REDSTAR Hangzhou May 2019

FEATURES // 广 告 • 特 辑
ANT FOREST
By Lisa Romanova
Joining a tree-planting group or
just planting trees in your yard is
a great way to give back to the
environment. A single young tree
absorbs 13 pounds of carbon dioxide each
year. A single 10-year-old tree releases
enough oxygen into the air to support the
carbon emissions of two people annually!
There’s a lot that you can do by planting
trees and plants. But that sounds like a
lot of work, right? Well, not really! Your
smartphone can help you do this.
In December 2016, Beijing sent out its
highest level of smog alert, suspending
schools and restricting cars on the road
while the city remained shrouded in a
visible and toxic fog. In August 2016, Ant
Financial Services Group (Ant Financial)
introduced Ant Forest within its Alipay App.
Ant Forest promotes a green lifestyle and
encourages low-carbon activities among
its users, such as paying utility bills online
and walking to work instead of driving.
Such behaviour is counted and converted
into virtual ‘green energy’ that can then
be used to grow a virtual tree in the user’s
mobile phone. With enough energy points,
the virtual tree can be converted into a
real tree and planted in the desert by Ant
Financial and its philanthropic partners.
In turn, this tree planting initiative inspires
users to further adopt low-carbon and
environmentally-friendly behaviours.
For example, walking and hiring bikes
can reduce the carbon emissions, and
making payment in stores with Alipay by
scanning the app at the cashier (according
to Ant Forest) can reduce the use of paper
receipts. Different actions can generate
certain amounts of ‘green energy points’
based on, according to the illustration of
Ant Forest, how much carbon emission
the action is expected to reduce. These
points can only be collected after certain
periods of time, from several minutes to
24 hours. Once the points are ready to be
collected, both you and your friends in Ant
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