China’s first zero-carbon factory evaluation standard was released. What are the highlights of the content？

Recently, Yuanjing Technology Group (hereinafter referred to as "Yuanjing"), together with China Energy Conservation Association, authoritative certification bodies at home and abroad and leading enterprises in many industries, issued the "Evaluation Standard of Zero Carbon Factory".

Previously, Yuanjing, China National Institute of Standardization and Bureau Veritas Bureau Veritas jointly created the first "Zero Carbon Industrial Park Standard" in the world, and based on this standard, it invested 10 billion yuan to build a zero carbon industrial park in Erdos, Inner Mongolia (600295). Moreover, this industrial park also boarded the CCTV news broadcast on March 13, which has to be said to be a major event in the circle.

In order to fully build the industry zero-carbon standard, Vision will continue to promote the coverage of zero-carbon products and solutions from zero-carbon industrial park to zero-carbon factories, zero-carbon buildings, zero-carbon stores, zero-carbon products and other different scenarios, and create a "50" standard and model room!

This zero-carbon factory standard is based on the advanced experience of the standard and practice of building a zero-carbon industrial park, relying on its own advantages in products and solutions in the field of zero-carbon technology, and joining hands with a large number of authoritative organizations and leading enterprises in various industries to jointly announce the creation of the first batch of zero-carbon factory lighthouse projects in the world to promote the transformation of the industry to low-carbon and zero-carbon.

It is understood that the first batch of well-known enterprises planning to participate in the lighthouse project of zero-carbon factory include Unilever, Boehringer Ingelheim, Saint-Gobain, GlaxoSmithKline, Eaton, Yuanqi Forest, Nippon Group, Want Want Group, Schaeffler, Tianqi Lithium Industry (002466), Luxshare (002475), Lihao Semiconductor, and International Jifeng Packaging Group.

The upcoming "Zero-carbon Factory Evaluation Standard" puts forward complete and quantifiable evaluation rules for zero-carbon factories for the first time and provides corresponding evaluation grades, which provides a concrete basis for setting zero-carbon targets for future factories. The standard puts forward clear requirements for the realization of zero-carbon factory in a forward-looking way, including not only asking the factory to make a zero-carbon commitment on the path, but also defining the goal, time plan and emission reduction and offset strategies; The mechanism also requires the factory to establish the necessary carbon emission management mechanism to ensure that the factory can maintain a zero-carbon state sustainably; On the technical level, we will give priority to energy efficiency improvement (equipment renovation, waste heat recovery, etc.), clean energy substitution (distributed photovoltaic, green electricity direct purchase, green hydrogen and green ammonia substitution, etc.), carbon capture, utilization and storage, and a wider emission reduction trading mechanism (green certificate and carbon trading) to guide enterprises and factories to carry out energy conservation and carbon reduction in a comprehensive and scientific manner in order to maximize the climate and environmental benefits brought by emission reduction.　

Having introduced so much, what is the content of this standard? What is the guidance for enterprises that implement zero-carbon factories? I found the standard at the first time and made a detailed interpretation here.

The standard is divided into seven chapters. Besides the process chapter of standard writing, the core three chapters are: basic requirements of zero-carbon factory, evaluation requirements of zero-carbon factory and implementation process of zero-carbon factory. I will focus on these three chapters here.

The chapter on Basic Requirements of Zero-carbon Factory stipulates that the evaluated factory meets the basic requirements of the definition of zero-carbon factory in compliance, manager’s commitment and greenhouse gas management system. This part refers to the general management system, such as energy management system. For example, in the manager’s commitment, the top manager is required to sign a statement on the commitment of zero-carbon factory, which includes the timetable for realizing the zero-carbon factory and being responsible for the effectiveness of the zero-carbon factory.

In the management system and system, the standard requires the factory that carries out the evaluation to establish and continuously optimize the greenhouse gas emission management system and system. I would like to remind you that there seems to be no decent greenhouse gas management system standard in China at present. I wonder if this is included in the national standard plan. But it doesn’t matter if there is no system reference. This standard has listed the core contents, so just do it.

The chapter of zero-carbon factory evaluation is the most important chapter of the standard, and the factories that require evaluation should meet the relevant requirements of the standard in terms of architecture, lighting, facilities and equipment, metering equipment, energy utilization, resource utilization and product design. And it is especially required to establish an information management system.

I remember that both the previous energy management system ISO50001 and the greenhouse gas accounting guide ISO14064 mentioned the establishment of an information system, but they were only suggestions at that time, and this standard was a requirement. It can be seen that with the advancement of the dual-carbon industry, the demands and requirements for digitalization and informatization have become more and more clear.

I also noticed that the initiator Vision itself is the developer of carbon management system, and it is one of the first enterprises in China to become a carbon management platform. Their leading position is that their system is based on the IOT AIoT technology, which can realize real-time accounting of energy carbon, rather than through traditional manual accounting, and it is more accurate and real-time; Secondly, they integrated the whole zero-carbon closed-loop capability of Vision Group into this system, such as real-time measurement of emission reduction, online green certificate purchase and green electricity transaction, and directly generated reports approved by authoritative certification bodies.

Although the prospect of adding this article has the taste of selling your own products. However, I think that in today’s highly developed digitalization and informatization, it is a must to introduce a digital management system for the normal management of carbon emissions, but it is not an option. Objectively speaking, this item should be added.

In addition, this chapter also makes relevant requirements for greenhouse gas emission reduction and offset in factories, lists several feasible ways to reduce emissions, and in Chapter 7 of this standard, it is also clear which emission reduction can be used to implement carbon emission offset in zero-carbon factories.

The seventh chapter of the standard, the implementation process of zero-carbon factory, mainly guides the factory that implements the evaluation how to operate step by step in order to finally realize the zero-carbon factory.

First of all, the factory that carries out the evaluation needs to make a zero-carbon factory implementation plan, which is similar to what we call carbon neutral planning. Secondly, it needs to establish an internal carbon management system, which is to ensure that carbon emission reduction can be carried out continuously and orderly, and then determine the greenhouse gas emission baseline, so as to have a reference point for future emission reduction. Then implement emission reduction according to the previously formulated emission reduction plan, and regularly calculate greenhouse gas emissions every year. Finally, according to the annual remaining carbon emissions, purchase corresponding carbon credits to implement carbon offset, and complete these, it will have the evaluation conditions for zero-carbon factories.

In the seventh chapter of the standard, the evaluation method of zero-carbon factory is also described in detail. The evaluation method is mainly based on the compliance of the factory with the standard content through the tripartite evaluation agency, and the zero-carbon factory can be rated if the score reaches a certain standard. I have a look at the evaluation content, which is relatively objective and comprehensive. The detailed breakdown and weight will be discussed and refined with leading enterprises and institutions in the industry during the publicity process, and the final plan will be presented in the final release of the standard after being reviewed by experts from relevant ministries and commissions.

Although there are qualitative analysis components in this evaluation method, it is much more scientific than mindless buying emission reduction to offset and then become a zero-carbon factory. If I want to refine the scoring mechanism, the weight of the carbon offset part will account for 50 points at most, and the higher the offset ratio, the lower the score, so as to motivate the factory to implement real emission reduction.

Generally speaking, this standard is relatively objective and comprehensive, and I hope that enterprises interested in building zero-carbon factories can get some inspiration from this standard.

The Age of Carbon Neutralization, by Lao Wang!

Help you find your own position in the carbon neutral era!

This article was first published on WeChat WeChat official account: Lao Wang talks about carbon neutrality. The content of the article belongs to the author’s personal opinion and does not represent Hexun.com’s position. Investors should operate accordingly, at their own risk.