Exploring the Low-Carbon Value Transformation Path for Consumer Brands with Sony China, JNBY and Del

On June 11, during the Shanghai International Carbon Neutrality Expo, the themed roundtable “Visible Green: How Sustainability Becomes a New Value Language for Consumer Brands” was successfully held at the Carbon Newture booth.

Moderated by Arthur Huang, CEO of Carbon Newture, the roundtable brought together Zhang Jing, representative of Sony China’s Synecoculture project; Zheng Dandan, General Manager of Corporate Public Relations at JNBY; and Wu Wei, Head of Engineering Technology Department at Deli Group. The speakers engaged in an in-depth discussion on how consumer brands can translate sustainability practices into green value that consumers can perceive.

Amid the rise of the low-carbon economy and green consumption, “sustainability” and “green low-carbon development” are gradually becoming a new value language for consumer brands. However, for enterprises, many low-carbon investments take place deep within the supply chain and are often forms of “invisible green” that consumers cannot directly perceive. How to transform low-carbon capabilities into product value that consumers can see, understand, and choose is becoming a shared challenge for consumer brands across different industries.

Focusing on this topic, the speakers exchanged views around three core questions: How can consumer brands turn sustainability capabilities into visible value for consumers? How can brands balance the invisible costs of sustainability, product performance and experience, and consumers’ demand for value for money? And how can supply chain collaboration and digital carbon management support low-carbon development? Representatives from Sony China, JNBY and Deli shared their respective practices and reflections, offering green communication references for different types of brand enterprises.

Zhang Jing

Representative of Sony China’s Synecoculture Project

As a globally renowned enterprise, Sony China builds on the Group’s long-term environmental plan, Road to Zero, and applies core technologies to low-carbon practices. While advancing innovative agricultural technologies, Sony has also continued to deepen the development of recycled plastic technologies, transforming sustainability concepts into high-quality products that the public can perceive and experience.

In the field of innovative agricultural technologies, Sony has independently developed Synecoculture, an environmental technology for agriculture. This cultivation model does not use pesticides or chemical fertilizers, nor does it involve tilling the land. Leveraging this ecological technology, Sony has cultivated Lu’an Guapian tea products in Lu’an, Anhui Province, and worked with Carbon Newture to complete cradle-to-gate carbon footprint certification. The certification covers the full process of cultivation, picking, transportation and processing, making the low-carbon value of the tea visible and traceable.

Zhang Jing stated that sustainable development is a long-term value strategy that benefits brands, consumers and ecosystems. For brands, investing in low-carbon projects is an important practice in responding to China’s dual-carbon goals and fulfilling corporate social responsibility. For consumers, brands should uphold product quality, build a tiered product portfolio, and adapt to diverse consumption scenarios and needs, making low-carbon products accessible to the public. For ecosystems, innovative ecological cultivation models can reduce environmental impact at the source, cut carbon emissions, and protect biodiversity.

The implementation of the dual-carbon goals requires coordinated efforts across the entire industrial chain. Sony works with upstream and downstream partners in the Synecoculture tea supply chain to implement carbon management and promote low-carbon operations across the full value chain. Going forward, Sony will continue to work with Carbon Newture to further optimize the carbon footprint accounting system and improve the full-chain low-carbon operating model.

In addition to innovative agricultural technologies, Sony has also independently developed SORPLAS™, a flame-retardant recycled plastic. The material uses recycled plastics such as discarded optical discs and plastic barrels as raw materials. According to calculations, its recycled content can reach up to 99%, and compared with virgin plastic, carbon emissions in the production process can be reduced by approximately 72%. With heat resistance and structural strength comparable to new plastic, the material has been widely applied in end products such as televisions and cameras, effectively reducing the environmental impact of consumer electronics throughout their lifecycle.

