CATL: Building Sustainable Brand Competitiveness through a Zero-Carbon Strategy

For a company to truly build a "sustainable brand," it must elevate ecological value from a peripheral responsibility to a core strategy, embedding the logic of green growth into its business model and value chain. For CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited), sustainable development is not an auxiliary topic of ESG, but the main thread of its innovation strategy. As a global leader in new- energy technology, CATL explicitly proposes to drive the replacement of fossil energy with advanced battery technologies and renewable- energy systems, and has released and is implementing its zero- carbon strategic goals of achieving carbon neutrality in core operations by 2025 and carbon neutrality across the entire value chain by 2035.

The core of CATL's sustainable- brand building lies in advancing its "three strategic directions" and "four innovation systems" for sustainable development. Regarding the three strategic directions, the company proposes replacing stationary fossil energy with renewable energy and energy- storage technologies, replacing mobile fossil energy with power batteries, and promoting integrated innovation through electrification and intelligence, thereby driving the construction of regional zero- carbon ecosystems. With "value- chain carbon neutrality" as its goal and systemic energy transition as its pathway, CATL incorporates R&D, manufacturing, supply- chain management and industrial collaboration into a unified sustainability- governance system.

The four innovation systems serve as key pillars for translating top- level strategy into practice. In materials and material- system innovation, the company leverages a high- throughput materials- computing platform and advanced algorithms to rapidly screen material combinations through atomic- level simulations, continuously maintaining its leadership in battery- materials systems. In system structure innovation, through the iteration of technologies such as CTP (cell- to- pack) and CTC (cell- to- chassis), the company achieves high integration between battery systems and the vehicle chassis, significantly improving safety, energy density and application adaptability. In green extreme manufacturing, the company uses digitalization and its "super line (超级拉线)" technology to achieve industry- leading PPB- level cell defect rates, and is advancing the buildup of TWh- level high quality manufacturing capacity. In business- model innovation, CATL extends its sustainability strategy across sector boundaries: it continuously brings its innovative technologies into application scenarios such as construction machinery, marine vessels and aircraft, and has launched solutions including the "Chocolate Swap (巧克力换电)" and "Qiji Swap (骐骥换电)." At the same time, the company promotes zero- carbon technologies through regional zero- carbon demonstration projects, advancing the coordinated implementation of zero- carbon technologies and social systems to support green transformation across industries.

To ensure the robustness of strategic execution, the company has also built a panoramic value- chain management system, including supply- chain due diligence, the CREDIT audit system, and critical- minerals risk- management mechanisms. In 2024, the company conducted sustainability audits on 82 core suppliers, achieving 100% coverage of four key materials (cathode, anode, electrolyte and separator), incorporating the carbon footprint and due diligence requirements of the EU Batteries and Waste Batteries Regulation into its audit process, and continuously enhancing the sustainability performance of its supply chain.

CATL's case illustrates that in building a sustainable brand, new energy enterprises must not only "do the right things," but also "do things in the right way." By elevating sustainable development into corporate strategy, CATL is not only driving its industry toward a zero- carbon direction, but also contributing a China model to the global energy transition.