“Carbon reduction” has become a required answer for enterprises

In recent years, the priority of “green low-carbon transformation” in enterprise operation and decision-making is getting higher and higher, and the most important reasons are people’s green and low-carbon consumption trend, shaping the competitiveness of enterprises and improving the anti-risk ability of trade barriers.

First class energy efficiency grade, environmental protection and energy-saving products are more and more favored by users. According to Accenture’s China Consumer Insight Report 2022, 43% of respondents are willing to pay a premium for environmentally friendly products, and the higher the income level, the stronger the willingness to pay for environmentally friendly products and services. The “2023 Consumer Rights Protection Year Theme Survey Report” released by the China Consumers Association pointed out that 35.0% of the respondents consider themselves to be practitioners of green and low-carbon consumption, 33.2% of consumers said that they will pay attention to the “green and environmental protection” issue in the business performance of the household appliances/consumer electronics companies release green, low-carbon, environmentally friendly products and other information. It is beneficial to gain the favor of consumers.

Gao Xiaoyu, senior analyst of GfK global technology business line, said in an interview with China Electronics News that energy saving and carbon reduction behavior has become an effective supplement to the evaluation system of home appliances/consumer electronics enterprises, and is a symbol of industry leadership and competitiveness leading the industry.

The relevant person in charge of Lianbao Technology said that the company, as Lenovo’s largest physical manufacturing base in the world, is a key subject to achieve the group’s “net zero emission” goal. In addition, as the largest import and export enterprise in Anhui Province, Lianbao Technology practices green manufacturing and reduces the carbon emissions of products, which is an inevitable way to deal with the future green trade rules, effectively reduce the operational risks of enterprises, and help enterprises develop with high quality.

The potential “green barriers” in the international trade market have also become an important reason to promote the transformation of home appliances and consumer electronics companies to promote green manufacturing. On October 1, the world’s first “carbon tariff” – the EU Carbon Border Adjustment mechanism (CBAM) began trial operation, the mechanism is currently only on steel, aluminum, cement, fertilizer, electricity and other six categories of products to tax, after the formal implementation of 2026 will continue to expand the category. Coincidentally, in June 2022, the draft of the US Clean Competition Act (hereinafter referred to as CCA) was published, and the US version of the “carbon tariff” appeared on the paper.

Gao Xiaoyu told the “China Telegraph” reporter that Europe and the United States were originally home appliances and consumer electronics market highland, with the “carbon tariff” promotion and implementation, the relevant market access threshold will increase. The promotion of green manufacturing and zero-carbon factories by domestic manufacturers is not only to pave the way for the export of products to Europe and the United States, but also to break the international green trade barriers and establish the high-end image of Chinese brands.

Green supply chain management is the key and difficult point

“A single tree does not make a forest.” Energy saving and carbon reduction is originally an extremely complex system project, for the home appliance/consumer electronics industry with a long supply chain and many suppliers, green supply chain management – how to build a green industry ecosystem and drive upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain to act together, has become the focus and difficulty of enterprises to promote energy saving and carbon reduction.

Zhao Yue said that home appliances/consumer electronics enterprises have a long supply chain, and there are a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises with low green development ability in the supply chain, which requires terminal enterprises to strengthen the training and help of small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers on the chain, and do a good job in the construction and management of green supply chain. This is one of the difficulties in the implementation of green manufacturing in the whole life cycle and the whole industry chain of household appliances and consumer electronics enterprises.

Industry experts pointed out that in promoting the sustainable development of the green supply chain, consumer electronics leading enterprises to drive the green transformation of supply chain enterprises is more obvious, and the overall performance of home appliance enterprises has further room to improve.

Li Meng said that in 2023, IPE will carry out CITI evaluation of green supply chain and CATI evaluation of corporate climate action for 742 enterprises in 22 industries, including 100 enterprises in the consumer electronics and home appliances industry. Judging from the evaluation results, procurement companies in the consumer electronics industry are relatively leading in all industries in terms of green manufacturing (especially green supply chain management) and climate action, and a number of procurement companies have entered the top 50 in two evaluations. The purchasing enterprises in the home appliance industry are in the middle of the whole, and although a few leading enterprises are significantly ahead of the average level of the industry, there are still some gaps with the leading enterprises in the consumer electronics industry in the environmental management of the supply chain, energy conservation and emission reduction and related information disclosure.

Industry experts said that green supply chain management still needs to face various difficulties, such as the imperfect construction of the system of coordinated carbon reduction and decarbonization, the lack of green supply chain incentive mechanism, these problems need the upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry chain to cooperate and face together.

Li Meng said that many leading companies in the consumer electronics industry such as Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Huawei and Lenovo began to guide or promote many manufacturing enterprises (suppliers) in the industrial chain to disclose environmental information and/or carbon data, as well as good practices in energy conservation and emission reduction. Led such as Foxconn, Pengding Holdings, Lishun precision, Kosen Technology and other large manufacturing enterprises to independently carry out green manufacturing, green procurement and other work.

For the development of green supply chain management, Zhao Yue suggested that home appliances and consumer electronics companies promote digital empowerment, the implementation of carbon labeling system, and the construction of industry EPD (product environmental Statement) platform to achieve.