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Tong et al. Carbon Footprints 2025;4:2 Carbon Footprints
DOI: 10.20517/cf.2024.44

Original Article Open Access

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in China’s

automobile manufacturing with circular economy
strategies

1
1
Xin Tong 1 , Jian Gao , Tao Wang , Xiaolei Shi 2
1
College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
2
China Automotive Technology & Research Center Co., Ltd., Tianjin 300399, China.
Correspondence to: Dr. Xin Tong, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, St. Yiheyuan 5, Haidian
District, Beijing 100871, China. E-mail: tongxin@urban.pku.edu.cn
How to cite this article: Tong X, Gao J, Wang T, Shi X. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in China’s automobile manufacturing
with circular economy strategies. Carbon Footprints 2025;4:2. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/cf.2024.44

Received: 24 Oct 2024 First Decision: 29 Nov 2024 Revised: 15 Dec 2024 Accepted: 24 Dec 2024 Published: 28 Dec 2024
Academic Editors: Xiaoyu Yan, Han Hao Copy Editor: Fangling Lan Production Editor: Fangling Lan

Abstract
Circular economy strategies encompass a wide range of approaches and initiatives designed to foster sustainable
resource utilization and minimize waste, particularly in the context of complex products such as automobiles.
These strategies encompass, among others, material recycling and reuse, energy recovery, efficiency
enhancements, and circular-focused product design. To evaluate the potential of different circular economy
strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in China’s automobile manufacturing, this research employs the
input-output subsystems approach to analyze three distinct scenarios based on the interconnections between
various components: the low-carbon transition of the energy structure, closed-loop material recycling, and the
transition to shared mobility. The findings reveal that spillover component emissions account for over 98% of the
total emissions of the automobile manufacturing sector. The circular economy model, through material recycling,
can significantly cut down emissions from these spillover components, thereby aiding the automobile
manufacturing industry in meeting its emission reduction targets. Notably, compared to relying solely on the low-
carbon transition of the energy structure, the closed-loop material recycling scenario can reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by approximately 10% through the recycling of steel and plastics alone. Moreover, the transition to
shared mobility has the potential to achieve an additional 4%-18% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by
diminishing the final demand for automotive products.

Keywords: Circular economy, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), input-output subsystem analysis, scenario
analysis, automobile manufacturing

© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as
long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and
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