Contributing to biodiversity conservation, Fulfilling corporate social responsibility
BMW officially launches the “BMW Beautiful Homeland Initiative”

(Beijing) On November 30th, the 2021 BMW Corporate Social Responsibility Forum themed “We Together” was successfully held in Beijing. At this forum, BMW China Automotive Trading Ltd. and BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. took the opportunity of the 10th anniversary of the BMW JOY Home program to jointly launch the future-oriented “Self-Strengthening Movement” in partnership with the China Education Development Foundation. The Movement aims to provide support for 52 schools in China’s last 52 counties that achieved poverty alleviation in 2020 and include them into the BMW JOY Home program from 2021 to 2023. Meanwhile, it will promote the balanced development of rural education and contribute to rural revitalization by carrying out on-campus sports guidance and teacher training on “Joyful Football” and “Joyful Sports”.

A fresh start for a new era, drive transformation with social needs

2021 marks the 10th anniversary of the BMW JOY Home program. As the earliest BMW CSR program to extensively engage BMW dealers and customers, the BMW JOY Home program has seen 95 BMW JOY Home schools established in 29 provinces and autonomous regions across China and over 400 activities held, benefiting more than 130,000 left-behind and migrant children. Over 10,000 BMW associates, dealers and customers have participated in volunteer activities.

With China’s success on poverty alleviation, the social issue of rural left-behind children and urban migrant children has been improved significantly. Rural revitalization and beautiful countryside construction have become key social issues. At the same time, in response to the Opinions on Comprehensively Strengthening and Improving School Physical Education in the New Era released by the Ministry of Education of the PRC and in order to improve the physical education of rural schools, BMW JOY Home launched the future-oriented “Self-Strengthening Movement”: From 2021 to 2023, BMW JOY Home will support 52 schools in China’s last 52 counties that achieved poverty alleviation in 2020, to build them into 52 sports model schools; and provide professional training for physical education teachers and benefit more than 100,000 students; explore sports model suitable for rural schools to promote the rural education revitalization. This year, BMW JOY Home has supported 16 BMW JOY Home schools in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces and organized physical education teachers training for these newly included schools. Through its own social influence and an innovative enabling approach, the program continuously engages stakeholders, caring members of society and NGOs to help BMW JOY Home become a sustainable enabling platform with snowball effect.

Build a warm heart platform to engage stakeholders

Extensive stakeholder engagement has always been an exclusive advantage of BMW CSR. In response to the unexpected severe natural disaster in Henan this year, BMW quickly started the emergency disaster relief and established a charity donation platform via the China Education Development Foundation-BMW Warm Heart Fund for stakeholders and the public, which has brought together the positive energy of BMW warm heart family and all walks of life. It gave full play to the function of BMW Warm Heart Fund as a platform to extensively engage stakeholders and became a benchmark in the industry. At this forum, BMW warm heart customers from Henan and Qinghai provinces shared their touching stories in Henan flood fighting and disaster relief via the video. At the very first of the sudden flood in Henan, these warm heart customers actively organized donations and sent relief and living supplies to people in the disaster area. Dealers are also important partners and stakeholders of BMW. Guided and supported by BMW CSR, they actively carry out CSR activities in local communities, widely motivate BMW customers to participate in and contribute to the sound development of local communities.

Stay true to original mission and continuously contribute to Chinese society for long-term development

BMW CSR in China has always been contributing to building a “beautiful China” with innovative thinking and has integrated education into program management and implementation. The Children’s Traffic Safety Education as BMW’s first CSR program in China has lasted for 17 years. This year the program is enriched with the theme “Propriety”, which has been applied to the current traffic safety education. It is “transforming traditional culture for innovative development” in an innovative way. The power of CSR lies not only in change, but also in persistence. This year also marks the 15th anniversary of the BMW China Culture Journey program and the 5th anniversary of the Tsinghua BMW Innovation Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding. An exhibition on social innovation has been successfully held, displaying the intangible cultural heritage creative works supported by BMW CSR and Tsinghua University’s Academy of Arts and Design.

Above all else, this year, BMW adds “environmental protection” to its current CSR pillars - “cultural preservation” and “social development”. The BMW Beautiful Homeland Initiative is committed to biodiversity conservation and national parks construction in China. The first phase of the program will focus on supporting the Liaohekou National Nature Reserve in Liaoning province. The launch of the program right signifies that BMW is expanding its CSR focus in China with innovative thinking to contribute more to the Chinese society in the post-pandemic era. No Premium Without Responsibility. BMW always sees “contributing to a better society” as its mission and has engaged a wide range of stakeholders through its CSR programs to solve real social problems and make long-term contributions to building a better Chinese society.