Xiamen Airlines Attends COP16, Interpreting High-Quality Development and Social Responsibility with Green Actions

The sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 2, 2024. Xiamen Airlines, as a representative of outstanding Chinese enterprises, was invited to participate in the conference and deliver a speech at the "Belt and Road" Forum as the only Chinese airline to join the "China Action of Planting One Trillion Trees Initiative", sharing the company's practices and achievements in sustainable development, and demonstrating the pioneering role of Chinese enterprises in ESG and ecological restoration.

This year coincides with the 30th anniversary of China's signing of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The China Green Foundation (CGF) co-hosted with the World Economic Forum the second Belt and Road Ecological Governance Civil Cooperation and the International Forum on Innovative Governance under the "One Trillion Trees" Initiative, which attracted government officials, experts, scholars, business representatives and members of social organizations from all over the world, who had a discussion on the global ecological governance and the strategy to promote the "One Trillion Trees" initiative. Xiamen Airlines, together with Ant Group, Yili Group and other enterprises, was invited to speak at the forum on "How to balance the social responsibility of high-quality development and ecological restoration", sharing the company's innovative measures and remarkable results in energy conservation and emission reduction, plastic replacement, and ecological restoration over the years.

Xiamen Airlines has long been upholding the concept that green mountains are gold mountains, and has always been committed to practicing the concept of green development through various measures to help realize global climate action and ecological restoration goals. In 2024, Xiamen Airlines deepened its cooperation with the CGF to carry out the "One Million Forests Program", implemented the "'Green Future' Ecological Protection Action" public welfare project, and set up "Xiamen Airline Public Welfare Forests" in Tengger Desert in Inner Mongolia and Liaoning, planting 43,000 saplings, afforesting an area of about 700 mu(approximately 46.69 hectares), and sequestering about 3,291.39 tons of carbon (the amount of carbon sequestered is based on a 30-year period), and activating the function of exchanging green energy for saplings simultaneously.

The invitation to attend and speak at the conference is a recognition by the World Economic Forum and the CGF of the long-term efforts made by Xiamen Airlines in ecological restoration and high-quality development, a strong recognition of sustainable development concept and practice of corporate social responsibility of Xiamen Airlines, as well as an important opportunity for Xiamen Airlines to demonstrate to the world the responsibility and style of Chinese enterprises. In the future, Xiamen Airlines will continue to uphold the values of "people-oriented philosophy, sustainable development and altruistic spirit", actively fulfill its social responsibility, and contribute more to ecological restoration and high-quality development.

During the conference, representatives of Xiamen Airlines also met with Fernando Gomez, member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum, and the Vice President of the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, to enhance understanding and jointly explore points of convergence of future cooperation.