Photo credit: Alibaba Group

This week, Alibaba Group’s cloud computing business unit Alibaba Cloud announced a partnership with German quality assurance firm TÜV Rheinland to verify emission statistics among companies using the platform’s Energy Expert service.

In other news, the Parisian museum Centre Pompidou, home to France’s Musée National d’Art Moderne, launched a store on Alibaba Group’s e-commerce platform Tmall to offer lifestyle and homeware goods inspired by artwork in its collections.

And actors from Hong Kong broadcasting company TVB tried their hand at selling products via livestream to consumers in mainland China on the group’s B2C marketplace Taobao.

Alibaba Cloud Partners with TÜV Rheinland to Help Companies Hit Net-Zero Goals 

This week, German quality assurance provider TÜV Rheinland partnered with Alibaba Cloud’s sustainability solution Energy Expert to help companies verify and certify their carbon emissions and achieve their net-zero goals. 

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that use Energy Expert to monitor their carbon emissions across the supply chain will have the emissions figures certified by TÜV Rheinland, which is also helping to verify sellers on the e-commerce marketplace Alibaba.com.

The partnership gives SMEs a one-stop solution to winning a stamp of approval for their carbon reduction efforts and makes it easier and less costly for them to enter other markets where sustainability regulations are in place. 

“This will enable our customers, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, to achieve their net-zero goals in a cost-effective and time-saving manner and through a sound sustainability strategy,” said Raymond Ma, General Manager of Europe at Alibaba Cloud. 

Alibaba Cloud said its Energy Expert has helped more than 2,300 companies achieve energy savings of more than 2 million kilowatt hours daily.

Stars From Hong Kong’s TVB Channel Wow in Taobao Livestream 

TVB, the operator of five TV channels in Hong Kong, recorded strong sales this week in its livestreaming debut on Taobao.

Actress Sharon Chan hosted a show on Tuesday alongside her long-time on-screen partner Moses Chan. The pair earned fame in a 2007 local TV drama, Heart of Greed. 

The two stars held a six-hour livestreaming session selling seafood, cosmetics and other daily necessities from 6 pm on March 7. The session attracted 4.85 million views and reaped 23.5 million yuan ($3.37 million) in sales, according to Taobao. 

TVB plans to host at least 48 livestreaming sessions on Taobao this year, and it says it values its corporation with the platform. Influencers including China’s famous serial tech entrepreneur Luo Yonghao joined the trend last year, hoping to make a larger impact on the platform.  

Bonjour! The Centre Pompidou Debuts Its Chinese Giftshop on Tmall

The Centre Pompidou, one of the most visited museums in France, opened their first online gift shop in China this week on the group’s B2C platform Tmall. 

Centre Pompidou has rolled out design books, prints from its most well-known pieces of art and other art-inspired gift selections, including flying discs printed with Piet Mondrian’s 1942 “New York City” painting and reprints of Robert Delaunay’s “The Eiffel Tower” work of art.

Centre Pompidou will work with Tmall on more exclusive collaborations.

These will cover the home décor, fashion and accessories, glamping, children and pets categories, according to Lu Xue, head of e-commerce and product research and development at Centre Pompidou.

Digital-First Entrepreneurs Lead the Charge this International Women’s Day

Women in emerging markets are leveraging the digital economy to become entrepreneurs, recent graduates of a training program created by Alibaba shared.

Worldwide, women are 12% less likely to own a mobile phone and 6% fewer have internet access than men, the UN reports. The absolute gap in access to digital tools between the genders has increased by 20 million over the past two years.

“It’s all about opportunities. At some point in your life, there might not be many opportunities available, especially for women in Pakistan,” Sunbul Sameen, a Karachi-based entrepreneur who participated in the Alibaba Netpreneur Training last year, told Alizila.

The Alibaba Netpreneur Training program, a suite of classes to support digital entrepreneurship, is working to change this by offering training sessions to upskill entrepreneurs, women and youths in over 60 markets.

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Alibaba’s Idle Fish Upgrades Authentication Service to Build Trust in Second-Hand Trading

Alibaba’s second-hand digital marketplace Idle Fish upgraded its authentication feature last week to help consumers verify the goods they trade on the platform.

The upgrade allows consumers to double the number of brands they can authenticate on the platform. Consumers can now verify over 18 million goods on the platform and collect a detailed report within eight hours.

“We want sellers and buyers to have real confidence when trading on Idle Fish,” said Li Yong, the merchants and service center general manager at Idle Fish. 

Over 180 million people used second-hand trading platforms in 2020, reaching a market size of RMB374.5 billion ($54 billion), according to iiMedia Research. 

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Chinese Tourists Travel As Far As Antarctica After Travel Restarts

Alibaba’s online travel platform Fliggy is bringing back its Antarctica route for Chinese tourists this week after travel reopened in January.

The cruise line to Antarctica was one of the most popular products on Fliggy before the pandemic and some 6,000 Chinese tourists had joined the cruise line run by Norwegian coastal cruise line Hurtigruten to the South Pole from 2017 to 2020.

Chinese consumers’ searches for the Antarctica trip on the platform had surged 300% in February from the same period last year.

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Businesses in Asia Migrating to Cloud in 2023, Research Finds

Businesses in Asia will accelerate their migration to the cloud this year, according to a survey from Alibaba Cloud and global research firm Nielsen IQ on Tuesday. 

More than 80% of cloud services users in Asia are planning a complete cloud migration in two years, with 84% planning to increase their investment in cloud technology to support business growth, the survey showed.

“Cloud adoption has become a prerequisite for businesses to succeed, and our customers are adopting a diverse cloud strategy to drive business growth in the digital era,” said Selina Yuan, President of International Business for Alibaba Cloud. 

The survey, commissioned by Alibaba’s cloud computing arm, drew on responses from 1,000 cloud strategy makers in businesses across eight markets in Asia.

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