Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment jointly issued the Action Plan on Further Strengthening the Construction of Standards and Metrology System for Carbon Peak and Neutrality (2024-2025).

According to the Plan, by the end of 2024, 70 national standards for carbon accounting, carbon footprints, carbon reduction, energy efficiency and energy consumption, as well as carbon capture, utilization and storage will be issued, basically realizing the full coverage of carbon accounting standards for enterprises in key industries. By 2025, a standards system of carbon accounting and evaluation for enterprises, projects, and products will be in place; technical indicators for energy consumption and efficiency of key industries and products will meet world-leading benchmarks; 100 standardization pilot projects of carbon emission management will be set up in enterprises and industrial parks.

Also, the Plan delineates 16 major tasks, including accelerating the development of standards for carbon accounting in enterprises, strengthening standards development for carbon footprints and carbon labeling of products, increasing the supply of carbon reduction standards for projects, promoting the research on standards for carbon reduction and removal technologies, demanding higher standards for energy consumption in the industrial sector, accelerating the upgrading of standards of product energy efficiency, strengthening the standards development of recycling of key products and equipment, expanding the supply of standards for the evaluation of green products, and other 8 tasks on metrology in this field.

Enterprises are encouraged to establish the standardized management system of carbon emissions, to facilitate the accurate calculation of carbon emissions. Also, efforts will be made to guide enterprises to apply advanced technologies to realize carbon reduction.