In recent years, Zhangye city in northwest China's Gansu Province has used carbon labeling and certification for agricultural products to guide companies toward greener production.
Since 2024, six products have received carbon emission certification labels, including baby cabbage, freeze-dried kale powder, potatoes and organic broccoli. The city has gradually established a product carbon labeling and certification system and a carbon footprint management system.
At a potato farm in Shandan county operated by Zhengming Planting Co., Ltd., seed potatoes are planted in neat rows. More than 20 kilometers away, at the company's processing facility, workers pack mature potatoes into boxes. Since September 2025, that routine has included one new step: affixing a carbon footprint label on every box.
"Carbon footprint labeling has become a new selling point for our potatoes," said Liang Zhengming, head of the company.
A villager harvests potatoes in Shandan county, northwest China's Gansu Province. (Photo/Zhangye Daily)
The label displays a green footprint icon alongside the figure "0.434 kg," meaning that for every kilogram of potatoes produced, including packaging, the company generates 0.434 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).
The label functions as a "green ID card" for each potato, recording its carbon footprint from seed to sale. Qian Zhenbo, an official responsible for the city's agricultural product carbon labeling and certification program, said Zhangye is using carbon labeling to pilot carbon footprint accounting for selected agricultural products, establish emissions factors and identify emissions-reduction measures. The goal, he said, is to provide a basis for improving both the quality and green transformation of agriculture.
The certification program also encourages leading agricultural producers to pursue targeted emissions reductions while prompting upstream and downstream partners to strengthen their own carbon footprint management. The result is a gradually emerging green, low-carbon supply chain that helps reduce waste and pollution throughout the agricultural sector.
For companies, carbon labeling and certification have become increasingly important for long-term development, as certified agricultural products can gain a competitive edge in the marketplace.
Obtaining certification requires considerable effort. In early 2025, Liang's company began compiling data, which a third-party agency then used to calculate greenhouse gas emissions generated throughout the product's life cycle. The method evaluates environmental impacts across every stage, from raw material sourcing and production to transportation and disposal.
The process took more than nine months, after which the company received a product carbon footprint certificate and an accompanying assessment report. The report showed that the growing stage accounted for more than 80 percent of total emissions, while the raw-material acquisition stage accounted for over 19 percent.
Armed with those findings, Liang began implementing targeted improvements. The company has replaced nitrogen fertilizers with granular organic fertilizer and adopted drone-based pesticide application. Liang said drone spraying enables more uniform pesticide application, improves efficiency and cuts chemical use by half.
The company has also upgraded its irrigation infrastructure. Late last year, solar panels were installed on the roof of its plant nursery, shifting its power supply from the grid to near-zero-emission solar energy.
"We will use carbon labeling as an entry point to promote emissions reduction and carbon sequestration across the entire agricultural value chain, expand the range of certified products, and improve the agricultural carbon sink system," said Tu Jianxiong, head of Zhangye's municipal bureau of agriculture and rural affairs.
