Report: Credible carbon data capabilities have become corporate competitiveness

China News Service, Beijing, October 15th. The "China Carbon Footprint Annual Report (2026)" released by the Environmental Planning Institute of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment on the official website on the 15th pointed out that carbon footprint has begun to affect resource allocation and market relations, and trusted carbon data capabilities have become corporate competitiveness. After carbon footprints enter procurement, certification, disclosure and trade, the focus of corporate competition has shifted from "who has the lowest number" to "whose number can be explained, reviewed and continuously updated."

The report points out that corporate carbon management has shifted from “counting a number” to “building a chain of evidence. What is really scarce in the market is not lower carbon footprint values, but results that can explain product accounting boundaries, trace activity data, check supplier information, manage historical data, and accept independent review. Companies with missing data may not necessarily lose the market immediately, but they will increasingly be priced by default values, repeated audits, and customer risk premiums.

The report believes that trusted carbon data capabilities include at least four aspects: continuous maintenance of energy, material, production and supplier data; enabling key results to be returned to contracts, invoices, measurement and production records; driving suppliers to provide data according to emission contribution and supply risk classification; retaining versions of factors, models and rules that can explain changes in results from real emission reductions or method updates.

Wang Jinnan, honorary president of the Environmental Planning Institute of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, pointed out that from what raw materials a product uses and how much energy it consumes to how it is produced, transported, used and recycled, carbon footprint implements the green and low-carbon concept into the entire product life cycle.

The report points out that product carbon footprint is changing from a technical indicator describing environmental impact to an institutionalized information for participating in global industrial competition. For enterprises, the feasible path is to first establish a unified underlying data, and then adjust the boundaries and output according to different customers, certifications and regulations. Standards will be updated and tools will be replaced, but complete, true and traceable activity data can be recalculated. This is the most stable carbon asset for enterprises.

The report was initiated by the Carbon Peak Carbon Neutral Research Center of the Environmental Planning Institute of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and compiled by the China Product Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emission Coefficient Database (CPCD) team jointly established with the Public Environmental Research Center and the China Urban Greenhouse Gas Working Group.