Huawei joins Responsible Business 2021

Huawei Corporate Senior Vice President and Director of the Board Catherine Chen delivering a keynote at the Responsible Business 2021

Responsible Business 2021, a virtual event organised by Reuters Events, serves as a platform for providing business-critical, actionable insights. Speakers from governments, international organisations and businesses shared their views about the international agreements, commitments and measures towards the global sustainability transition. 

How to achieve alignment around a clear purpose and strategy, creating a new structure and a new model to assess new opportunities? With sustainability becoming the business itself and not a separate agenda, business opportunities are arising from green new deals that are intended to drive economic growth while simultaneously addressing climate change issues. 

Industries like ICT have been at the forefront, providing enabling technology for a greener world. ICT-enabled power savings and carbon emission reductions will far exceed the industry’s own, helping greatly conserve energy and reduce emissions worldwide.

“Carbon neutrality, circular economy, energy efficiency or waste management are at the heart of this much-needed sustainability transition,” said Huawei Corporate Senior Vice President and Director of the Board Catherine Chen. 

In her keynote, she emphasised the importance of reducing carbon emissions and fostering the use of renewable energy, and highlighted Huawei Smart PV solution which is being widely used in more than 60 countries. 

“All in all, when deployed in large ground-based power plants, Huawei smart PV solutions can help cut power generation costs by 7%. When used in enterprise campuses and households, they can increase power yields by 2% and reduce power consumption costs,” she stated.

As a responsible corporate citizen, Huawei is committed to minimising its environmental impact in production, operations, and throughout the lifecycles of its products and services. The main objective is to cut carbon emissions, promote renewable energy, and contribute to more regenerative economic systems.  In 2020, Huawei worked with 93 of its top 100 suppliers to set a carbon emission reduction target. The PV power plants on Huawei campuses generated 12.6 million kWh of electricity. 1.55 billion kWh of clean energy was used, reducing carbon emissions by more than 620,000 tons. 

The device recycling program was expanded to cover 48 countries and regions, and recycled more than 4,500 tons of electronic waste. Huawei was among the top 5% of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) ‘A List’ companies, out of the 9,000 companies scored by CDP on their climate change disclosures in 2020.

The event featured renowned leaders and high level government officials including the Prince of Wales, 

President of Costa Rica Carlos Alvarado Quesada, Spanish Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation Nadia Calviño, 

European Commission Commissioner Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius, 

UN Global Compact Executive Director Sanda Ojiambo, 

Luxemburg Minister of Finance Pierre Gramegna, 

Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and Energy Tina Bru, 

Germany Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth, Belgium Ministry of the Economy and Employment State Secretary for Economic Recovery and Strategic Investments Thomas Dermine, European Commission Head – Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) Hilde Hardeman, etc. 

“Responsible Business 2021 clearly articulated the pressing demand for businesses to re-think parts, if not all, of their business. The event also provided a great platform for new definitive actions, new ways of collaborating and open innovation among all stakeholders. Companies like Huawei can play a vital role in ensuring the just transition and can serve as a role model for companies to transform their businesses,” said Reuters Events Sustainable Business Managing Director Liam Dowd.