Huzhou was recently approved by the Zhejiang provincial department of economy and information technology to serve as a provincial pilot city for the smart evaluation of carbon emission performances among enterprises.

Earlier this year, the city launched a grading system for enterprises to evaluate their energy consumption efficiency and carbon emission performances.

The system, which is the first of its kind in China, was built based on an online carbon emission monitoring platform built by the Huzhou branch of the State Grid.

Companies in metal smelting, textiles, and other high energy consumption sectors are classified into five grades according to their carbon emissions and output value. They can check which grade they belong to by scanning a QR code.

The carbon emissions are calculated based on energy consumption data, such as electricity, gas, coal, and oil.

To date, the data of all the 3,800-plus companies above designated size in Huzhou have been collected.

The city has thus far issued over 1,100 carbon emission performance reports. Thirty-eight companies, which were rated as "bad" in the assessment, have been told to carry out technical transformation.

The system's establishment is expected to help the city cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 300,000 metric tons this year.