Liu Lu: The Green Transition Enters the "Number-Crunching" Phase

China Environmental Protection Industry Association -- In-Depth Industry Interview | Reporter: Wang Xiaoling

The green transition of China's manufacturing sector is shifting from environmental compliance to a business constraint.

In the past, corporate environmental work focused primarily on environmental impact assessments, pollution discharge permits, wastewater and exhaust gas treatment, and meeting emission standards. Now, client audits, product carbon footprints, ESG due diligence, green supply chain assessments, and carbon accounting for recycled materials are entering the equation for orders, financing, and investment decisions. For export-oriented manufacturers, environmental capabilities no longer affect merely the compliance status of a single factory; they determine whether that factory can remain in the global supply chain.

Liu Lu has long stood at the intersection of these changes.

He holds a Doctor of Engineering degree and is a Senior Engineer. He is currently a Partner at Shanghai Greenment Environmental Technology Co., Ltd. Public records indicate that he has more than 18 years of experience in EHS, ESG, environmental consulting, and engineering advisory services, with expertise spanning environmental compliance, green supply chain management, carbon accounting, contaminated site remediation, sustainable finance assessment, and industrial water pollution control. He participated in the drafting of the national standard GB/T 39257-2020 Green Manufacturing -- Green Supply Chain Management Evaluation Specification for Manufacturing Enterprises, as well as several group standards covering carbon footprint accounting for recycled materials and microplastic detection.

In the interview, Liu Lu repeatedly returned to one word: "on-site."

"The green transition must ultimately come back to the factory floor," he said. "It is not about writing a report, nor is it about sticking on a label. Where is the energy data? How are suppliers managed? Is the destination of waste clear? Can the carbon emission boundaries be explained? If these issues cannot be grounded in processes and data, they will not withstand an audit."

From Water Environment Research to the Factory Floor

Liu Lu's professional training began in environmental engineering.

He earned his master's degree in environmental engineering at Hefei University of Technology and later obtained his doctorate in environmental science and engineering at Donghua University. During his master's and doctoral studies, his research focused on water environments, sediment pollution, industrial water conservation, and urban river water quality assessment.

One doctoral study took 33 key enterprises across six water-intensive industries in Ningbo as samples, using a water balance model to calculate indicators such as recycling rate, reuse rate, and fresh water consumption coefficient. The results showed that the annual total water consumption of the 33 enterprises was approximately 75.28 million cubic meters, with an estimated annual water-saving potential of about 14.89 million cubic meters, representing an overall conservation potential of 19.77%. Among them, the textile printing and dyeing industry showed the highest potential at 49.60%, followed by the papermaking industry at 44.7%, while the petrochemical industry showed only 0.62%.

These figures left a deep impression on Liu Lu. They demonstrated that environmental governance cannot rely solely on industry averages. Within the same industry, management levels and process conditions vary significantly between enterprises; across different industries, the room for water conservation also differs entirely.

"Water environment issues are rarely just a discharge outlet problem," Liu Lu said. "Behind them may lie industrial structure, pipeline networks, corporate management, local planning, and historical pollution. When working on enterprise projects, if you look at only one indicator, it is easy to misjudge the situation."

After joining Greenment Environment, Liu Lu gradually shifted from environmental engineering research to corporate EHS compliance, green supply chain management, and dual-carbon management. His work shifted from river basins and industry samples to specific enterprises, specific factories, and specific supply chains.

He believes the biggest change from academic research to industrial practice is the constraint set. "Research places greater emphasis on mechanisms and methodologies. On the factory floor, you also have to consider budgets, shutdown risks, rectification timelines, client requirements, and regulatory interpretations. A solution may be technically sound, but that does not mean the enterprise can execute it. A truly valuable solution is one that can be implemented, verified, and sustained."

Green Supply Chains Are Starting to Affect Orders

The GB/T 39257-2020 standard that Liu Lu helped draft is one of the more representative achievements in his career. The standard applies to self-assessment, second-party audits, and third-party evaluations of green supply chain management for manufacturing enterprises, covering green strategy, green procurement, green production, green logistics, recycling and disposal, and information disclosure.

In his view, the change behind such standards is clear: environmental responsibility is expanding from a single enterprise to the entire supply chain.

"In the past, if a company managed its own plant well, it had largely fulfilled its primary environmental responsibilities," Liu Lu said. "That is no longer enough. Clients now ask whether your suppliers have environmental violations, whether raw material sources are compliant, how waste is handled, and how the product carbon footprint is calculated. In industries such as electronics, automotive, consumer goods, and chemicals, supply chain audits have already become extremely detailed."

Public records show that Greenment Environment, where Liu Lu works, has delivered more than 5,000 projects and cooperated with over 100 Fortune 500 companies. The company's services cover EHS consulting, green supply chain audits, carbon verification, contaminated site management, and environmental engineering. Liu Lu's clients include government agencies, international organizations, financial institutions, and domestic and foreign manufacturing enterprises.

In his projects, he has observed that many enterprises' weaknesses lie not in their treatment facilities, but in their management chains. Common issues include the absence of clear rules for supplier environmental admission, inconsistencies between hazardous waste ledgers and actual transfer records, energy data scattered across multiple departments, and a lack of upstream data for product carbon footprints.

"The key to a green supply chain is integrating it into the procurement process," he said. "If the procurement department only looks at price and delivery time, it is very difficult to establish a green supply chain. Enterprises need to embed environmental admission, supplier audits, rectification tracking, and exit mechanisms into daily procurement."

