Coordinated digital and green development is an intrinsic requirement of high-quality economic and social growth. Meeting the remaining challenges requires both technological innovation to green the economy and institutional innovation to activate the synergy between the two.
The 14th Five-Year national informatisation plan calls for ‘advancing green smart ecological civilisation and coordinated digital-green development’, with digitalisation leading and greenness driving in return. Globally, digital and green transitions are the two defining trends; China has elevated digital development to national strategy while committing to carbon peaking and neutrality, and planning documents call for the two to fuse – new technologies such as the internet, big data, AI and 5G should integrate deeply with green low-carbon industries.
Digitalisation supports green growth end to end
The essence of digital empowerment is full use of data across domains to optimise machine and process efficiency, raise energy performance and cut emissions.
First, digital technology connects the physical world, closing the information loop for green development. IoT technologies – QR codes, RFID, sensors – capture ubiquitous physical-world information and exchange it efficiently over 5G and other networks, enabling real-time fine-grained equipment management and production control that cut energy use and carbon.
Second, digital industry solutions raise energy efficiency by mining data value. In industry, the industrial internet tracks R&D, production, logistics and recycling end to end, matching supply to demand and sharing capacity across enterprises; in buildings, 5G and sensor modules on walls, air conditioning and lifts optimise equipment operation and cut idle running; in transport, high-speed rail, urban rail and charging networks combined with AI and cloud raise traffic throughput and system safety. CICC estimates digital technology can cut empty-running in logistics by 147.2 billion kilometres a year, avoiding 69.5 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide.
Third, digitalisation makes carbon monitoring precise, supporting both policy and corporate carbon asset management. With the national carbon trading market launching, digital technology sharpens the real-time accuracy of carbon accounting; online emissions monitoring built on IoT, cloud and big data helps enterprises plan carbon quotas. In green finance, IoT, blockchain and big data let institutions monitor corporate emissions in real time and identify genuinely green borrowers. Governments can track progress toward carbon goals across levels, and digital tools also support ecosystem health management, carbon sequestration assessment and carbon capture efficiency.
The road ahead is long
Digitalisation itself is an energy hog: data centres, the largest power and carbon source in digital infrastructure, took about 2% of China’s electricity in 2019. Global internet leaders are responding – Microsoft has pledged to remove all the carbon it has emitted since 1975 by 2030 – and greening digital infrastructure is now a worldwide imperative.
Three challenges remain. Data rights are unclear: emissions monitoring data ties closely to production and crosses stakeholders’ interests, and absent collection standards and usage rules constrain the role of digitalisation. Factor cultivation lags: talent who combine digital skills, green knowledge and industry expertise are scarcer still, deepening the digital talent shortage. And digital development is uneven across regions and industries, leaving lagging regions and SMEs short of both capability and willingness – slowing both digitalisation and its green payoff.
Innovation in technology and institutions, both at once
First, green the digital infrastructure itself: site data centres near renewable-rich and cool-climate regions, raise clean power shares and innovate cooling through operations, and cascade retired electronics into reuse and recycling to cut pollution and footprint.
Second, set industry green standards that let data work: define data collection subjects, standardise energy and emissions monitoring flows and usage rules, build stakeholder coordination, protect data security and property rights, and encourage digital service firms to develop green solutions.
Third, deepen digital transformation broadly: apply IoT, big data and AI to traditional equipment, mobilise social capital and cultivate digital talent, support lagging regions and SMEs with funding, technology and capability building, and run pilot demonstrations whose replicable experience can spread.
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