On February 21, 2025, SAC/TC548 (Carbon management) held its 2024 annual plenary meeting and standard review meeting (hereinafter referred to as “the Annual Meeting”) in Beijing. SAC/TC548 is in charge of the carbon management standards in China, such as GHG emission accounting and carbon footprint etc., therefore its work is horizontally relating to all sectors. In such case, besides TC members, several officials from multiple national ministries attended the Annual Meeting, including but not limited to those from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) etc. A total of more than 50 attendees participated in this meeting. 

Apart from a brief annual work summary of 2024, and the personnel changes in the TC, the senior official from MIIT stated the working expectation for SAC/TC548 as:

ž   Focus on the needs of emerging industries and strengthen the supply of innovative standards;

ž   Accelerate the establishment of a comprehensive standard system covering all areas of carbon emissions, prioritizing the resolution of system gaps and standard deficiencies;

ž   Optimize standards during implementation, enhance the alignment between standards and policies with supporting safeguards;

ž   Ensure the effective implementation of carbon emissions management goals.

The TC leaders from also put forward its overall annual goal as:

ž   Achieve new breakthroughs in standard development for key sectors, providing solid support for building a scientifically sound and comprehensive institutional system for carbon emissions management;

ž   Coordinate high-quality resources and expertise to ensure the smooth operation of SAC/TC 548.

Two drafts of national voluntary standards are being reviewed in the Annual Meeting:

ž   General guideline of the greenhouse gas emissions accounting and reporting for industrial enterprises (project number: 20220807-T-467)

It is a revision of the currently effective national standard GB/T 32150-2015 under the same name.

ž   Technical specification of the data quality management of greenhouse gas emission for industrial enterprises (project number: 20173624-T-303)

It is a newly drafted standard. It specifies methodological requirements for data quality management in industrial enterprises' greenhouse gas emissions monitoring, collection, aggregation, calculation, and reporting processes, encompassing three phases: emission source classification, development of data quality management plans, and enhancement of data quality management plans.

For foreign stakeholders, it is advised to keep track of the standard progress related to their business scope under the jurisdiction of SAC/TC548, as they would be very likely to be connected to China’s green transition and carbon reduction measures. Meanwhile, it is also worth noting that, both general standards that were reviewed in the Annual Meeting was approved back in year (one in 2022 and the other one even dated back to 2017), but the work was put on hold for some time. Now it seems that TC548 may activate them again to make further progress, and it is planned to be finalized soonest possible to submit a drafts for approval.

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