On September 22, 2020, President Xi Jinping announced at the 75th United Nations General Assembly that China aims to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
On October 24, 2021, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the “Opinions on Fully and Accurately Implementing the New Development Concept and Effectively Carrying out Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality Work”. As the “1” in the “1+N” policy system for carbon peak and carbon neutrality, the opinions provide systematic planning and overall deployment for this major work.
Against the backdrop of “carbon peak” and “carbon neutrality”, developing renewable energy alternatives, achieving energy transformation, and reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuels have become important energy strategies during China’s 14th Five-Year Plan period, while terms like “low carbon”, “green”, and “recyclable” have become trending searches.
What are “carbon peak” and “carbon neutrality”?
Currently, human life and production activities generate carbon emissions, primarily in the form of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. In nearly a century of human development, society has experienced rapid growth, transitioning from an agricultural era to an industrial era, with the most significant change being the energy obtained from fossil fuels like oil and coal. However, the greenhouse gases produced from these sources have become the main culprits of global warming.
The impact of climate warming on the environment is a well-worn topic, including extreme weather, ocean acidification, and rising sea levels. Reports predict that if we do not take any measures to limit carbon emissions, the surface temperature will rise by 3°C by 2030, global food production will decrease by 10%, and 5 million people will die each year from air pollution, famine, and disease.
The concept of carbon neutrality originated in a 1997 business plan related to environmental protection. The term “carbon neutral” was officially included in the New Oxford English Dictionary in 2007. Carbon neutrality refers to offsetting the carbon dioxide produced by human activities through methods such as afforestation, energy conservation, emission reduction, carbon capture, and carbon storage to achieve “zero emissions” within a certain timeframe.
Transitioning from emissions to offsets inevitably involves a peak—carbon peak, which is the point at which total carbon emissions stabilize and then gradually decline over a specific period. Currently, multiple countries, including the United States, Germany, South Korea, and Australia, have provided clear timelines for achieving carbon neutrality. China has also committed to peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and striving for carbon neutrality before 2060.
To achieve the goals of “carbon peak” and “carbon neutrality”, energy dual control is an essential means, and it can only be successful by addressing both energy acquisition and energy consumption.
How Strong is the Low-Carbon Benefit of Electronic Paper?
Statistics predict that by 2050, 70% of the population will live in cities. As cities grow larger, populations surge, traffic worsens, environmental pollution becomes severe, energy consumption skyrockets, medical resources become scarce, and living costs rise… Humanity will inevitably need a way to resolve the contradiction between the increasingly scarce urban resources and expanding demands—smart cities may be the current solution.
China’s new smart city construction is developing rapidly, with new technologies such as 5G, big data, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence continuously evolving and being widely applied. Under digitalization, networking, and intelligence, urban governance models have made significant progress, bringing numerous conveniences to life. However, as ecosystems like smart cities and smart homes continue to be built, the surge in smart connected devices will inevitably lead to further expansion of energy demand, which is contrary to the current trend of “dual reduction”. Therefore, the dual challenges of “technological advancement” and “environmental sustainability” may find their optimal solution in electronic paper.
In a society that fosters a “green” and “low-carbon” atmosphere, electronic paper is gaining attention for its non-light-emitting, environmentally reflective imaging characteristics and its bistable technology that maintains static images without power. With the continuous maturity of flexible and color electronic ink technologies, electronic paper is gradually opening the door to a digital and recyclable green technology revolution.
Compared to common TFT-LCD and AMOLED display mobile phones, electronic paper technology has excellent paper-like characteristics. The electronic paper screen does not flicker, reducing eye fatigue and the risk of eye diseases and physiological health issues due to blue light, making it very friendly for reading. Long-term reading does not cause the dizziness and fatigue associated with LCD and AMOLED screens.
The ink screen uses reflective display principles, displaying as clearly as paper under sunlight. Additionally, its characteristic of not consuming power for static images meets the energy-saving and long-lasting needs of mobile terminals like smartphones. It can keep certain set screens and information reminders visible without draining the phone’s battery.
According to research by E Ink, a leading supplier in the electronic paper field, comparing carbon emissions from different display interfaces such as paper, LCD, and electronic paper reveals that electronic paper displays have significant low-carbon benefits.
If a 10-inch electronic paper billboard replaces an LCD billboard of the same size, continuously used for 5 years and changing the display image 4 times a day, the electricity used to produce these electronic papers will save 400 degrees of electricity consumption for the planet. For a financial institution with 125 branches, after introducing electronic paper notebooks, it can reduce the use of 16.5 million A4 sheets of paper annually, indirectly lowering carbon emissions by 1,100 tons each year.
In the past 5 years, approximately 130 million e-book readers have been used globally, replacing the purchase and reading of printed books with digital reading. Assuming each of the 130 million e-book readers downloads an average of 10 books per year, the carbon emissions produced by reading printed books or LCD tablets compared to using e-book readers would be 100,000 times and 50 times higher, respectively.
