On October 19, local time, the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) of the Convention on Biological Diversity kicked off in Yerevan, Armenia. As an important supporting section of the conference, the COP17 "China Corner" opened simultaneously to showcase China's diverse practices in biodiversity conservation. As the only Chinese company invited to give a keynote speech at this conference, NIO appeared at the opening ceremony of China Corner. It also served as the green travel partner of China Corner, providing pure electric travel guarantee for the Chinese delegation and high-level guests. Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of NIO, shared the practices of Chinese car companies in the fields of sustainable travel and biodiversity.
“Protecting biodiversity requires the joint efforts of many parties, and cannot be separated from the joint participation of governments, international organizations, enterprises and all sectors of society.” Qin Lihong said that sustainable development is the original intention of NIO’s founding. The company’s green practices are not limited to production and carbon reduction, but also export technology and resources to make the relationship between people and nature more harmonious.
According to reports, NIO integrates sustainable concepts throughout the entire life cycle of automobiles, including renewable materials, green manufacturing, recycling, energy management system construction, sustainable lifestyles, ecological protection, etc., continues to reduce resource consumption and environmental impact, and also actively invests in the protection of nature and biodiversity.
Starting in 2021, NIO will launch the Clean Parks Qinglang National Park Ecological Co-construction Plan, which is the world's first open platform initiated by an automobile company to support the construction of national parks and nature reserves. NIO has joined hands with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other organizations to deploy 19 protected areas around the world, and has fully reached ecological co-construction cooperation with China's five major national parks. Relying on smart electric vehicles, charging and swapping and clean energy facilities, it supports green operations and low-carbon energy self-circulation in ecologically sensitive areas. During the conference, NIO signed a contract with the Kunming Biodiversity Fund and became the first company to donate to the fund to help ecological protection in developing countries.
Previously, NIO's practices in the field of sustainable development have been recognized by many parties, and it has been invited to the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28 and COP29 platforms to share industrial actions to address climate change. For this conference, NIO, as the green travel partner of the COP17 Chinese delegation, specially set up an official reception fleet composed of NIO ES9 and ES8 to provide travel guarantee for the delegation and guests attending the conference. Qin Lihong said in his speech that he looks forward to promoting sustainable travel solutions and the Clean Parks ecological co-construction model to more countries and regions such as Armenia in the future, and linking more social forces such as governments, institutions, and enterprises to jointly protect the community of life on earth.
Industry analysts believe that in the context of COP17 calling on all parties to "take action for nature", Chinese companies' deep participation in global biodiversity governance has dual value. Internally, we will integrate ecological protection into industrial operations and explore the green transformation path of the manufacturing industry; externally, we will use the United Nations multilateral platform to share practical industrial samples, promote multi-party collaboration between governments, enterprises, and international institutions, and provide developing countries with practical reference for ecological protection that can be used as a reference. Based on the multilateral international stage of COP17, NIO has taken practical actions to demonstrate the responsibility and pattern of Chinese companies' deep participation in global biodiversity governance and active implementation of international ecological conventions.
Attached is the full text of the speech:
Dear leaders, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon! I am Qin Lihong from NIO. I am very honored to come to Yerevan to participate in the 17th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity. I am also very honored to be a representative of Chinese enterprises and share our sustainable practices and thinking with you in China Corner.
This is NIO's logo. The upper part is the earth's atmosphere seen from outer space, representing the sky and vision; the lower part is the road extending into the distance, representing the earth and action; the intersection of heaven and earth is the horizon, representing hope and a new beginning. It reflects our philosophy: the earth is our common home.
As a smart electric vehicle company, our mission is "Blue Sky Coming" to create a sustainable and better future. For NIO, sustainable development is not an additional responsibility, but our original intention when we founded the company and the long-term direction we adhere to. We believe that technological progress and industrial development should make the relationship between humans and nature more harmonious.
NIO is one of the only two automobile companies in the world that has always focused on pure electric vehicles. As of September, it has delivered more than 1.29 million pure electric vehicles, with no fossil energy at all. We hope to create a better smart electric vehicle experience through continuous technological innovation, so that more people are willing to choose more sustainable products and travel methods.
NIO’s efforts in sustainable development have been recognized by all walks of life. We have been invited to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28 and COP29 to share relevant actions to help address climate change. This time, I am very happy to serve as the green travel partner of the Chinese delegation at COP17, providing NIO ES9 and ES8 to the Chinese delegation and guests attending the meeting, and contributing more to biodiversity protection. We also look forward to bringing sustainable products, technologies and services to more countries and regions including Armenia in the future.
In the past five years, NIO has won 15 international awards and 9 certifications from professional organizations in the ESG field. Here are three examples. In 2023, we won the Paulson Award for sustainable green innovation; in recent years, we have been continuously selected into the Enterprise Jazz list of the world's top 100 most sustainable companies, ranking 30th in 2026; we have also been selected into Time magazine's list of the world's most sustainable companies.
Behind these recognitions is NIO’s long-term practice of integrating sustainable development into corporate operations and the entire life cycle of automobiles. We continue to reduce resource consumption and environmental impact in aspects such as renewable materials, green manufacturing, recycling, energy management system construction, sustainable lifestyles, and ecological protection, and we also actively invest in the protection of nature and biodiversity.
In the product design stage, NIO will give priority to the use of green and low-carbon materials while ensuring performance and safety. We work with our partners to explore renewable, recyclable, health-protecting Clean+ environmentally friendly materials. Taking firefly as an example, its exterior parts use 14 kilograms of recycled polypropylene material, with recycled content accounting for 30%; the interior of the car also uses 3 square meters of Clean+ fabric, which is 100% post-consumer recycled polyester fiber, and the raw material comes from recycled mineral water bottles.
