If in the process of tackling climate change, the Chinese government, academia and enterprises need to answer the question of how not to allow the mainland's emission reduction to be defined by other countries, then in the field of product carbon footprint, some people are exploring the answer.
Product carbon footprint accounting is a kind of carbon emission accounting, which together with national and local carbon emission statistical accounting, carbon emission trading market (enterprise carbon emission accounting), and national greenhouse gas inventory compilation constitute a rule system to promote emission reduction. The difference with the other three is that it does not take the main emitting body but the product as the starting point to measure the level of emission reduction, which generally refers to the total carbon emissions generated by the product from the process of raw material processing, transportation, production to factory sales.
The motivation and urgency of Chinese enterprises to calculate the carbon footprint of their products, from the external point of view, comes from the supply chain management of overseas enterprises, export compliance requirements, etc. From an internal point of view, low-emission products can be one of the competitive advantages of a company.
The basic method of product carbon footprint accounting is life cycle assessment (LCA), and the key to life cycle assessment is the life cycle unit process database.
At present, due to the lack of a database that has been widely recognized in China, domestic enterprises mainly use commercial databases released by European and American enterprises to conduct product life cycle assessments. However, the China-related data in the European and American databases have problems such as the inability to characterize the current status of mainland production technology and the inability to trace and verify the source of the data, resulting in the unfairness of mainland products in international competition.
In order to break through this key bottleneck, on November 13, 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission and other five departments jointly issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Establishment of a Product Carbon Footprint Management System", which clarified key tasks such as "strengthening the construction of carbon footprint background database" and "promoting international convergence and mutual recognition of carbon footprint".
On November 27, 2023, Tiangong Database, China's first open and transparent life cycle unit process database, was officially released.
The release of Tiangong Database is a "game-breaking" attempt. The team's efforts in the systematic collection, transparency and international promotion of China's local data mean that in the field of carbon footprint, there is a strong force to gain more voice for Chinese companies by allowing international zero-cost witnessing data that reflects the actual situation in China.
A number of interviewed experts told the reporter of "Lookout" Newsweek that in the field of carbon footprint and other areas of climate change, more strength from the Chinese government, industry associations, leading enterprises and scientific research institutions is needed to enhance China's voice in the global climate response process by demonstrating the ability and strength of data provision, international communication, rule-making, and topic setting.
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Let China's product carbon footprint be represented by local data
"The Life Cycle Unit Process Database is a collection of the smallest unit processes in the production process of many products, and each unit process records the material and energy inputs in the process, as well as the inputs, waste outputs and greenhouse gas emissions. Xu Ming, the initiator of the Tiangong database and deputy dean of the School of Environment of Tsinghua University, said.
It is understood that at present, the internationally recognized life cycle unit process database includes the Swiss ecoinvent database, the German GaBi database, etc., and there is no widely recognized database in China. According to a number of experts interviewed, this has forced Chinese companies to use international databases to calculate the carbon footprint of their products in cross-border trade. However, the unit process data in the international database does not necessarily represent the actual green and low-carbon level of China's industry.
Zhang Hua, deputy general manager of the recycling and low-carbon department of the China Chemical Information Center, told reporters that there is no relevant data in China in the international database, and the international water average can only be used instead. Chang Huimin, a member of Xu Ming's team and an assistant researcher at Tsinghua University's School of Environment, said: "The unit process dataset labeled 'China's aluminium hydroxide production' in the EcoInvent 3.8 database shows that the data is partially derived from the international averages in the 2015 International Aluminum Association research report. There are many more similar datasets. ”
According to Zhang, these international averages generally show higher emissions than the actual emissions of domestic companies using these databases. "Enterprises that need to calculate the carbon footprint of their products in order to export are themselves enterprises that have reached the international leading level in terms of product performance and energy efficiency. They tend to use green and advanced technologies in their production processes and use renewable energy. The use of average data from international databases will lead to domestic products that have low-carbon advantages at a competitive disadvantage internationally. ”
In order to break this situation, Xu Ming took the lead and cooperated with more than 150 experts from more than 30 universities and scientific research institutions at home and abroad, including the Institute of Urban Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fudan University and Nanchang University, to create the Tiangong database, which is free and open to the world. At present, the database brings together more than 70,000 pieces of public data from 55 industries and more than 4,000 units in China. "After the database was released, we are also updating it at a faster pace. Fu Chenling, a member of Xu Ming's team and an assistant researcher at Tsinghua University's School of Environment, said.
Xu Ming's team also worked hard to make the unit process data in the Tiangong database accurate to the city scale, making the data more representative. At present, the proportion of data in the database accurate to the city scale is about 47%. "If you look at an international database like EcoInvent, you will find that most of the data related to China is the national or even global average, and the same production process is different in different cities in China. Chang Huimin said that by making the unit process accurate to the municipal level, enterprises can select the data of the specific city where their supply chain is located, and the calculated product carbon footprint is more realistic.
