Summer Schools & Courses

After a day of company visits and team-building activities, on August 2-3, 2025, participants in the 7th China Emission Accounts and Datasets (CEADs) Future Scholars Summer School returned to an intensive program of learning and practice.

Day 6

On August 2, we were honored to welcome Liu Shijie, Senior Expert in Intelligent Net-Zero Business at Envision Group, who delivered a lecture titled "Corporate Decarbonization Practices: Green Electricity as an Example." Liu began with the concept of green electricity. Green electricity refers to power generated from renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, hydro, biomass, geothermal, and marine energy. Liu emphasized that against the backdrop of China's dual-carbon goals, namely carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, and companies' own sustainable development needs, green electricity has become a key pathway and effective tool for reducing operational carbon footprints and achieving emissions-reduction targets because of its near-zero carbon emissions. He then explained the main ways companies can obtain and use green electricity, including direct procurement, investment in self-built renewable energy projects, and the purchase of green certificates, while comparing the applicable scenarios, advantages, and challenges of different models.

During the lecture, drawing on Envision Group's extensive practical experience, Liu used the construction of net-zero industrial parks as an example to share operating models from several corporate net-zero parks, as well as vivid cases in which green electricity was successfully applied to achieve significant emissions reductions. These examples provided participants with a highly valuable practical blueprint. Liu also introduced Envision Technology's 2025 Envision Net Zero Action Report and Global Net Zero 2025 White Paper, further broadening participants' applied perspectives. After the lecture, Liu held an interactive discussion with the participants and patiently answered a wide range of questions.

This lecture deepened participants' understanding of corporate decarbonization pathways, especially the key role of green electricity applications. It also inspired enthusiasm for exploring and practicing a net-zero future, providing strong knowledge support and practical insight for participants to promote sustainable development in their respective fields.

Day 7

On August 3, Professor Gu Baojing, Qiushi Distinguished Professor at Zhejiang University and recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, delivered an academic report titled "Carbon-Nitrogen Cycles and Global Change." Although nitrogen is a key factor regulating global food security, its excessive use also poses major challenges to sustainable human development and has become one of the important threats to planetary safety boundaries. Today, global climate change, human-land relationships, and the international trade landscape are profoundly reshaping the planet's carbon and nitrogen cycles. Carbon and nitrogen emissions often share common sources and show trade-offs and synergies across multiple scales. Coordinated carbon-nitrogen emissions reduction is therefore of strategic importance for agricultural modernization and green development.

Professor Gu argued that the core of coordinated carbon-nitrogen emissions reduction lies in recognizing the close coupling between the two in nature and in human activities. On one hand, agricultural activities, such as fertilizer application and livestock farming, are major sources of reactive nitrogen emissions and also important sources of greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and methane. On the other hand, natural ecosystems such as forests and wetlands regulate nitrogen cycling and transformation while sequestering carbon. Pursuing carbon reduction or nitrogen reduction in isolation is therefore often inefficient and can even create negative effects. For example, large-scale afforestation for carbon sequestration may lead to ecosystem instability or low carbon-sequestration efficiency if nutrient constraints such as nitrogen are ignored. Simply reducing nitrogen fertilizer use to lower nitrogen pollution may threaten food security if management is inadequate. By developing a Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS) model, Professor Gu integrated and quantitatively simulated carbon-nitrogen cycling processes and human demand at global and regional scales, offering a scientific method that can be referenced and scaled for coordinated carbon-nitrogen emissions reduction.

Professor Gu's report revealed the essence of this complex systems challenge and pointed to an essential pathway for systematically regulating the impact of human activities on the Earth's carbon and nitrogen cycles through interdisciplinary research, cross-sector collaboration, and international cooperation. This pathway is crucial for protecting key planetary safety boundaries and moving toward a sustainable future of harmony between humanity and nature. After the lecture, Professor Gu exchanged views with participants on topics including different models and their applicability, as well as emissions-reduction response strategies.

Building on solid preliminary preparation, each group quickly moved into action. Team members incorporated frontier ideas, industry insights, and practical methods from the lectures into the concrete steps of carbon accounting, using the models they had learned to build knowledge frameworks and construct or optimize carbon-emissions calculation models. Members collaborated efficiently within their groups, communicated progress regularly, and cross-validated data and calculation results to ensure the rigor of the accounting process and the credibility of the results. Through this approach, which closely combined theory and practice with clear division of responsibilities and close collaboration, participants not only deepened their understanding of professional carbon-accounting knowledge but also advanced their research tasks with greater precision and efficiency.