To facilitate China’s carbon peak and neutrality goals, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) organized relevant industrial associations, research institutions, and standardization technical committees to develop the Guidelines on Construction of the Standards System for Carbon Peak and Neutrality in the Industrial Sector.
The Guidelines puts forward the framework of the standards system, and provides the development direction of key standards, which will effectively integrate the existing standards system for industrial energy conservation and comprehensive utilization, and the green manufacturing standards system. By accelerating the development of standards, and continuously improving the standards system, it is expected to turn the development of industrial sector into a low-carbon or zero-carbon model. To boost the development of the standards system, the Guidelines highlights some principles.
First, overall planning will be carried out to cover all relevant fields of industrial low-carbon transition, plan the standards system from various dimensions including manufacturing process, technological development, life cycle, and industrial chains, and comprehensively consider carbon emissions of products, enterprises, industrial parks, supply chains and other levels. Also, efforts should be made to coordinate with existing standards systems.
Second, the standardization work on carbon peak and neutrality will be steadily promoted, focusing on key carbon emission industries and carbon reduction processes of key products. The development and revision of urgently needed standards will be sped up.
Third, adhering to innovation-driven development and digital empowerment, enterprises will be encouraged to achieve innovations in low-carbon technology and management in the industrial sector, which will be written into latest standards for wider application.
Fourth, based on the situation of China’s industrial sector, the level of Chinese low-carbon standards will be enhanced by actively learning from the basis and development trend of international standardization work in response to climate change.
According to the Guidelines, by 2025, the standards system for carbon peak and neutrality in industrial sector will initially established, with over 200 urgently needed standards developed. By 2030, a relatively complete standards system will be built, which supports the overall peaking of carbon emission in the industrial sector, and gradually changes the focus of standardization work to carbon neutrality.
Also, China will vigorously participate in the green and low-carbon standardization activities of international standards organizations such as ISO, IEC and ITU, especially the research, development and revision of standards in terms of GHG accounting and verification, low-carbon technology and equipment, GHG monitoring, as well as carbon emission management and evaluation.
Source: China Standardization Magazine, Issue No.2 in 2024
