On November 15, 2021, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued 14th Five-Year Plan for Industrial Green Development (hereinafter referred to as “the Plan”). It contains four chapters that outline the current situation, general ideas, major goals and supporting measurements for the industrial green transitions.
In general, the document articulates the whole development plan into three aspects: one major operation, construct two major systems and achieve six transitions.
· One major operation: set up concrete timeline and implementation pathways for each industry
· Construct two major systems: create green low carbon technical system; improve supporting system for green manufacturer.
· Achieve six transitions
· upgrading industrial structure
· accelerate transition to low-carbon energy consumption
· promoting circular use of resources
· facilitate clean production
· green product development and consumption
· improve digitized production
· Quantitative goals by 2025:
· carbon intensity: to drop by 18%
· pollutant emission intensity: to drop by 10%
· energy intensity: to drop by 13.5%
Overall, the Plan recognized the achievements in the 13th Five-Year Plan, including major industrial capacity efforts and energy and resources efficiency improvements. Comparing with the similar document of the same purpose for the 13th Five-Year Plan (Plan for Industrial Green Development (2016-2020), released on June 30, 2016 by MIIT), the ultimate purpose of the industrial green development has switched from “achieving strategy of Made In China 2025” to “achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality”. It demonstrates a change of strategic focus of China, and the determination of China for realizing the carbon goals it promised. The requirements and goals raised in the Plan are obviously more thorough and comprehensive than those in Plan for Industrial Green Development (2016-2020). Meanwhile, ICT sectors and relevant technologies are stated more frequently in the Plan.
For the releasing of the Plan, some ICT experts and stakeholders think it to be one of the necessary measures that China takes to face industrial restructuring pressure and low energy efficiency concerns. Although the country’s industries also are facing pressure from the announced carbon peaking and neutrality targets, as well as international competition, the green development is an inevitable transition to stay active and competitive in the international market.
Current Chinese standardization system for green industrial development covers a quite large range. The guiding document on the system is called Guidance on Building Green Manufacturing Standardization (released by MIIT and Standardization Administration of China in 2016, and hereinafter referred to as “the Guidance”). The Guidance categorized the green manufacturing system into 7 fields (comprehensive foundation, green product, green factory, green company, green industrial part, green supply chain and green evaluation), among which exists more than 390 standards are related to energy consumption evaluation, monitoring and performance evaluation etc. It could be the basic pool with the ones that are likely to be revised to meet the industrial green development, and ICT sector could be involved in two perspectives mentioned above: falls in the managing scope of the standard, or ICT technologies are required to assist standard implementation.
China will clearly put emphasis on the green transition on ICT sector along with other related industrial sectors, which mean the following up policies shall stimulate strong financial, technological and labor supports on all levels (national to regional, and governmental and social). So for foreign stakeholders:
· MNCs might face stricter administration on energy consumption and grade, carbon emission and data management in China. But the prescient actions taken by some big manufacturers in China on the energy source management (transit to green energy from a few years ago) would eventually be rewarding to a better competition position in the market. For those who hasn’t implement similar measures, actions are advised to be taken soonest possible.
· The enterprises should be aware that the adoption of ICT technologies, especially the advanced ones (IoT, 5G, big data management), would benefit them in a long run. The first investment on implementation might seem big, but the future competition makes it necessary to embrace the new techniques. And the upgrade on precise management that these techniques bring for traditional supply chains is very likely to save much bigger cost, which would be a more profitable number than the original investment amount.
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