China plans to achieve carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. By 2025, Shanghai's carbon emissions from the construction sector will be limited to around 45 million tons. Achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals requires the support of the professionals and talents. In March 2021, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People's Republic of China (MOHRSS) listed "carbon emission manager" as one of 18 new occupations. It is reported that a "carbon emission manager" is defined as a person who is engaged in monitoring, accounting, verification, trading and consulting of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions of enterprises and institutions.
On September 7, 2022, MOHRSS officially released the newly revised Occupational Classification System of the People’s Republic of China. The new version incorporates new and emerging occupations including carbon emission managers. In addition, since this year, a number of domestic universities have set up carbon neutral colleges to clarify their training objectives and tasks.
Experts and industry insiders point out that the employment prospect of carbon emission managers is promising. At present, shortage of carbon emission managers is found in just a few specific industries. In some traditional industries, the current staff can be transformed into carbon managers through training. Also many companies can actually use third-party service providers to verify carbon emissions in the future. However, there is a real shortage of high-end composite talents who have both experience in the physical operation of emission enterprises and knowledge of carbon emission verification standards and trading routines at home and abroad. If the carbon market develops towards internationalization in the future, the shortage of relevant personnel will increase.