In winter, Shenzhen has a mild and pleasant climate. From December 16th to 19th, the 27th Volvo China Open was held at the Shenzhen Zhengzhong Golf Club. The greenery and the lake, birds and fish and insects dance together, and the natural ecological environment of the golf club is pleasant. A total of 108 professional men's golfers competed for four days, providing the audience with a positive, environmentally friendly and healthy event.
After a fierce competition, the 26-year-old Zhang Jin won the championship and won his second professional title. Zhang Jin also became the sixth Chinese champion in the history of the Volvo China Open. After the race, Yuan Xiaolin, Senior Vice President of Volvo Cars Group, President and CEO of Volvo Cars Asia Pacific, presented Zhang Jin with a prize check of 350,000 yuan. This year's Volvo China Open will pay a total of RMB2 million, and the winner will also qualify for the DP World Tour 2022 season.
Volvo Cars has sponsored the China Open for 27 consecutive years, whether it is SARS in 2003 or "New Crown" this year, Volvo Cars is rain or shine. The reason for the long-term commitment to promoting golf is that golf represents positivity, health and green, which complements Volvo Cars' brand concept of safety, health and sustainability. Volvo Cars will also continue to push golf in a deep and systematic direction, towards a wider range of people.
Sustainable development in the current economic and social context is no longer just an environmental protection concept, but a real economic development goal. With the overall goal of "striving for carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060" put forward by China, carbon neutrality has risen to a national strategy, which is bound to set off a comprehensive and in-depth carbon reduction boom in all walks of life. As a carbon emission "big player", the automobile and transportation equipment industry will face the test of carbon.
This year, from the Shanghai Auto Show in China to the Munich Auto Show in Europe, the voices of car giants about carbon reduction can be heard. Achieving carbon neutrality by the middle of this century has become the vision of most companies. Car companies are realizing that whoever can go ahead on the road to carbon can take the lead in the next round of competition. To achieve carbon reduction, the solution is to comprehensively promote the achievement of the goal with a systematic sustainable concept.
The 27th Volvo China Open was successfully concluded in Shenzhen
Volvo Cars' long-term goal for electrification transition is to achieve zero climate load by 2040, earlier than most of its peers. The importance of people and the importance of business laws are what sets Volvo Cars apart. Just like playing golf cannot pursue "one hole", the development of enterprises cannot be achieved overnight. Volvo Cars is also on the road to accelerating the strategic transformation of electrification and moving towards sustainability, and it is also steadily playing "every shot".
27 years rain or shine
Founded in 1995, the 27th Volvo China Open is the 140th professional men's golf tournament sponsored by Volvo Cars. In the past 27 years, Volvo has not stopped hosting any tournaments, reflecting its strong commitment to the Chinese Golf Association. This is one of the few in the golf industry and has played a very important role in the development of China's golf industry.
The love affair between Volvo Cars and golf has been traced for more than 30 years. Since sponsoring the European Tour in 1987, Volvo has traveled to Europe and the Asia-Pacific region in the international arena, is a long-standing sponsor of men's professional golf, and is also an internationally renowned brand that participated in Chinese professional golf earlier. Long-term investment and support in the field of golf has made Volvo almost synonymous with "golf" and occupies an important place in the world sports map.
Up to now, the golf tournaments sponsored by Volvo Cars include the professional event "Volvo China Open", the youth event "Volvo National Junior Hole Match Championship", "Volvo National Junior Challenge", and the amateur event "Volvo China Open Regional Challenge". The promotion of multiple events has deepened the relationship between Volvo Cars and golf. 、
Champion Zhang Jin took a group photo with the guests
Not only that, Volvo Cars will continue to take on the heavy responsibility of expanding golf in China, and will take the lead in starting from talent training to promote the systematic and sustainable development of China's golf industry. It is reported that the Volvo China Open will expand the youth tournament in 2022, from the current "1 Volvo National Junior Challenge + 1 Volvo National Junior Hole Match Championship" to "4 Volvo National Junior Challenge + 1 Volvo National Junior Hole Match Championship" in 2022, in order to promote the growth of the youth golf talent group.