The value of standardization is also reflected here. It tells enterprises which dimensions to build their management systems around, and provides a common language for clients, audit bodies, and third-party evaluators.

The Challenge of Dual-Carbon Management Lies in Data

In dual-carbon and ESG consulting, the biggest pain point Liu Lu sees is the insufficient data foundation within enterprises.

He holds a CCAA greenhouse gas verifier qualification and has received training related to ISO 14001 and ISO 14064. His work involves corporate carbon inventories, carbon emission accounting, product carbon footprints, ESG due diligence, and sustainable finance assessment.

"For many enterprises undertaking carbon accounting for the first time, the problem is not that they do not know how to apply the formulas, but that they cannot find reliable data," Liu Lu said. "Electricity, steam, natural gas, diesel, refrigerants, wastewater treatment, purchased heat, and product output--this data is scattered across different departments. The definitions used by finance, equipment, production, procurement, and EHS departments may not be consistent."

He explained using a manufacturing enterprise as an example: to calculate the carbon footprint of a specific product, the company needs to trace raw materials, energy consumption, production processes, transportation, packaging, and waste disposal. If suppliers cannot provide data, the company can only use industry averages or estimates, and the accuracy of the results will be affected. For some high-end clients or overseas markets, this level of data quality may fail to meet requirements.

A carbon emission accounting study in the papermaking industry that Liu Lu participated in showed that, in a case study of a papermaking enterprise in Hebei, the company's original accounting result was 179,539.37 tonnes of CO?? equivalent, while the research model's accounting result was 209,302.07 tonnes of CO?? equivalent, approximately 16.6% higher. The discrepancy stemmed mainly from differences in emission source scope, electricity emission factors, and the accounting? for non-CO?? greenhouse gases.

"This case shows that carbon accounting is not simply filling out a form," Liu Lu said. "If the boundary changes or the factor changes, the results will differ significantly. In the future, what enterprises will compete on is not just whether they have emission reduction targets, but who can crunch the numbers accurately."

He advises enterprises to start with the basics: clarify organizational boundaries and emission sources, establish energy and material data ledgers, unify departmental definitions, retain original source documents, and then gradually extend to the product level and supply chain level.

ESG Is Not Packaging, But Risk Identification

Among Liu Lu's clients are not only manufacturing enterprises, but also financial institutions and investment funds. The latter's interest in ESG is often not for publicity, but for identifying investment risks.

In M&A or investment scenarios, environmental issues can directly affect enterprise valuation. Historically contaminated sites, non-compliant hazardous waste disposal, gaps in pollution discharge permits, fire safety and occupational health hazards, and carbon emission costs can all become future liabilities.

"Investment institutions look at ESG to see whether risks are identifiable, quantifiable, and manageable," Liu Lu said. "If an enterprise has potential soil and groundwater contamination, the subsequent remediation costs could be very high. If a supply chain contains major environmental violations, client orders could be affected. These are not soft issues."

Public records also show that Liu Lu serves as an expert in the expert pool of the Shanghai Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau, with expertise in carbon emissions and integrated environmental management. He is also an expert committee member of the Green Supply Chain Branch of the China National Resources Recycling Association. He holds the professional title of Senior Engineer in environmental protection and holds practitioner qualifications including greenhouse gas verifier.

These roles allow him to participate in more technical reviews and industry public affairs. Environmental impact assessments, pollution discharge permits, carbon verification, green supply chain evaluations, and contaminated site remediation plans all require judgment that balances regulations, technology, and on-site conditions.

"When consulting, we help enterprises find solutions. When conducting reviews, the first priority is to look at the facts, the basis, and the risks," Liu Lu said. "Enterprise demands are understandable, but technical judgment cannot be swayed by those demands."

The Industry Enters the Age of Verifiability

Liu Lu predicts that over the next five to ten years, the green and low-carbon field will further shift from "goal expression" to "evidence management."

Enterprises can set carbon neutrality targets and publish ESG reports, but external clients, regulators, and investors will eventually demand evidence: energy ledgers, emission factors, supplier data, third-party verification, rectification records, product carbon footprint calculation files, and continuous improvement results.

This means environmental work will become more deeply embedded in business operations. The procurement department must manage supplier environmental performance; the production department must provide energy and material data; the finance department must pay attention to carbon costs and green financing; the R&D department must consider low-carbon materials and product design; and senior management must decide the priorities for green investment.

"In the future, green capabilities will increasingly resemble quality management," Liu Lu said. "It is not something that one person or one department does temporarily, but becomes part of the enterprise's daily operations."

From water environment research to corporate EHS compliance, from green supply chain standards to dual-carbon accounting, and from academic papers to project sites, Liu Lu's career path reflects the evolution of the environmental protection industry: from end-of-pipe treatment to whole-process management, from piecemeal rectification to data verification, and from compliance costs to supply chain competitiveness.

At a time when green and low-carbon concepts are spreading rapidly, the industry is not short of grand narratives. What is truly scarce is practical judgment: which data is credible, which risks are real, which rectifications should take priority, and which investments can generate long-term value.

Liu Lu's experience shows that the green transition of enterprises is entering a more pragmatic phase. Vision remains important, but the numbers must be crunched, processes must be built, and responsibilities must be assigned. Only then can green capabilities transform from a compliance requirement into a competitive advantage.

COMTEX_485972730/2891/2026-07-06T05:57:16

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