From March 6 to 8, a five-member Guangzhou Award delegation visited Gwangju, South Korea, to review the “GHGs Emission Program in Household Carbon Bank in Gwangju”, one of the shortlisted initiatives of the 2nd Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation (the Guangzhou Award). This field trip aimed at studying the sustainable model of efficient garbage disposal and utilization represented by the Carbon Bank system, which will be of relevance to China for its urban development.

Citizens use facilities for kitchen waste and accumulate points according to the carbon bank system.

Gwangju, the fifth largest city in South Korea, is an administrative, military, economic, social and cultural hub in south-west Korea. The city took an active part in the last two Guangzhou Awards and was designated one of the fifteen shortlisted cities and one of the thirty deserving cities respectively.  

The Carbon Bank system is a creative and environmentally-friendly policy introduced by the government with an ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the system, local residents are stimulated to take carbon-saving measures, which contributed to the annual decrease of the GHGs emissions in Gwangju. Through voluntary energy-saving efforts by households (regarding electricity, city gas, and water supply line), the Carbon Bank system calculates the reduced emissions of carbon dioxide and converts them into points. Then it provides those points to the involved households and helps them save money.