This year is the decisive year for China to build a well-off society in an all-round way. It is also the super year of CBD COP15 held in China. It is also the year of COVID-19 pandemic that has caused various industries to suffer varying degrees of loss. At this juncture, how to popularize the knowledge related to biodiversity conservation, give play to the responsibilities of enterprises and society, and help China ’s biodiversity conservation and sustainable development cause opportunities and challenges coexist.

GoldenBee Corporate Social Responsibility Consulting took the lead in setting an example (GoldenBee CSR Consulitng for short). On March 13, Ms. Chen Weizheng, the President and Mr. Zou Xulin, the Vice President of the GoldenBee CSR Consulting, visited China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF), met with Dr. Zhou Jinfeng the Secretary-General of CBCGDF and other personnel. The two sides conduced rich exchanges around the recent events including CBCGDF’s helping with the bee farmers’ returning to the honey source, helping with the farmers been through the COVID-19 epidemic under the Hive Fund of CBCGDF and other topics such as corporation social responsibility, the advocacy of biodiversity conservation, agricultural poverty alleviation as well as cooperation intentions for the promotion of several sustainable development areas were established.

With the starting point of "supporting bee farmers and protecting bees", the two sides signed the "Memorandum of Cooperation on Supporting Bee Farmers and Protecting Bees” and determined a strategic cooperation framework.

GoldenBee CSR Consulting, founded in 2003, is one of the first professional organizations to embrace social responsibility and sustainable development in China. It strives to develop a close partnership with sustainability-oriented enterprises and organizations and serve as a high end think tank for them.

Since the beginning of February, CBCGDF COVID-19 resumption task force has paid more attention to the returning of the stranded bee farmers. At the same time, it has coordinated with several relevant departments in Sichuan, Yunnan and Hubei provinces and successfully helped thousands of bee farmers to return to their hometowns successfully. CBCGDF has also launched the Hive Fund to help and fund poor farmers who have been hit by the epidemic and have difficulty turning around. After these events were reported by many well-known media in China, the GoldenBee CSR Consulting began to pay attention to the "Hive Fund".

Ms. Chen Weizheng said that GoldenBee CSR Consulting's corporate culture comes from bees. When honeybees collect and ferment honey, they also pollinate plants while promoting their survival, while also expanding the source of honey. The bee's mode of living in harmony with nature can be regarded as a typical example of the development mode of sustainable living in nature.

The concept of "helping the danger and the poor and recycling assistance" advocated by the Hive Fund is highly consistent with the sustainable development characteristics of bees. People and companies concerned with sustainable development and social responsibility should understand the importance of bees to ecology and humans, and they should also participate in the protection of bees and pollinator species.

Dr. Jinfeng Zhou expressed his high agreement with GoldenBee CSR Consulting's corporate culture. He demonstrated the importance of bees with a set of data. At present, more than 90% of the world's total food, 71 varieties of these more than 100 crops require bees to pollinate, and bees are facing various threats. The UN FAO's data shows that 40% of invertebrate pollinating insects (especially bees and butterflies) are facing extinction, and their extinction may have a disastrous impact on the future of food, and their disappearance will endanger three-quarters of the world's crops, including apples, avocados, pears and pumpkins.

Bees are important and indispensable species in the ecosystem. The cultivation of bees is related to the livelihood of bee farmers. At the same time, bee pollination is a powerful guarantee to ensure the harvest of crops, maintain agricultural biodiversity, and ensure food security.

Dr. Zhou said that agricultural biodiversity cannot be separated from bees, and the protection of the world's biodiversity requires more precise, advanced and ecological concepts. It is necessary to take ecological civilization as the starting point to improve the imperfect behaviors left over from the industrial civilization era.

During the meeting, the two parties decided to take the development of the "Hive Fund" as the first step and quickly launch specific actions such as the special donation, advocacy and promotion of the "Hive Fund" to help the bee famers and poor households and others have gone through the difficult period of the epidemic.

Call on the public to actively participate in practical actions for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. It is expected that this cooperation is not only a high reflection of corporate social responsibility, but also a pioneer company represented by the GoldenBee CSR Consulting, which attaches great importance to the protection of pollinators, bees and biodiversity. It is believed that more companies will contribute to this cause, pay attention to ecological civilization, and build a community of shared future for mankind.

(Photo credit: CBCGDF)

(Photo credit: GoldenBee CSR Consulting)

Original Chinese article:

http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4854/11656.html