According to the 2021 ePaper Insight report compiled by CINNO Research, the global electronic paper market shipped about 180 million units in 2021, with a market size exceeding $4 billion, driving upstream and downstream output value over 100 billion yuan.
ePaper Insight’s market forecast shows that the global electronic paper market size will exceed $6.5 billion in 2022, with a year-on-year growth rate of 65%, continuing to maintain a rapid growth trend. As the electronic paper market expands, with increasingly mature technology and rapidly expanding application fields, it will have a huge impact on the entire society’s green carbon reduction process.
How Can Enterprises Achieve Carbon Neutrality?
Electronic paper has low-carbon green properties, making it an effective means under the national carbon neutrality strategy. At the enterprise market level, it is an important tool for achieving carbon neutrality.
Taking E Ink as an example, it won three international awards on July 21, 2022, including the “Green Leadership Award”, “Social Empowerment Award”, and “Corporate Sustainability Reporting Award” at the 2022 Asia Corporate Social Responsibility Awards.
The main reason E Ink received the AREA “Green Leadership Award” is its promotion of low-carbon green electronic paper technology. In addition to continuously developing more energy-efficient electronic paper technologies, E Ink is also expanding the development of the electronic paper ecosystem. For example, it is extending the application of electronic paper from e-book readers to electronic paper notebooks, electronic shelf labels, logistics labels, and electronic paper billboards.
Using low-carbon, visually friendly electronic paper displays helps enterprises achieve net-zero carbon goals in smart fields such as digital reading, education, retail, logistics, transportation, and healthcare.
E Ink has focused on the research and manufacturing of electronic paper since the end of 2016. Due to the ultra-low power consumption and low-carbon characteristics of electronic paper, it can replace a large amount of disposable paper consumables, making E Ink a leader in green display technology.
E Ink emphasizes that 99.93% of its revenue in 2020 was green revenue, which has a positive impact on the environment. Therefore, its core product, electronic paper, based on “being born for environmental sustainability”, integrates ESG’s “Environment”, “Social”, and “Governance” to build a unique corporate sustainability “PESG” framework.
E Ink believes that its products, namely electronic paper, are key to achieving a low-carbon green and recyclable society. Electronic paper not only displays like paper but also has dynamic information display and comfortable reading experiences. Compared to LCD screens, it is more energy-efficient and carbon-reducing. E Ink has already supplied electronic paper products to terminal and module manufacturers like Huawei.
E Ink’s chairman, Li Zhenghao, stated, “E Ink is committed to reducing carbon emissions from smart displays by combining low-carbon green electronic paper technology. At the same time, we will gradually introduce renewable energy use in our global factories. We expect to achieve 10% renewable energy use by 2022 and become the first display company to use 100% renewable energy (RE 100) by 2030, with a plan to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040.”
To implement the two major environmental sustainability goals of net zero carbon emissions by 2040 and R100 by 2030, E Ink actively improves product design and manufacturing processes. It uses carbon footprint assessment methods to track the carbon emissions data produced by electronic paper products, scientifically achieving carbon reduction goals step by step.
Carbon footprint assessment can clarify the carbon emissions data generated during the production of electronic paper materials and modules, thereby establishing a methodology for the carbon footprint of electronic paper products, while reviewing and improving product design and manufacturing processes to further reduce product carbon footprints. E Ink not only develops and manufactures green electronic paper products and builds low-carbon smart display devices, but also promotes low-carbon green processes to reduce the environmental impact of greenhouse gases.
As a leading technology manufacturer in the electronic paper field, E Ink has made progress in low-carbon green initiatives and will conduct carbon footprint assessments based on the characteristics of newly developed electronic paper technologies and products to provide customers with a framework for the carbon footprint of electronic paper products, facilitating low-carbon terminal product design and development, while also assisting suppliers in their carbon reduction efforts.
In the development pattern of “carbon neutrality”, E Ink serves as a model for various industries to learn from and gradually implement according to their specific situations.
The World’s First Electronic Paper Carbon Neutral Project Press Conference
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CINNO was established in Shanghai at the end of 2012 and is an independent third-party professional industry consulting service platform dedicated to promoting the development of the domestic electronic information and technology industry. Over the past ten years, the company has focused on the semiconductor industry chain, providing authoritative and professional consulting services in various dimensions for enterprises, governments, and investors, including but not limited to industry information, market consulting, due diligence, project feasibility research, management consulting, and investment and financing, covering core interests at all stages of the enterprise growth cycle, and accumulating hundreds of high-tech core quality enterprise clients from mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Europe, and the United States in fields such as displays, semiconductors, consumer electronics, intelligent manufacturing, and key components.