走路可以变现！变现！变现！

More than five decades have passed since Neil Armstrong, commander of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module "Eagle", first set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, and said: “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Now, his famous quote is still frequently mentioned.

Now, one small step taken by every Chinese person could become a giant leap forward for China’s low-carbon transition. What will potentially make this happen is an innovative voluntary emission reduction mechanism called “tanpuhui” — which literally means carbon inclusion — that mainly targets individuals and small entities. Carbon inclusion is about getting all people involved in the effort to reduce carbon emissions, not just major corporations. Such programs provide incentives to those who participate.

The term may seem relatively uncommon to the general public, but the word “puhui” exists not only in the carbon reduction sector, but also in other industries, such as finance, said Yan Luhui, founder and CEO of Carbonstop, a provider of carbon management software and consulting services in Beijing. 

Shen Xingdong, a student at Shanghai Normal University, likes to drink Coca-Cola. Instead of buying it, though, he has found a new way to get the beverage — by participating in low-carbon activities.

Using a carbon ledger program called 88 Carbon Account, which was launched by e-commerce giant Alibaba in August, the 22-year-old can win carbon credits to exchange for the drink by leading a greener lifestyle.

For example, if he rides the subway, he can win 200 grams of carbon credits for every trip he takes after uploading a photo to the program to prove that he has commuted via the green transportation method. A photo showing him turning off the lights when leaving a room nets him 65.5 g of credits. 

Shen can exchange 500 g of credits for 12 cans of Coca-Cola. Other commodities available for exchange include toothpaste and USB cables.

“I have twice exchanged credits for cola,” Shen said, “I am still making efforts to earn more credits. I don’t think any male university students can refuse Coca-Cola.”

“We aim to have carbon dioxide emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060,” President Xi Jinping said while addressing the General Debate of the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept 22, 2020.

Tao Lan, general manager of Green Inclusive Co, provided a raft of statistics from different institutions to demonstrate the “quite considerable” potential of tanpuhui in helping reduce carbon emissions.

For example, a book on carbon neutrality published last year — with Ding Zhongli, a well-known academician from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, among the lead authors — pointed out that carbon emissions from personal consumption amounted to over 3.7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2019, almost one-third of the country’s total emissions that year.

If one consumer refuses single-use tableware when buying takeout food, it helps reduce carbon emissions by 47.5 grams, while every kilometer of commuting by bicycle instead of by car means 250 grams of carbon emissions can be prevented, Tao said.

“These amounts of emissions reductions are small. They really pale in comparison with the country’s total emissions of hundreds of millions of tons,” she said. “But China is a country with a huge population. Any consumption on the basis of a total population of 1.4 billion will be massive.”

With the acceleration of urbanization and the continuous rise in living standards, China’s per capita energy consumption and carbon emissions will increase consistently, she said, adding that the tanpuhui mechanism can help people calculate the emissions they have prevented and raise awareness of low-carbon development across all sectors of society.

去年11月，碳阻迹举办了第一届内部低碳运动比赛“Walk & Win”。当月平均步数最高的前三名，每人会奖励一天年假。员工还被分成小组，平均步数最高的小组也会有实物奖品。

In November， Carbonstop organized a competition via the “Walk & Win”. The employees with the three highest numbers of walking steps in the company in the month  received an extra day of annual leave. Employees were also divided into different groups. Each group member with the largest average step count received rewards, such as souvenirs from the World Cup. There were also some other gifts, including skylight tents and gym membership cards.

要获奖可没那么容易。“你得拼尽全力，真的是把自己榨干了那种样子，每天都走到小腿都疼的那种感觉。“ 碳阻迹员工张明尧说。

"We have to do our best. It's really like squeezing ourselves dry. We can feel the pain in our calves after walking every day," said Zhang Mingyao, a 26-year-old coder from Carbonstop.

Walking more than 11 kilometers to work for almost two hours sounds crazy, but that was what Zhang Mingyao did for three successive days.

He thought the journey would help him outpace his colleagues in the number of daily steps taken. Instead, he discovered that there were always colleagues who walked farther.

“My colleagues made all-out efforts to take as many steps as possible because they all wanted to be the champion,” he said, recalling the first few days after the app was launched.

Sometimes, he thought he would be the daily champion, only to find that he had been overtaken after 11 pm, he said with a smile.

He has unconsciously developed a far greener lifestyle. Now, he always walks if his destination is just 2 to 3 kilometers away.

For example, he used to always take a taxi for his 2-kilometer journey to the pet salon where he takes his dog for a bath every weekend. Now, though, he walks there instead. He also refuses all single-use tableware when buying takeout food.

In 2021, 24,000 tons of carbon credits generated via MaaS, a tanpuhui program in Beijing, were traded for 1.2 million yuan ($174,000) at the China Beijing Green Exchange. All of the gains were returned to MaaS users via gifts or were used to support public welfare programs. 

Shen said, as far as he is concerned, carbon reduction credits from tanpuhui platforms may one day be tradable on the country’s national carbon trading market, following the enactment of relevant national standards and connections with some industries.

“I look forward to seeing that happen,” he said.

想了解更多关于碳账户和碳普惠的信息，请关注今天中国日报7版《绿色中国》（Going Green）栏目推出的碳普惠专版。

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