Driven by standard enhancement, promote high-quality development of product equipment

1. Accelerate the improvement of green and low-carbon standards to promote green and low-carbon development of enterprises

Formulating and implementing strict green and low-carbon standards can provide standards and basis for green and low-carbon equipment renewal, motivating enterprises to increase research and development efforts in efficient energy-saving and emission reduction technologies, and continuously increase the supply of green and efficient products. China currently has 99 energy consumption limit standards covering many industries such as power, steel, building materials, non-ferrous metals, and chemicals. There are 78 mandatory national energy efficiency standards for end-use energy products and equipment, covering household appliances, commercial equipment, industrial equipment, office equipment, and lighting fixtures. To vigorously promote independent research and development of advanced technologies and the production and application of efficient equipment products, the "Action Plan" requires benchmarking against international advanced levels, combining actual industrial development, accelerating the revision of a batch of energy consumption limit and energy efficiency standards, and forcing industrial quality improvement and upgrading by raising access thresholds and strengthening energy efficiency constraints.

The "Action Plan" proposes to accelerate the improvement of emission standards in key industries and enhance the control levels of air, water, and other pollution emissions. Although there are currently 177 effective emission standards, some pollution emission standards are outdated. With technological progress and increasing environmental protection requirements, pollution emission standards need continuous updating and improvement to better promote China's ecological civilization construction and protect public health.

With technological progress and increasing environmental protection requirements, some clean production evaluation indicator systems no longer meet the new green and low-carbon development needs. The "Action Plan" requires revising and improving the clean production evaluation indicator system. By refining and quantifying existing evaluation indicators for different industries, it can more accurately assess enterprises' actual performance in clean production, clearly understand their advantages and shortcomings in clean production, provide enterprises with clearer and more specific improvement directions, guide enterprises to focus on new clean production technologies and methods, promote technological innovation and industrial upgrading, and achieve more environmentally friendly and efficient production methods.

From 2015 to 2018, China issued 13 carbon emission accounting and reporting standards, including 1 general rule and 12 industry standards. In 2023, 9 new standards were issued, including 4 revised standards. The "Action Plan" clarifies the requirements for formulating and revising industry and enterprise carbon emission accounting standards: first, to accelerate the revision of old standards; second, to promptly formulate accounting standards covering more industries, providing effective measurement bases for enterprises to understand their status and implement energy-saving and carbon reduction measures.

2. Comprehensively improve technical standards for equipment products to promote quality upgrading in research and development

China has initially established a product standard system covering energy, resources, environment, safety, and performance indicators, including product categories such as home appliances and furniture. The "Action Plan" proposes focusing on major consumer goods such as automobiles, home appliances, home products, consumer electronics, and civil drones, accelerating the upgrading of standards related to safety, health, performance, environmental protection, and testing. This can not only promote enterprises to innovate technology and upgrade products but also guide consumers to form healthier and more environmentally friendly consumption concepts, promote the transformation and upgrading of market demand, cultivate new consumption growth points, and promote high-quality economic development.

The "Action Plan" points out the need to vigorously popularize the safe service life of home appliances, guiding consumers through standards to pay attention to the safe service life of home appliance products and timely eliminate and update them. Government regulatory departments should formulate a quality and safety supervision catalog for consumer goods, strengthen supervision methods, establish an intelligent supervision system, release supervision information promptly, provide consumers with reliable bases for choosing high-quality and efficient products, and promote healthy market development. The "Action Plan" proposes improving the carbon label and other standard systems, including promptly issuing a series of carbon footprint evaluation standards, database formats, information security, standardized carbon information disclosure requirements, platform functions, etc. Enterprises should fully understand international rules and related standards and start product carbon footprint evaluation work early to support the construction of product carbon footprint management systems. In areas such as green products and high-quality high-end leading products, the market-based standards should be fully utilized to promote industry associations, societies, and chambers of commerce to promptly issue advanced industry standards, carry out related certifications, and promote mutual recognition of international standards, facilitating the export of China's advantageous technologies and high-quality efficient green products.

3. Strengthen the supply of standards for resource recycling and regulate the development of the recycled resources industry

China has issued more than 200 national and industry standards related to recycling. The "Action Plan" proposes improving green design standards for materials and components that are easy to recycle, disassemble, regenerate, and remanufacture, focusing on formulating technical requirements for recycled materials, recyclable material labels, remanufacturing technical requirements and evaluation for typical electromechanical products, and green design guidelines, guiding enterprises to gradually improve green design levels. The "Action Plan" requires researching and formulating grading standards for the usability of second-hand electronic products to ensure quality standards for second-hand electronic products, improve identification, facilitate consumer comparison and choice, and provide quality assurance for consumers of second-hand products. In addition, regarding information security issues, the "Action Plan" proposes formulating national standards for data wiping methods in the transaction of second-hand mobile phones, tablets, and other electronic products to avoid risks caused by information security. By establishing a unified information security management system and technical service management system, it guides second-hand product dealers to carry out standardized and standardized business work.

4. Closely track international advanced standards and actively promote domestic and international alignment

Promoting the alignment of domestic and international standards is conducive to the "going global" of domestic products and equipment and promotes the healthy development of domestic industries. The "Action Plan" proposes promoting effective alignment of domestic and international standards through strengthening cooperation, improving mechanisms, and enhancing quality. Relevant domestic institutions and enterprises should actively track and study the development trends of international standards, timely understand and grasp the latest changes and trends of international standards, and provide references and bases for the formulation and revision of domestic standards through comparative analysis. Domestic standardization institutions should strengthen communication, exchange, and cooperation with international standardization organizations, resolve problems and obstacles in the alignment of domestic and international standards, actively participate in the formulation and revision of international standards, promptly convert a batch of advanced and applicable international standards, further improve the conversion rate of international standards, establish and improve the domestic and international standards coordination mechanism, promote effective alignment of domestic and international standards, and promote mutual recognition of standards. Through mutual recognition mechanisms, repeated testing and certification processes can be reduced, enterprise costs lowered, and market efficiency improved, especially benefiting key industries such as new energy vehicles and photovoltaics in going global.