From niche to popular, to top investment institutions raising more than 100 million yuan--Interview with Yan Luhui, founder and CEO of Carbonstop

The "Implementation Plan on Establishing a Carbon Footprint Management System"(hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Plan") jointly issued by 15 departments including the Ministry of Ecology and Environment proposed that by 2027, the carbon footprint management system will be initially established. By 2030, the carbon footprint management system will be more complete and application scenarios will be more abundant.

Some companies that provide carbon emission management consulting, training, software, and products and services such as carbon neutrality to corporate organizations have also entered the market. What about the carbon footprint market? What difficulties are you facing? How will the future develop? To this end, a reporter from China Environment News interviewed Yan Luhui, founder and CEO of Carbonstop (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd., to find out what opportunities in his eyes the "Implementation Plan" will bring?

China Environment News: What impact will the issuance of the "Implementation Plan" have on the promotion of the carbon footprint management system?

Yan Luhui:The issuance of the "Implementation Plan" will have many impacts. For example, industry standards will be more standardized, which will promote the active carbon finance market and corporate carbon management.

Promote industry standardization and standardization. This will promote the establishment and improvement of carbon footprint accounting, identification certification, hierarchical management, information disclosure and other systems. It will provide clear standards and specifications for carbon footprint and the entire "double carbon" industry, and promote the healthy development of the entire industry.

Promote the activity of carbon finance markets. Financial institutions may gradually establish an enterprise green and low-carbon level evaluation system oriented by product carbon footprint, use carbon footprint calculation results as an important basis for corporate credit, financing and insurance, etc., and develop new carbon-related financial products, such as carbon credit, carbon bonds, etc., to provide financial support for enterprises.

Companies will manage carbon more accurately. Establish a national carbon footprint factor database to promote the standardization and unification of carbon footprint accounting, allowing different companies and organizations to adopt the same standards and methods when assessing the carbon footprint of products or services, thereby ensuring comparability and consistency of data. It helps companies and organizations better understand their own carbon emissions in production and operations, so as to formulate more effective emission reduction strategies and measures for carbon management.

Expand the certification and promotion of carbon footprint (label) logos. The "Implementation Plan" clearly requires the study and formulation of product carbon footprint certification catalogs and implementation rules, and the improvement of carbon labeling related specifications, which will encourage more industry companies to pay attention to and participate in carbon footprint labeling certification. Carbon accounting, carbon labeling, and carbon footprint certification will become an indicator pursued by corporate products and services.

Last year, we assigned carbon tags to every office item of the company, as well as public tweets and emails. We hope that the company's mission of "making every product have a carbon footprint" will be implemented on a daily basis. We believe that the carbon footprint logo will be used in the future. It can be seen everywhere in our daily lives.

Promote green consumption. The transparency of product carbon emission information can be improved, and consumers can choose more environmentally friendly and low-carbon products or services by understanding the carbon footprint information of products or services, thereby promoting green consumption. At the same time, improve public awareness of climate change and environmental protection, and form a good atmosphere for the whole society to participate together.

Strengthen international cooperation and exchanges. The "Implementation Plan" encourages research institutions, industry associations and enterprises to strengthen international exchanges related to product carbon footprint, and cooperate in the construction of product carbon footprint factor databases, standard formulation and professional talent training. This will help ensure the security of carbon footprint information of my country's export products, promote data mutual trust and interconnection, strengthen international cooperation, and enhance my country's status and influence in the field of international carbon footprint.

Overall, the issuance of the "Implementation Plan" is also a very important historical opportunity for the development of our company. I believe that more and more companies will begin to pay attention to the carbon footprint, and our carbon management software products and consulting services will also be more useful.

China Environment News: You have been engaged in carbon footprint research for more than ten years. From your experience, what kind of change trajectory is the development of carbon footprint?

Yan Luhui:We have taken the initiative to accumulate a carbon emission factor database since 2012, and have also witnessed the history of China's carbon footprint work. From no one knowing it to now receiving gradual attention from society.

