Huawei is contributing to sustainable social development through digital technology, collaborating with partners around the world, including in Europe and Asia, to promote digital inclusion and preserve biodiversity.

Huawei recently held a sustainability forum themed “A Company that Grows with Technology: Achieving Sustainable Development.”

At the event, Huawei discussed ways to promote sustainable development through digital infrastructure and build an intelligent world that is both eco-friendly and inclusive, along with ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Executive Director Jeffrey Sachs, and representatives of key regulatory authorities.

“Next-generation digital infrastructure such as connectivity and computing is as essential to driving socio-economic development as physical infrastructure such as roads, and is crucial to the sustainable development of human society,” said Liang Hua, Chairman of the Board of Huawei. “Rapid construction of computing infrastructure will help accelerate digital transformation across various industries, achieve closer integration between the digital economy and the real economy, and promote global economic stability and sustainable development.”

Huawei previously announced sustainable development As one of the measures, it announced that it would join the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)'s Partner to Connect (P2C) Digital Alliance and provide connectivity to 120 million digitally excluded people in 80 countries around the world by 2025.

Over the past year, Huawei has already empowered 90 million digitally excluded people in approximately 80 countries to connect to the digital world, promoting sustainable development by bridging the digital divide.

Furthermore, Huawei is actively working with the European region to utilize digital technology to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems, under the belief that “digital technology and the digitalization of industry and commerce may be the most powerful force created by mankind.”

Biodiversity is directly linked to the global food supply, requiring a diverse range of plant and animal species to maintain fertile soil, clean water and air, and protect crops from pests and diseases.

Ana Maria Hernandez Salgar, former chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), warned that biodiversity loss is “a clear moral and existential problem,” and that human survival will inevitably be affected if biodiversity is lost.

He added that “given the current negative trends, the chances of achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including those related to poverty, hunger, health, cities, water and land, are slim.”

To address this biodiversity crisis, Huawei is collaborating with the World Wildlife Fund Italy (WWF Italy) on a multi-stage project aimed at protecting biodiversity.

In June 2021, Huawei and WWF Italy joined hands to protect Italy's vast wetlands. The first phase of the project, aimed at tackling wetland habitats under threat, involved installing audio recording devices called Nature Guardians.

The Guardian captures sounds, transmits the recordings to the cloud for analysis, and uses AI to send near-real-time alerts to park rangers and other local authorities when it detects the sounds of poachers' gunshots or chainsaws used for illegal logging. It also captures animal sounds, helping scientists determine whether wetland habitats are changing in ways that could threaten long-term biodiversity.

In November of last year, the project entered Phase 2, which explores a diverse approach to agriculture. With many protected bird species inhabiting European rural ecosystems, including the red-billed sandpiper, the black-faced snipe, and birds of prey, suffering from food and nesting losses due to modern agriculture, Huawei and WWF Italy are working on a project to restore agricultural lands to nature and reduce pesticide use.