China Publishes First Carbon Credit Evaluation Standard for Enterprises

During the 2022 China International Carbon Trading Conference held on July 16, the “Enterprise Carbon Credit Evaluation Standard,” the country’s first carbon credit standard, was officially released.

The standard is a practical measure for the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange to actively promote a response to climate change, the green and low-carbon transformation and high-quality development of society, and the broader green and low-carbon field. The credit evaluation standard offers a tool for enterprises to comprehensively portray their carbon capability, an analysis and evaluation of their carbon adaptation capability for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, and an assessment of the value of their active carbon reduction behavior, while aligning with the financial factors of traditional credit ratings and docking with financial resources.

The enterprise carbon credit evaluation system forms an enterprise’s business status opinion by combining macro risks, regional risks, industry risks and enterprise status analysis in the context of global carbon neutrality. It forms the opinion of the enterprise’s asset status by analyzing the enterprise’s carbon assets and non-carbon assets. By determining evaluation themes and corresponding indicators of major industries, it constructs the evaluation index system.

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The carbon credit standard is applicable to green credit, green bond, trust and insurance, and other green financial business, providing a basis for green project assessment. It can also be applied to skillful carbon reduction targets and green carbon reduction systems of governments at all levels, serving as a basis to evaluate low-carbon enterprises and low-carbon parks. The standard can also be applied to the construction of related indicators. It can be connected to the ESG rating system to provide references for ratings.

According to data by the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange, as of July 15, the cumulative volume of carbon emission allowances (CEA) traded in the national carbon market exceeded 194 million tons, far exceeding the volume traded in the EU and South Korean markets during the same period, and ranking first in the global carbon market, with a cumulative turnover of nearly 8.5 billion yuan ($1.26 billion).