China Standard Certification Center (CSC), the former China Certification Center for Energy Conservation Products, subordinate to China National Institute of Standardization (CNIS), was founded in October 1998 under the authorization of the former State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC). In 2002, in light of the requirements of National Certification and Accreditation Administration of PRC (CNCA), CSC carried out the business registration, becoming the independent corporate body wholly owned by CNIS with the registered capital of RMB 3 million. Since the foundation, CSC has been devoting to the energy saving and consumption reduction, environmental protection, and promotion of sustainable production and consumption. Over the past few years, CSC has strived to learn the advanced experience and ideas at home and abroad through various cooperation and communication, in order to play a more important role in the sustainable development both of economy and society.
As the core business department of CNIS, CSC has been working at the front edge of energy and environment research in recent years. It has devoted a large amount of resources in the energy-related research and energy saving promotion, undertaken many influentially international cooperation projects in the sector of industrial energy efficiency and taken part in many projects of standard formulation and promotion initiated by the Energy Fundamentals and Management of Standardization Administration of China. On the support of the technical and scientific research strength of CNIS, CSC currently provides the professional technical consulting service relating to policy, technology and standard research in the areas such as industrial energy saving, low-carbon economy, green development and climate change, and also as a major technical support unit for energy saving and procurement policy of energy-saving products for governmental institutions.
With experience of ten years, the achievements and competitiveness of CSC in international affairs have been fully approved in the sector at home and abroad, and it has already had strong capability in the integration of international resources and good public relations with governments. CSC has become one of the national authorities in promotion of energy saving and environmental protection, and also policy study and consulting agencies. For the actual contribution and position in promoting the energy saving and environmental protection, the “Climate Protection Award” was issued by USEPA to CSC in 2004.
CSC has a technical team of over 20 persons with rich experience and professional competence. All of them have the bachelor degrees or above, with 10 of which having the master degrees or above; and 90% are technical staff with 6 having the senior professional titles. Moreover, CSC has long-term cooperation with several experts from Austria, Germany, etc. CSC has established good cooperation and partnership with many worldwide famous institutions and organizations such as United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Global Environment Facility, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, International Energy Agency, International Finance Corporation, USEPA, Australian Greenhouse Office, United Kingdom Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Korea Energy Management Corporation, Energy Foundation, U.S. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S. Natural Resources Defense Council, U.S. ICF Consulting Company, Label and Apparatus Cooperation Organization, etc.
(I) Business Area and Expertise
1. Help the competent authority carry out the research on national strategy, planning, laws & regulations and policy of energy management and environmental protection;
2. Organize to formulate and modify the energy standards entrusted by the National Standardization Administration Commission of PRC and National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC);
3. Provide the consulting services such as energy-saving planning, energy monitoring and energy audit as well as technical assessment and promotion;
4. Organize to implement the study of technology key topics in domestic and international energy saving, environmental protection and other fields;
5. Organize publicity, training, knowledge promotion and exhibition of energy policy.
6. Develop the international communication and cooperation in energy efficiency.
(II) Institutional Structure
CSC consists of three functional departments, namely Technical Department, International Department and Comprehensive Department. The departments, under the administration of CSC, have established many special research offices or offices for special affairs regarding the domestic and international hotspot fields and topic researches, including the Industrial Energy Saving and Technical Research Office, ELI Certification Center, Technical Support Center of Sustainable Production and Consumption for Asia and the Pacific, Energy Efficiency Standard/Label Coordination and Mutual Recognition Office for Asia and the Pacific.
1. Industrial Energy Saving and Technical Research Office
As the Chinese executive body of Sino-US industrial energy efficiency cooperation project -- an important project in the energy efficiency field under the mechanism of Sino-US strategic economic dialogue, CSC established the Industrial Energy Saving and Technical Research Office at the beginning of 2008, which is responsible for the project planning, coordination and organization; fully cooperating with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the American industrial energy-saving technical agency; as well as assisting American technical experts to conduct energy diagnostics in the key energy consumption enterprises to perform the technical research of industrial energy diagnostics and the technical conversion in energy efficiency analyzing software tools.
2. ELI Global Certification Center
The Efficient Lighting Initiative (ELI), initiated by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in 2000, is dedicated to globally promote and publicize the voluntary certification projects for high-quality efficient lighting products. In 2003, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) was looking for the operation body of the second term of ELI project in the global range. After a global bidding and bid, CSC was chosen as the operation body. In 2005, IFC had officially established the ELI Global Certification Center at CSC to globally develop the certification and promotion of efficient lighting products.
3. Technical Support Center of Sustainable Production and Consumption for Asia and the Pacific
In October 2005, UNESCAP and UNEP officially approved to establish the “Technical Support Center of Sustainable Production and Consumption for Asia and the Pacific” at CSC to improve the cooperation and communication of the sustainable production and consumption in Asia and the Pacific. The technical support center, as the research center of sustainable consumption and production policy and the executive body of regional project development and organization for UN, strives to provide the technical support and information sharing platform for the capacity building of the sustainable consumption and production in Asia and the Pacific.
4. Regional Project Office for the “UNDP/GEF Barrier Removal to the Cost-Effective Development and Implementation of Energy Efficiency Standards and Labeling Project in Asia (BRESL)”
Barrier Removal to the Cost-Effective Development and Implementation of Energy Efficiency Standards and Labeling Project in Asia (BRESL), funded by GEF, is a regional energy efficiency project implemented in Asia. China is selected as the lead country in the process of project design and CSC is determined as the executive body. The regional project office for the “UNDP/GEF Barrier Removal to the Cost-Effective Development and Implementation of Energy Efficiency Standards and Labeling Project in Asia (BRESL)” is established to lead the organization and coordination of the project implementation.