In the manufacturing process, we hope that advanced manufacturing will not only represent efficiency and quality, but also be more environmentally friendly. We extensively apply photovoltaics, ground source heat pumps and green electricity in our factories, and continue to strengthen energy, water conservation and waste management. In 2025, the proportion of renewable electricity used in NIO's manufacturing end will reach 56%. NIO's advanced manufacturing plant has been rated as China's national green factory; NIO is also the first company in China's new energy vehicle industry to carry out zero waste landfill certification. Our goal is to reduce the carbon footprint of the entire life cycle of bicycles by 43% by 2035 compared with 2023.
We are also actively implementing resource recycling and have established a "car-to-car" material recycling system. Through the recycling vehicle laboratory project, scrapped vehicles are meticulously dismantled, and recycled materials are applied in a closed loop to parts such as wheels, compressor casings, and domain controller casings. This project won the "Automotive Industry Rotary Award-Sustainable Development Benchmark Award" from the International Automotive Technology Annual Conference. At present, we have completed the "vehicle-to-vehicle" closed-loop recycling of more than 1,100 scrapped vehicles and recycled nearly 500 tons of aluminum materials, which is equivalent to reducing carbon emissions by more than 10,000 tons. In 2025, related parts also obtained the automotive industry's first "car-to-car" level recycled aluminum certification.
In addition to bringing materials back into cars, we are also exploring how to give more materials new use values through design innovation. In 2021, NIO Life, a lifestyle brand, launched the BLUE SKY LAB project to redesign airbags, seat belts, Haptex and other materials left over from the car manufacturing process into clothing, bags and lifestyle products. This is not just recycling, but also upcycling. Repurpose discarded materials into something valuable.
In 2025, NIO Life will further launch a used clothes recycling project. Users can participate in used clothes recycling through the NIO APP, and we will plant protective forests in proportion. So far, more than 32,000 people have participated, 160 tons of used clothes have been recycled, and more than 21,000 square meters of protective forest have been planted. We hope that through these attempts, more users can start from a single choice in their daily lives and practice a sustainable lifestyle together.
In the energy field, NIO is also exploring how to create more value for energy transformation by continuing to build a charging and swapping system. Currently, NIO has more than 4,100 battery swap stations around the world, providing a total of more than 120 million battery swap services. Battery swap stations are also distributed energy storage facilities. Currently, NIO has more than 860 battery swap stations and 26,000 charging piles participating in the demand response and peaking and frequency regulation markets. Battery swapping technology and vehicle battery separation allow users to choose small batteries according to daily needs instead of large batteries for occasional long-distance needs. It is estimated that this can reduce the use of battery raw material resources by about 17%-30%. At the same time, through centralized battery management, we continue to monitor the health status of the battery and improve the usage efficiency of the battery throughout its life cycle. The battery recycling rate under the battery replacement system can reach 96%, which is a natural "recycling station" that connects battery use, management and recycling.
We are also continuing to explore ways to use more renewable energy in our power swap network. On September 23 this year, the world’s first zero-carbon off-grid optical storage and power station was officially put into operation in Xingxingxia, Xinjiang. This site is not connected to the public grid at all, using photovoltaics as the only energy source and achieving independent power supply through energy storage. Xingxingxia is located in the Gobi Desert, with a harsh environment and weak power grid. The commissioning of this power swap station proves that even in areas where public grid coverage is difficult, the power swap station can operate independently entirely on renewable energy. It also provides a solution for extending the power exchange network to more remote areas.
The previous practices are more about answering: how companies can reduce their impact on the environment. We have also been thinking about whether we can go one step further and invest our technologies, products and resources into nature protection to create more positive value for biodiversity protection. In 2021, NIO launched the Clean Parks Qinglang National Park ecological co-construction plan to support the management of nature reserves and national parks. This is the world's first open platform initiated by an automobile company to support the construction of national parks and nature reserves.
Currently, NIO is working with organizations such as the United Nations Development Program and the World Wildlife Fund to deploy 19 project protected areas around the world. We use smart electric vehicles, charging infrastructure and clean energy solutions to facilitate daily ecological patrols and scientific research, minimize the impact of these tasks on the natural environment, and provide a more sustainable way to protect ecologically sensitive areas.
Take Shanghai Chongming Dongtan Bird National Nature Reserve as an example. 364 species of birds have been recorded here, and 20 species are under national first-level protection. We have built a clean and low-carbon energy self-circulating energy replenishment system with our partners, using photovoltaic power generation to provide all-weather, zero-carbon green power for patrol vehicles in protected areas. According to a joint evaluation by the United Nations Development Program and the Nanjing Environmental Science Institute of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, this system can generate about 16,500 kilowatt hours of electricity per year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 9 tons per year. While ensuring energy use for ecological patrols and scientific research, we will try to minimize interference with wetlands and migratory bird habitats. This model is also being implemented in the Clean Parks Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve, and construction is planned to be completed in early November this year.
In addition, Clean Parks has also collaborated with Siberian Tiger and Leopard National Park, Giant Panda National Park, Changdao National Park candidate areas, etc. to carry out ecological co-construction projects to jointly protect the homes of wild animals, maintain the authenticity and integrity of the ecosystem, and jointly build the rich biodiversity here.
Biodiversity protection is a common global undertaking that requires the participation of governments, international organizations, businesses and all sectors of society. This year, NIO officially signed a contract with the Kunming Biodiversity Fund and became the first company to donate funds to the Kunming Fund to support biodiversity conservation in developing countries through funds and supporting resources. We look forward to taking action to drive more forces to join in.
Blue Sky Coming, for a sustainable and better future. In Armenia, we are also working hand in hand with our local partner N-Motors to jointly promote environmental protection. NIO will join hands with the 17th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity to protect biodiversity and our common natural home.
