Nio, UNDP join hands in ecological conservation

Chinese electric car maker Nio joined hands on Monday with the United Nations Development Programme in their efforts in conservation of protected areas and national parks in China.

They said the partnership is expected to help the private sector to step up their efforts in biodiversity conservation and tackling climate change through the Clean Parks initiative Nio launched in late 2021.

"It's a great honor to have the United Nations Development Programme on board to support the Clean Parks Initiative with Nio, to build a clean and low-carbon energy circulation system in nature reserves," said Nio founder William Li.

In particular, this will be done by guiding enterprises to green their supply chain and piloting renewable energy solutions including electric vehicles and charging facilities, said the UNDP.

"Ecological protection and biodiversity conservation are high on the global and national agenda and I look forward to this partnership contributing to these priorities," said Beate Trankmann, UNDP resident representative in China.

Based in Shanghai, Nio has been a pioneer in innovative green transportation solutions.

Last December, the company established a special fund dedicated to investing in conservation efforts in protected areas worldwide over the next 3 years.

Trankmann said the initiative "particularly encouraging".

"We hope that efforts such as this from NIO and other private companies can generate even greater impact moving forward," she said.

The Nio-UNDP partnership comes in the lead up to second part of the 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention of Biodiversity at the end of the year in Montreal, Canada.

"With COP15-part 2 coming up in December, this partnership couldn't be more timely," said Trankmann.