This also recognizes the dairy producer's Yunnan facility for having become the first "zero-carbon factory" in China's food industry.
Bureau Veritas said it believes Yili will take carbon neutrality as an opportunity and leverage technological innovations to promote green development. It said Yili can play a pioneering and leading role in China's dairy industry in exploring unique pathways to achieve carbon neutrality.
Yili Yunnan Dairy was first established in 2012 and entered into production in 2015. Last year, Yili Yunnan Dairy received the first green electricity certificate in China's food industry. The factory's total energy consumption has steadily declined, falling 15.7% year-on-year to 28.77 kilograms per ton in 2021. On February 22, 2022, Yili Yunnan Dairy successfully completed a carbon inventory assessment and passed the China Certified Emission Reductions (CCER).
Yili said in 2020, it became the first Chinese dairy producer to be publicly committed to becoming carbon neutral after China announced its 2030/2060 climate goals (achieving peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060) at the United Nations General Assembly. Last year, Pan Gang, chairman of Yili Group, put forward the New Vision for creating social value, outlining how Yili will take realize peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality and achieve lead ratings on sustainability.
The company has also established the Yili Future Intelligence and Health Valley in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, which will become China's first five-star project for carbon neutrality. By the end of 2021, a total of 23 Yili factories had been rated as "green factories" by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
