新闻报道

China's solution in the double carbon era - the first global "Zero Carbon Industrial Park" standard released

2022 May 26

In October 2021, Bureau Veritas and its strategic partner Envision Group announced the creation of a "Zero Carbon Industrial Park" standard at the Erdos Zero Carbon Industry Summit. Recently, the "Low Carbon/Zero Carbon Industrial Park Construction Guide" standard (later referred to as the "Standard"), jointly developed by Bureau Veritas, Envision Group, China National Institute of Standardization, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jones Lang LaSalle, Jurong Group, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Renmin University of China, Tongji University and other renowned institutions, enterprises and universities at home and abroad, was formally written and approved for release, becoming the first "zero carbon industrial park" standard in the world.

This standard represents the advanced direction of global zero carbon development, and is an important guide for the construction and transformation of low and zero carbon industrial parks in a dual carbon environment, providing a reference path for the development of new green industries according to local conditions.

Industrial parks are an important form of agglomeration for regional economic development and industrial structure adjustment, and are responsible for a series of economic and social development missions such as resource gathering, industry cultivation and urbanisation development, but they are also high carbon emission areas.

According to statistics, the 2,543 national and provincial industrial parks in China contribute more than 50% of the country's industrial output, and also produce approximately 31% of the country's carbon dioxide emissions.

Faced with the contradiction between energy and carbon control and industrial development, zero-carbon industrial parks have become the ultimate goal for the green and high-quality development of traditional industrial parks, and are favoured by local governments.

In past practice, due to the lack of systematic theoretical guidance and scientific and rigorous regulatory requirements, the zero-carbon development of parks has suffered from low aggregation of industrial links, unreasonable energy planning, lack of management of greenhouse gas emissions and weak awareness of environmental protection, which has hindered the high-quality and sustainable development of the local economy.

In view of the large number of industrial parks in China, their wide distribution and different stages of development, the lack of understanding and uniformity of green low-carbon transformation, and the fact that the relevant guidance framework is not yet clear, this standard provides directional guidance for the zero-carbon transformation of parks, solves the problem of where to do it and how to do it, and further promotes the zero-carbon transformation from enterprises to a wider range of parks.

The standard provides life-cycle guidance for the development and construction of low/zero carbon industrial parks in China, from the planning, design and construction of the park to its later operation.

1. Industry aggregation and optimisation

The partnership between enterprises in the park is fully utilised so that greenhouse gases such as CO2 are gradually absorbed at various nodes of the industry. Through the co-ordination of materials, energy and environment, a mutually beneficial industrial network and production space is formed, and the efficiency of resource recycling and resource sharing is improved.

2. Greenhouse gas emission control

The construction of carbon emissions from enterprises in the park will be achieved through technological upgrading, adjustment of industrial structure and elimination of backward production capacity, while improving the efficiency of the energy use side, including production energy efficiency, building energy efficiency and transportation energy efficiency.

3. Sustainable use of energy

Improve the energy structure, increase the proportion of renewable energy and clean energy use, and encourage the use of renewable energy in the park to be higher than 70%.

4. Environmental protection and ecological recycling

Pay attention to the recycling and efficient use of natural resources, especially water resources, reduce the generation of waste at source and strengthen the management of waste.

5. Carbon Neutrality

Using the carbon trading market mechanism, the greenhouse gases generated by enterprises in the park can be neutralised through emission reduction offsets or credit offsets, ultimately achieving net zero carbon emissions in the park.

The first phase of the world's first zero carbon industrial park, Envision Erdos Zero Carbon Industrial Park, which is based on this standard, was also recently completed and put into operation. The park will help the local community achieve a new green industrial output of 300 billion RMB by 2025, create 100,000 green high-tech jobs and achieve an annual reduction of 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Xing Ge, Head of Zero Carbon Business Development of Envision Group, said, " Based on the three innovative pillars of ‘New Electricity System’, ‘Zero Carbon Digital Operating System’ and ‘Green New Industrial Cluster’, Envision will take the promotion of the Standard and the practice of Erdos as the starting point to make the Zero Carbon Industrial Park go global and build 100 Zero Carbon Industrial Parks with partners in the next ten years, contributing to the carbon neutral transformation and green industrial revolution in China.

“As a global promoter of inspection, testing, certification and technical consulting services, Bureau Veritas is also an advocate and promoter of green industry and sustainable development," said Zhihong Du, Head of Sustainable Development, Greater China, Building and Infrastructure, Bureau Veritas. “It is foreseeable that the release and implementation of this standard will greatly facilitate the development and renovation of zero carbon parks by enterprises and governments, helping to achieve emission reduction targets as soon as possible, and thus playing an active role in the global climate change response process.”