Alipay Ant Forest, a green initiative in the Alipay app that encourages users to make low-carbon lifestyle choices, introduced a new option for users to contribute to the restoration of coastal ecosystems.

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Seaweed planting at Dongchu Island, Shandong Province, China (Photo: Business Wire)

“By introducing this new option, we are confident that Alipay Ant Forest can play its role as a green platform to encourage more users to participate in not only reforestation and biodiversity conservation, but also marine conservation efforts,” said Cheng Jiang, head of Alipay Ant Forest.

Previously, when users made low-carbon lifestyle choices either through the Alipay app or products or services provided by Alipay Ant Forest’s brand partners, they earned virtual “green energy points“ that could be used to support tree-planting or biodiversity conservation projects operated by Alipay Ant Forest’s environmental partners. Ant Group provides funding for these user-made donations. The low-carbon lifestyle choices include paying utility bills online instead of requesting paper invoices, ordering food delivery with the “no disposable cutlery” and “no plastic packaging” options checked, and purchasing energy efficient home appliances from partner brands.

With this new additional option, users can convert their “green energy points” to grow virtual aquatic plants such as seaweed and eelgrass. Alipay Ant Forest matches these efforts by making donations to support coastal ecosystem restoration projects operated by environmental organizations.

As of August 2021, Alipay Ant Forest worked with over 100 brands and helped over 600 million users plant more than 326 million trees in some of China’s most arid regions, and joined hands with various environmental NGOs to provide shelter for over 1,500 species in 18 protected areas across the country.

In 2019, Alipay Ant Forest won the “UN Champions of the Earth” award – the United Nation’s highest environmental honor – for leveraging digital technology to inspire hundreds of millions of people to take greener actions in their daily lives. Alipay Ant Forest also won the 2019 UN Global Climate Action Award for using digital technologies to scale up climate action.

About Alipay

Alipay is the leading digital platform in China, serving hundreds of millions of users, and connecting them with merchants and partner financial institutions that offer inclusive financial services and digital daily life services such as food delivery, transport, entertainment, and healthcare.

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