropolitan area², 65% of corridors face similar risk levels for extreme rainfall, while 90% of service stations are in areas with similar risk levels for extreme heat. In the Beijing metropolitan area³, meanwhile, 98% of service stations face high-risk or ultra high-risk from extreme cold. 

The review of companies’ responses to climate risk showed that seven of the eight companies (all but YTO Express, the second largest in terms of business volume) include climate risk as an ESG issue, with governance frameworks under the board of directors, and six of them (excluding YTO Express and Yunda Express) have disclosed specific responsibilities of the board of directors in addressing climate risk and governance issues around climate change. An analysis of the disclosure of climate risk identification based on the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure framework⁴ shows great variation between companies, reflecting different levels of awareness and investment in climate risk management. Among them, SF Express, JD.com Logistics, and Cainiao have already incorporated climate risk assessment into corporate risk management, and are able to demonstrate detailed steps for continuous and regular management of climate risk.

Xia said:

“Integrating climate risk directly into corporate risk management is necessary to provide detailed, standardized input on what risks companies and their employees face. It also guarantees that disclosure is directly relevant to risk as faced by the company. Overall, there is a lack of quantitative information in disclosures. That is irreplaceable in terms of value as a reference both for the company itself and for investors. Moving forward, an effective climate risk management framework will need to include both risk management targets and emissions reduction targets. For delivery companies, transportation is the major emissions source.” 

Greenpeace calls for delivery companies in China to incorporate climate risk directly into corporate risk management to maintain the consistency of operations and reduce losses from climate impacts, with scientific and effective measures including climate targets for adaptation and mitigation, linking risk management and emissions reduction; and to improve disclosure.

ENDS

The report is available (in Chinese) here.

Notes

1. The Pearl River Delta metropolitan area includes the entire Pearl River Delta economic region, including all of Guangdong and Guangxi province. 
2. The Shanghai metropolitan area includes the Yangtze River Delta economic region, including the cities of Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Hefei, Ningbo, Jinhua, Taizhou, Wenzhou.
3. The Beijing metropolitan area includes the cities of Beijing and Tianjin and Hebei province. 
4. https://assets.bbhub.io/company/sites/60/2021/10/FINAL-2017-TCFD-Report.pdf

For media enquiries please contact:

August Rick, Greenpeace East Asia, Beijing, ([email protected])

Greenpeace International Press Desk, [email protected], +31 20 718 2470 (24 hours)

Source : Greenpeace

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