The resonance of the concept of sustainability
"Moving towards the green, waving the future", this is the theme of this year's Volvo China Open. Behind this reveals an important development direction of the event in the future - green environmental protection. In 2021, volvo China Open began applying for GEO certification for green events.
Starting from this event, the Volvo China Open will be in line with the world's sustainable development standards, from increasing the release of online promotional materials to reduce printing volume, reusing event materials, garbage classification and other aspects, to make the Volvo China Open a green event.
The green, active lifestyle that the race conveys to the outside world coincides with the healthy and environmentally friendly Nordic lifestyle advocated by Volvo Cars. In Sweden, although there are only 8 million people, 600,000 people are members of the Swedish Golf Federation. Volvo Cars from Sweden hopes to bring a tasteful Nordic lifestyle to consumers by sponsoring high-end sports events such as golf events, and provide more safe and healthy products to consumers in a personalized and sustainable way, leading consumers into the future era of high-end luxury travel.
Anyone who knows Volvo Cars knows that in its 94-year history of brand development, the brand values of "safety, health and sustainability" have always been through it. There are countless such examples, such as the invention of a three-way catalytic converter with an oxygen sensor, a three-point seat belt, a rear-facing child safety seat, and so on. At the level of climate and environmental protection, Volvo Cars has as many as seven industry-leading technologies, and is the "first person" in the automotive industry to achieve sustainable development.
In this year's event, Volvo Cars specially prepared a Volvo XC90 B5 4WD Zhixing Luxury 5-seater model worth 638,900 yuan for the "one hole" award. As a luxury flagship SUV from Northern Europe, the Volvo XC90's unique experience of driving is why it is a prize for the grand prize.
Jackpot "Hole In One" – Volvo XC90
The Volvo XC90's scandinavian design inspired by nature, clean clean cockpit in northern Europe, Bowers & Wilkins' palatial sound system, crystal gear lever created by Swedish century-old crystal brand Orrefors, City Safety city safety system and Pilot Assist pilot assist system all highlight the identity of the luxury flagship SUV.
Volvo XC90 luxury interior
In 2020, the Volvo 90 series took the lead in electrifying the entire range, and by 2021, all volvo cars' products have completed electrification coverage, leading the way of many luxury car brands. In the third quarter of this year, Volvo RECHARGE model sales accounted for 26% of global sales in the third quarter, and the electrification transformation results were outstanding.
Play every shot steadily
Without seeking "one shot into the hole", Volvo Cars' sustainable development has goals, steps, rules and methods, and has always been put into practical action. Volvo Cars breaks down sustainability into three dimensions: environmental sustainability, commercial sustainability and human sustainability.
The electrification of products is an important aspect of Volvo Cars' environmental sustainability and how to achieve it from the perspective of carbon neutrality throughout the life cycle of the car. In order to reduce carbon emissions in R&D, production and supply chain, Volvo Cars has taken action: the Zero Waste Landfill Management System of volvo Taizhou plant has been internationally certified, the Daqing plant has become a smart factory with 100% energy carbon neutrality, and the Chengdu plant has achieved 100% clean electricity use.
Achieving carbon reduction and sustainability is not a "one-size-fits-all" approach that does not take into account economic development and business profitability, and Volvo firmly believes that carbon reduction can also be achieved under the premise of "commercial sustainability". Volvo Cars implements internal carbon pricing at automakers around the world, putting environmental countermeasures at the center of business operations and combining carbon reduction with business.
"Humanistic sustainability" refers to the active fulfillment of corporate ethics and social responsibility. Like its long-standing sponsorship of golf events, Volvo Cars has also established the Volvo Health Angel Running Group, which is aimed at spreading a healthy, positive, nature-loving attitude to more people. The most distinctive thing is that Volvo Cars always considers the well-being of people and pays attention to employee development, such as providing male employees with 6 months of global extra-long maternity leave.
Under the tide of the era of electrification transformation in the automotive industry, Volvo Cars is the first to win the lead and is still accelerating. With the support of comprehensive and systematic carbon reduction actions, it will become more and more stable on the road to sustainability.