As China's first open and transparent life cycle unit process database, the "openness" of Tiangong database surprised industry insiders. "Commercialization is the main mode of operation of the life cycle unit process database internationally. At present, most of the internationally recognized life cycle unit process databases are commercial databases. The person in charge of the green development business of an enterprise said.
In China, Chengdu Yike Environmental Technology Co., Ltd. released the China Life Cycle Assessment Basic Database (CLCD) in 2010, a commercial database with data from China's industry statistics, relevant standards, and corporate public reports.
"The CLCD was released early, and it has made a great contribution to promoting the understanding and exploration of carbon footprint management by Chinese enterprises. Xu Ming said that under the restrictions of the paid business model, users cannot be clearly informed of the source of the data, and although users can get the data, they cannot judge the quality and applicability of the data.
Xu Ming said that the free and open Tiangong database is first of all hoped that through its public welfare nature, more domestic enterprises can manage the carbon footprint of products, and at the same time, it is conducive to the team to continuously improve the transparency and traceability of the database. "The data of Tiangong database at this stage come from publicly available data such as academic literature, enterprise reports, environmental impact assessment reports, national statistics, etc., and the team has disclosed the relevant information about the data source as completely as possible. ”
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Human-computer interaction database building process
As of the day of the release of the database, Xu Ming's team obtained 4,132 unit process data in 7 months. "That's more than 10 years of data collected from some internationally renowned databases. Xu Ming said.
The reason for the high efficiency is that the team has developed a large language model application tool that is specially suitable for the construction of Tiangong database by using the domestic AI basic model, and realizes human-computer interaction in the process of database construction.
AI improves data retrieval efficiency. Qi Jianchuan, a member of Xu Ming's team and an assistant researcher at Tsinghua University's School of Environment, cited carbon dioxide retrieval as an example: "If there is no large language model application tool, the team may need to enter the names of 'carbon dioxide', 'CO2', 'carbon dioxide' and other different languages and forms when retrieving carbon dioxide. With the help of large language model tools, we only need to type any of the above names to retrieve all the content we are looking for, which greatly improves efficiency. ”
AI improves the efficiency of data inspection. Xu Ming said that after each team of experts collects data according to pre-established criteria, two other experts will cross-check the quality of the data. At the same time, the large language model application tool can be used as the third "expert" to find the problems within its testing ability.
Qi Jianchuan said that the large language model application tool can automatically convert the unit process data collected by team members into the ILCD data format required to build the database, further improving the efficiency of database construction.
"We are also constantly upgrading the application of large language models and expanding the boundaries of human-computer interaction, with the goal of handing over repetitive and mechanical work to machines, so that team experts can focus on contributing incremental knowledge. Qi Jianchuan said.
The level of emission reduction is measured by the product as the main body of the product and the product as the starting point
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Promote the international recognition of China's databases
From the very beginning of the construction of the database, Xu Ming's team carried out a series of designs in the direction of facilitating international dialogue.
The use of "Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)", which is currently the internationally accepted discourse system for calculating product carbon footprint, is considered by the team to be the premise of the database to connect domestic and international. Xu Ming said: "At present, the internationally recognized product carbon footprint accounting must account for the emissions of the combination of individual unit processes, rather than through the more familiar 'emission factors'. ”
Xu Ming's team also hopes to enhance international recognition through the openness and transparency of the database. Xu Ming said that the Tiangong database is designed so that "anyone can enter the database and can see how the data comes from", which makes foreign relevant people talk about whether to recognize the data, they must focus on specific problems and details, "If you don't recognize it, you must come up with specific reasons, and the team can improve it at any time after it is proposed."
Mu Qijian, director of the climate response department of China International Engineering Consulting Co., Ltd., believes that foreign trade, diplomacy and other factors may also have an impact on the international mutual recognition of databases, but the adoption of an international discourse system and the establishment of the database as open and transparent first ensure the dialogue between China and foreign countries at the purely academic level. "After the science pass, the dialogue at other levels can begin. Mu Qijian said.
At the same time, in order to facilitate the international acceptance of the database, in terms of data organization structure, Tiangong database adopts the ILCD data organization structure as the official standard of the European Union; in the database adaptation software, the team gives priority to adapting the database to OpenLCA, a free and open source software with extensive international influence, and adds a full Chinese interface for OpenLCA, which is convenient for domestic users. "We are making the Tiangong database, from the basics to the details, exist on a platform that can have direct dialogue with the world. Guo Jing, a member of Xu Ming's team and an assistant researcher at the School of Environment at Tsinghua University, said.
