"Huaxia Wine News" reporter Zhang Yuchen
From January 15th to 19th, Swiss time, the world once again entered the "Davos time".
As a barometer of the world economy, the World Economic Forum has undoubtedly been the focus of attention at home and abroad, especially this year. Because in the past few days, people have found that the eyes of the world are looking at China on key issues and important decisions. As Borg Brende, President of the World Economic Forum, said: "China plays a pivotal role in the global economy and trade, and China will continue to be an important engine of global economic growth. ”
Indeed, China has been playing a leading role in boosting global economic development, and the wine industry, as an important part of China's economy, is also actively exploring the key path to enable economic recovery and upward development.
What aroused the great attention of the reporter of "Huaxia Liquor News" is that during the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum this year, China's liquor industry, represented by Moutai and Yanghe, issued a "green" voice. It can be said that at such an important international forum, the practice and innovation of China's wine industry in ESG have been transmitted, allowing the world to see the solutions and strength of China's wine industry in promoting sustainable development.
The ESG proposition of the wine industry of "China Night".
On the evening of January 17, Swiss time, the "China Night" in Davos was held as scheduled, and attracted a number of domestic and foreign political and business figures. Representatives of the liquor industry, Wang Li, general manager of Moutai Group, and Zhang Liandong, secretary of the Party committee and chairman of Yanghe Co., Ltd., were invited to attend.
Among them, Wang Li took Moutai's energy transformation experience as a case to elaborate on the profound changes brought to Moutai by the construction of green ecological consensus. She said that more than 70 years ago, due to poor transportation conditions, local materials were used for winemaking, and wood became the main energy source, and at that time, the annual output of Moutai liquor was about 200 tons. Later, the transportation conditions improved, the energy was switched to coal, and the production capacity was gradually increased to more than 10,000 tons while the efficiency was improved.
However, because of the air pollution caused by sulfur dioxide and other emissions from coal combustion, Moutai began to switch to natural gas more than ten years ago, and its energy efficiency has been further improved, with a production capacity of more than 50,000 tons. Wang Li further introduced that natural gas as a fossil energy, carbon emissions are still high, in order to achieve green ecology and emission reduction, Moutai has started the use of green electricity, and at the same time, is exploring the application of a series of advanced green technologies to improve the steam supply energy mode. At present, the project is about to enter the experimental stage, and the carbon emissions of the production process will be greatly reduced after successful promotion.
"From the perspective of Moutai's practice, every time the adjustment of the energy structure will bring about the innovation of the internal production organization model and the improvement of process technology, although there will be investment, but it will bring about the improvement of ecological efficiency and production efficiency. Wang Li analyzed and pointed out that for the brewing industry, one side of the water and soil to raise one side of the wine, the ecological environment is a resource, is the productivity. The national strategy of ecological priority drives the whole society to pay attention to ecological protection, and the overall improvement of the quality of the ecological environment can brew better products, and at the same time, the state supports green development, and there will be more and better policy support and incentives.
In fact, one of the main topics of this year's WEF is focusing on how to implement long-term climate, nature and energy strategies. In the context of the global "dual carbon" situation, green development and ecological development have become the only way for the sustainable development of the wine industry.
In his keynote speech, Zhang Liandong also introduced the specific practices and achievements of Yanghe in green and low-carbon development. He said: "Adhering to green development and implementing a low-carbon strategy is the responsibility and mission that we Chinese liquor companies must practice and implement. ”
According to Zhang Liandong, at present, Yanghe has built the first digital, intelligent and integrated transparent factory in the liquor industry, accelerated the construction of a first-class "zero-carbon" liquor production enterprise in China, and has the world's largest solid-state liquor fermentation base. Not only that, Yanghe is also continuing to fulfill its corporate responsibilities and actively participate in the "Global Trillion Tree Planting Leader Initiative" in Davos to protect the environment and protect the earth.
From this point of view, ecological priority and green development are not only an international trend and a national strategy, but also an important direction for enterprises to actively integrate into and serve the construction of a new development pattern. By sharing green stories and talking about the harmonious coexistence of fine wine and nature, it also spreads the ESG proposition of Chinese wine companies to the world.
There is still a long way to go behind the increased attention
In the past two years, there has been an obvious phenomenon in the industry, although the political and economic situation at home and abroad has brought certain challenges to the operation of the wine industry, the attention of enterprises to ESG has "increased instead of falling":
With a high sense of responsibility and mission, Wuliangye has devoted itself to the charity and public welfare of industrial assistance, education assistance, earthquake relief, and ecological protection, and has invested nearly 3 billion yuan in assistance funds, benefiting nearly one million people; Luzhou Laojiao and TEAM CHINA have continuously deepened their cooperation, empowered rural revitalization with sports, and continued to make efforts to promote the formation of a pattern of deep integration and diversified integration of agriculture, sports, culture, sports, intelligence and sports; Fenjiu has fulfilled its responsibility as a state-owned enterprise and continuously promoted the effective connection between consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization; Tsingtao Brewery, Changyu Wine and other wine companies are also not forgetting their original mission and bravely assuming social responsibility······
In this process, we see that more and more wine companies are working hard to achieve carbon neutrality, build zero-carbon and low-carbon factories and build a green supply chain, and obtain greater economic, social and ecological benefits.
In November 2023, the ESG Development Report of China's Liquor Industry (2022) compiled by the China Liquor Industry Association was officially released. According to Yuan Yue, Secretary-General of the Liquor and Social Responsibility Promotion Working Committee of the China Liquor Industry Association, from the perspective of environmental governance, in 2022, China's liquor industry will invest 1.512 billion yuan. The entire industry has reduced carbon dioxide by 1 million tons, which is equivalent to planting more than 40,000 acres of green forests, and the entire industry has reduced the use of new water by 18 million tons, which is about the size of 19 water cube gymnasiums.
In addition to environmental governance, wine companies have also done a lot of work in rural revitalization. Judging from the data of 2022, a total of 52 rural assistance projects were carried out throughout the year, involving 6,746 townships and towns, with a total investment of 914 million yuan and 13,600 new jobs.
Obviously, the wine industry has great potential in economic and social fields such as economic development, tax contribution, employment solution, active consumption, rural revitalization, and investment attraction.
However, it should not be ignored that due to different types of enterprises, there are still large differences in the practice of ESG among wine companies. On the one hand, listed companies, central enterprises, and state-owned enterprises are significantly ahead in the ESG (social responsibility) information disclosure rate, while some small and medium-sized enterprises still lack the establishment of relevant monitoring and monitoring systems, and have not yet improved the management of carbon emissions within enterprises.
Referring to the MSCI Index, the world's mainstream ESG rating system, the ESG rating is divided into 7 grades from high to low: AAA, AA, A, BBB, BB, B, and CCC. At present, 18 listed liquor companies have received the highest rating of BB, the head companies except Yanghe, perennial B, and 4 liquor companies only have CCC.
If we carefully explore the individual items of environment (E), society (S) and governance (G), the scores of 18 listed companies in the wine industry are also low, with a full score of 10 points, all of which are distributed in the range of 1 to 5 points. Among them, social (S) is a single item with poor scores for wine companies.
It can be seen that promoting sustainable development is still a long-term task for the wine industry. Regardless, ESG is inspiring wine companies to make efficiency changes and continuously enhance the sustainability capacity and motivation of the wine industry. We firmly believe that promoting the implementation and implementation of ESG strategies and writing a "green answer sheet" must be the present and future of China's wine industry.