Zheng Dandan

General Manager of Corporate Public Relations at JNBY

JNBY is a Chinese designer fashion brand enterprise with more than 30 years of experience in the fashion sector. Zheng Dandan pointed out that when facing consumers, brands should “tell fewer stories and provide more evidence.” For example, the zero-waste “Overlength denim trousers”, a typical achievement of JNBY’s T2T — Textile-to-Textile — circular recycling model, not only turn production offcuts back into usable fabrics, but have also obtained a carbon footprint certificate with the support of Carbon Newture. The product’s carbon information has also been disclosed on the Green Trade Public Service Platform, where consumers can scan a QR code to view product information and carbon emissions across different stages, making sustainability more transparent.

Regarding the invisible costs brought by sustainability, Zheng Dandan believes the key lies in turning sustainability from an add-on into part of the product’s value. Brands should not sacrifice design and experience for the concept of “green”. Instead, they should find a balance through raw material recycling, low-carbon fabric development and long-lasting design. From zero-waste wool coats to recycled denim jeans, JNBY hopes to provide real, purchasable, wearable and verifiable products, enabling consumers to gain a more comprehensive value-for-money choice that balances design aesthetics, wearing experience and environmental value.

Zheng Dandan stated that the textile and apparel industry has a long supply chain, and the vast majority of carbon emissions for fashion brands come from Scope 3. To achieve effective carbon reduction, brands need to take the lead in driving supply chain collaboration. This year, JNBY officially launched a Scope 3 carbon inventory for its contract manufacturers to clarify the emissions structure across the upstream and downstream supply chain and identify opportunities for carbon reduction. At the same time, through green procurement measures, JNBY gives priority to suppliers with sustainability certifications and clean energy use. In the future, JNBY will continue to expand its matrix of carbon footprint-certified products, deepen its T2T circular recycling model, drive emissions reductions among core suppliers, and expects to build a digital ESG platform through deeper cooperation with Carbon Newture, making carbon management smarter and more efficient.

Wu Wei

Head of Engineering Technology Department at Deli Group

As a global cultural and creative technology industry group, Deli Group actively practices the philosophy of “business for good” and integrates sustainable value into product innovation and brand actions. Wu Wei introduced that through its “carbon-neutral stationery” series, Deli has transformed low-carbon concepts into products that consumers can perceive and use in everyday life. The series was developed through cooperation between Deli and Genki Forest, recycling discarded beverage plastic bottles and turning them into stationery products such as correction tapes, loose-leaf notebooks and gel pens. In this way, “turning waste into value” has become a real and visible consumer choice rather than just an environmental concept. With the support of Carbon Newture, the products have obtained carbon neutrality certification from an internationally authoritative institution, and zero-carbon information is presented to consumers through QR-code traceability, enabling green value to be seen, understood and recognized.

Wu Wei stated that in promoting green and low-carbon products, Deli always puts product functionality and user experience first, while also taking into account consumers’ expectations for value for money. Facing the invisible costs brought by sustainability investment, Deli hopes to rely on its scale advantages, supply chain capabilities and internal efficiency improvements to absorb and dilute carbon reduction costs as much as possible, rather than simply passing those costs on to consumers. Deli hopes that users can naturally accept green products while maintaining a good user experience.

At the same time, Deli actively collaborates with high-quality upstream suppliers such as Sinopec Xinke and Zhongzihuan to carry out joint development around green materials and low-carbon technology solutions, promoting a closed loop that covers recycled material application, carbon footprint accounting, carbon neutrality certification and information disclosure. In the future, Deli will continue to deepen supply chain collaboration and digital carbon management, and gradually improve its product lifecycle carbon management capabilities.

Conclusion

From Sony’s low-carbon circular materials and Synecoculture technology, to JNBY’s T2T circular recycling model, and Deli’s “carbon-neutral stationery”, it is clear that “green sustainability” is no longer merely a set of technical parameters and management investments at the production end that are difficult for consumers to perceive. Instead, through tangible, identifiable and trustworthy product details, it is becoming a new value language for communication between brands and consumers.

At the same time, sustainability is not an isolated action by a single enterprise, but a coordinated resonance across the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and even across society as a whole. Only when green actions are seen, understood and chosen can sustainable value truly be transformed from corporate capability into market value and consumer consensus.