Xu Ming's team has approached the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to integrate the database into its global platform for sharing life cycle unit process data to enhance the international exposure of the Tiangong database. At present, Tiangong database is the third largest database in the world and the largest open and free database on the platform.
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Integrate and build a database ecosystem
Next, Xu Ming's team will improve the database based on the actual research of domestic enterprises, so that the data can better represent the front-line situation of China's industry.
In fact, companies have concerns about providing their own product life cycle unit process data. Zhang Hua said that some of the company's process technology is a trade secret, and competitors may be able to deduce what kind of process technology the enterprise has adopted and what kind of production level it has achieved through the raw material consumption and emissions contained in the unit process data, which may be unfavorable to the enterprise.
In this regard, Xu Ming explained that as a carbon footprint background database, the Tiangong database will not present the data of a specific enterprise, but will collect the data of similar products of many enterprises in the industry, and present representative data such as weighted average, average value, and probability distribution value. However, in order to arrive at the final value, the company still needs to provide the data to the database team. "There are technical solutions to ensure the confidentiality of enterprise data. The team is developing data space technology built on the blockchain and has joined the International Data Space Association to solve the problem of mutual trust in data sharing. Xu Ming said.
Mu Qijian believes that the prosperity of China's product carbon footprint management needs to be supported by a blooming and orderly database ecology. It is understood that before the release of the Tiangong database, domestic enterprises in the automotive industry, electronic products and other industries have established their own life cycle unit process database.
The interviewed experts said that the comprehensive carbon footprint background database such as Tiangong database and the subdivided database of other industry enterprises are complementary and develop together. Among them, the segmentation database of industry enterprises collects the midstream and downstream data of its own controllable and traceable links, and other midstream and upstream data that are outside the traceability scope and have high traceability costs need to be provided with the help of a comprehensive carbon footprint background database to provide representative data.
The basic method of product carbon footprint accounting is life cycle assessment, courtesy of Professor Xu Ming's team at the School of Environment, Tsinghua University
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Fight for more voice in climate response
The interviewed experts believe that China's strength in database building, rule-making, and agenda setting will help the mainland further enhance its international discourse in the field of climate change.
Mu Qijian said that at present, the European Union has introduced new battery regulations and carbon border adjustment mechanisms in order to promote the green transformation of local industries and seize new industrial tracks, and China's relevant export enterprises have to take measures to deal with it. Among them, the new EU battery regulation, which came into effect on August 17, 2023, requires battery companies to provide carbon footprint declarations, indicate carbon footprint levels, and prove that the carbon footprint is below the threshold set by the regulation.
Xu Ming said that if mainland battery companies can use local data to represent their products when calculating the carbon footprint of their products, they can better reflect the advantages of China's manufacturing industry in terms of resource use efficiency. "Chinese products are green competitive when compared with the world's major economies. But there is no evidence, and data is needed to prove it to the international community. Mu Qijian said.
The strength of data not only directly affects the results of Chinese enterprises' response to international trade rules, but also affects the process of Chinese industry enterprises participating in international rule-making, which will have a more far-reaching impact.
In this regard, an industry expert revealed a detail. He has participated in the formulation of international rules for product life cycle assessment in his industry. At that time, delegates discussed which background databases were provided for in the rules. "The European Union has proposed to include the EcoInvent database, Japan has written a database of its own, and South Korea has also written it...... When we arrived in China, we were not able to write a database on a continent because we did not have a database that was internationally recognized. In the end, delegates reached a compromise not to include the name of the specific database in the rules, but to say that 'the background data for the application must come from an internationally recognized database'. ”
With the help of its data aggregation capabilities, Xu Ming's team is influencing the design of international institutions. He said that in the process of connecting the Tiangong database to the global sharing platform of the life cycle unit process data of the United Nations Environment Programme, the team also provided technical support for the underlying system of the platform's data collection based on its own information technology development strength. At the same time, the team communicated with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the operating organization of the data sharing platform based on the functions, application methods and globalization of the underlying system of data collection. "This kind of technical support and communication means that we are involved in the institutional design of the global life cycle unit process data sharing. In the future, the norms that are commonly used in the relevant aspects of the world will be those that we are already familiar with, mastered, or even formulated. ”
Mu Qijian believes that in the field of carbon footprint, in order to let the international community hear and listen to more China's voice, in addition to improving its data strength, the mainland also needs to establish its own accounting rules, and then promote the international mutual recognition of rules.
Some of the experts interviewed also expressed the importance of improving the capacity to address climate change. They believe that European and American countries continue to release their concerns about climate change, and universities and think tanks have constructed new concepts and rules based on years of research, and the governments have promoted them to the international community. In response to climate change, China can also strengthen and precipitate its own strategic research, convey our concerns to the international community, and demonstrate our ability to set issues.
Source | "Lookout"