When it first started its business in 2011, the entire carbon neutrality industry was still relatively "niche" and it took a long time to achieve break-even. Later, as the carbon neutrality industry became more and more popular and companies became more and more willing to achieve carbon neutrality, the company completed two rounds of financing of more than 100 million yuan from top investment institutions such as Hillhouse, Jingwei, and Sequoia in 2021 and 2022 respectively. There were more and more orders, making it a "rush" for investors.

From an industry perspective, we have witnessed more and more companies begin to calculate their carbon footprints, reduce carbon emissions throughout the life cycle, and achieve product carbon neutrality. For example, brand companies such as Chenguang, Anta, Mengniu, Nanfu, KFC, Starbucks, etc., have all achieved the calculation, disclosure and even partially achieved product carbon neutrality. The efforts of these companies have greatly promoted the development and process of the industry's carbon footprint.

Carbon footprint is the basis for enterprises to carry out carbon management. I believe that more and more companies will also calculate the carbon footprint of their products and achieve carbon reduction in their products throughout the life cycle.

China Environment News: The core competitiveness of your team is the carbon emission factor database. What contribution will this make to carbon peak and carbon neutrality?

Yan Luhui:Our carbon emission factor database CCDB currently has more than 160,000 data items and is continuously being included and updated. Regardless of the amount of data and scope of coverage, CCDB is at the leading level in the country and even the world.

CCDB integrates global carbon factors, collects and organizes domestic and foreign standard databases, commercial databases (including authoritative databases such as Ecoinvent), corporate research data and literature data, covering more than 200 countries and regions around the world.

In addition, CCDB focuses on the accumulation of localized data in China. We have reached strategic cooperation with many local institutions in China to jointly develop a carbon emission factor database that is more suitable for local China. Carbonstop is still in long-term practice. A large amount of industry research data comprehensively compiled based on industry needs and project experience, combined with the carbon cloud, can also realize one-stop query and calculation of carbon emission data.

The original intention of building the CCDB database is to make it easier for more companies and institutions to calculate carbon emissions and carbon footprints, and we also hope to make our due contribution to the national carbon neutrality goal and the global net-zero emission goal.

China Environment News: What are the current difficulties faced by carbon footprints? What should I do if I want to establish a more complete carbon footprint management system?

Yan Luhui:At present, the construction of the carbon footprint management system is still in its infancy, and the formulation and promotion of relevant policies and standards need to be further strengthened.

First of all, the calculation methods are not uniform. At present, there are many calculation methods for carbon footprint, and the results obtained by different calculation methods may be quite different, resulting in poor comparability of assessment results. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a unified carbon footprint calculation method standard, which is in line with international standards, and ensure the comparability and accuracy of assessment results.

Secondly, the factor data is not uniform. The lack of a unified and authoritative carbon footprint database at home and abroad leads to the lack of accurate and reliable data support in the carbon footprint assessment process. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a local carbon footprint database in China and strive to gain international recognition. At the same time, strengthen docking and cooperation with international databases to achieve data sharing and mutual recognition. In addition, industry associations, enterprises, scientific research units, etc. are encouraged to participate in the construction and update of databases.

Third, data collection is difficult. The assessment of carbon footprint requires a large amount of basic data support, including data on energy consumption, raw material use, waste disposal, etc. However, due to complex data sources and uneven data quality, data collection is difficult. Therefore, it is necessary to establish unified data collection standards and processes, strengthen data quality management, and promote automatic collection and aggregation by tools such as low-carbon cloud platforms.

In short, carbon footprint calculation software must be continuously optimized, visual design must be done well, and operation must be as simple as possible, so that more companies can easily use carbon footprint software for evaluation and management. Make the technical and cost threshold for product carbon footprint low enough so that people who don't understand carbon can operate it, and companies are willing, able to do it, and able to do it!