The grading system launched by Huzhou early 2021 to evaluate companies' energy consumption efficiency and carbon emission performances. [Photo/WeChat account:huzhoufabu]

Huzhou was recently rated as "excellent" in a provincial assessment of the development of the digital economy in East China's Zhejiang province.

Huzhou was ranked first among the 11 cities in Zhejiang in the evaluation, while its administrative areas - Changxing county and Wuxing district – were ranked first and fifth among county-level cities (districts) in the province respectively.

The grading system launched by Huzhou in early 2021 to evaluate companies' energy consumption efficiency and carbon emission performances has become the first digital reform practice made by a city in Zhejiang to be promoted across the province.

The system, which is the first of its kind in China, classifies companies related to metal smelting, textiles and other high energy consumption sectors into five grades according to their carbon emissions and output values.

Companies can check which grade they belong to by scanning a QR code. Their carbon emissions are calculated based on energy consumption data.

In addition, the app developed by Huzhou for Anji white tea, a variety of green tea primarily produced from its Anji county, has also won wide recognition.

The app, which was launched in late March to ensure the tea's authenticity and to improve its output, can track data related to the planting, processing, packaging, storage, and sales of the tea.

Meanwhile, the city has also developed digital industrial brains for its pillar industries such as children's wear and power batteries.

Last July, four local companies were included in the provincial "future plant" pilot program.

Huzhou has the second highest number of companies included in this program, only less than the provincial capital city of Hangzhou.

In August 2020, Zhejiang rolled out the pilot program to build "plants of the future", which refers to plants that excel in the integration of new-generation information technologies in the advanced manufacturing sector.