As the first Chinese company to sign the UN's Business and Biodiversity Pledge in 2016, Yili is actively working on the nine commitments in the Pledge and committed to promoting harmony between humanity and nature. Yili has made various efforts to protect biodiversity such as the "Yili Homeland Initiative".
Yili has participated in the 13th, 14th, and 15th meetings of the Conference of the Parties of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP13, COP14, and COP15).
Yili was invited to attend the second part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). And Yili is the only dairy company selected for the New Deal for People and Nature - Case Book on Business Actions in Biodiversity in China (Summary Edition), which was jointly compiled by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the PRC and WWF, to share our practices of Yili Homeland Initiative. Yili's biodiversity actions were quoted in China's Progress Report on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2019), representing the outstanding achievement in China.
Since 2016, Yili has collaborated with WWF to provide financial support for the Northeast Wetland Conservation Project. In 2022, within the conservation areas, a total of 18 national protected bird species from 8 orders and 12 families were identified and recorded. To date, a total of 4,050 acres of wetlands have been protected.
From 2021 to 2024, Yili collaborated with the China Green Foundation on the "Yili Homeland Initiative - Save Endangered Asian Elephants" project for four consecutive years. Yili kept taking actions to advocate for human-elephant coexistence, including habitat restoration, the rescue of wild elephants, the construction of fences to reduce conflict, and the provision of public science education. By 2023, it had restored 350 mu (23.33 ha) of the "Elephant Canteen" in Yunnan's Xishuangbanna Nature Reserve, providing food, minerals, and water for Asian elephants and wildlife to improve habitat suitability.
In 2024, Yili continued its collaboration with WWF and the China Green Foundation to launch environmental protection projects "China Organic Grass-Planting Festival" and the "Haloxylon Trees Conservation Plan" aimed at combating land desertification. In 2023, Yili became one of the first corporate members to join the World Economic Forum's "Trillion Trees Initiative" (1t.org China Action), supporting China's goal to plant, protect, and restore 70 billion trees by 2030.
Improved 55,000 mu of degraded grasslands in Arukorqin Banner
Yili established a Haloxylon conservation area in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia