Daily reading 0921 第408期
Alipay Ant Forest, a green initiative on the world’s leading payment and lifestyle platform Alipay, has been awarded the United Nation’s highest environmental honor – the “UN Champions of the Earth” award – for inspiring over half a billion people to take action in their daily lives to live greener lifestyles and help protect the environment through the power of digital technology.
Launched in the Alipay app in August 2016, the Ant Forest green initiative encourages users to adopt low-carbon activities — such as paying utility bills online, and walking or taking buses to work instead of driving — in their daily lives. Such behavior is counted and converted into virtual “green energy points” that accumulate to grow a virtual “tree” in the user’s mobile phone. With enough energy points, the virtual tree is converted into a real one and planted by Alipay and its philanthropic partners in desertification areas that need reforesting. In turn, this tree-planting initiative has inspired users to further adopt low-carbon and environment-friendly behavior.