Is the personal carbon asset boom coming? Digital RMB takes the lead through "Carbon Inclusiveness" to seize the market first

Written by: Liang Yu

Edited by: Zhao Yidan

At the beginning of 2026, a seemingly simple feature launch has sparked dual attention in the fields of fintech and green finance. According to the Digital Renminbi Operation and Management Center, to enrich the application of digital renminbi in “green finance” scenarios, the Digital Renminbi App officially launched the “Carbon Inclusive” mini-program service, which was first rolled out in Shanghai.

After users activate this service, carbon points generated from green travel behaviors such as taking the subway and riding shared bikes will be automatically accumulated and can be exchanged for digital renminbi. The first platforms connected include Shanghai Metro’s official app Metro Metropolitan, Hello Travel, and T3 Travel.

This is not just a simple “green points exchange.” In the recently released “Shanghai Carbon Market Comprehensive Deepening Reform Action Plan (2026–2030),” it explicitly states the need to “explore models and pathways for individual participation in carbon trading.” Meanwhile, on January 5, Shanghai completed its first carbon inclusive emission reduction transaction of 2026 in Chongming District, where 300 tons of carbon inclusive emission reductions were traded on the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange, specifically for ecological damage remediation.

When the legal currency attribute of digital renminbi meets the environmental rights attribute of personal carbon points, it potentially signifies a strategic upgrade from a payment tool to ecological infrastructure, and a profound exploration of the future form of personal carbon assets.

1. How a green trip becomes digital renminbi

The “Carbon Inclusive” service of digital renminbi has established a clear behavioral conversion chain. Users first need to find the “Carbon Inclusive” mini-program on the service page of the digital renminbi App, complete activation, and bind their account with the partner platform.

Subsequently, when users take the Shanghai Metro, ride shared bikes via Hello, or use T3 new energy vehicles, their low-carbon travel behaviors will be automatically recorded by the system, and the generated carbon points will be credited to their personal “Carbon Inclusive” account.

According to China Tech News, the current exchange rate is 0.01 yuan of digital renminbi for every 1250 grams of carbon points. Before exchanging, users need to open a digital renminbi wallet and upgrade it to a real-name wallet. Once the exchange is successful, the digital renminbi will be credited in real-time.

This process design appears simple but actually involves a complete technical chain from behavior recognition, data collection, carbon value calculation, to value incentives. On the behavior data collection side, it connects city public transportation, shared mobility platforms, and ride-hailing service platforms.

On the value conversion side, it directly interfaces with China’s legal digital currency system. This design allows each specific low-carbon choice by individuals to be quantified, recorded, and assigned a clear economic value through technical means.

2. Three new roles played by digital renminbi

The launch of the “Carbon Inclusive” pilot of digital renminbi is far more than a green public welfare marketing activity. From a strategic perspective, it marks a three-tiered transition of digital renminbi from a payment tool to a value infrastructure.

The first layer is the deepening of scenario use as a payment tool. Previously, the promotion of digital renminbi mainly relied on direct subsidies such as consumption red envelopes, while “Carbon Inclusive” transforms the “negative externalities” of green behaviors into “positive usage incentives” for digital renminbi, creating more natural and sustainable usage scenarios.

This design cleverly answers the question “Why should users use digital renminbi”—not only because it is convenient but also because it helps users monetize their environmental actions.

The second layer involves expanding account functions as financial infrastructure. The requirement for a “real-name wallet” is key to understanding this layer. The real-name system of the digital renminbi wallet ensures the exclusive ownership, immutability, and traceability of carbon points.

This endows personal “carbon accounts” with financial-grade security and credibility, providing underlying support for future data certification, rights trading, and financial operations. This account system is fundamentally different from internet platform points; it is built on the national financial infrastructure, with legal and normative status.

The third layer is positioning as a strategic ecosystem standard. Against the backdrop of Shanghai’s carbon market reform plan, which explicitly states the need to “explore models and pathways for individual participation in carbon trading,” the digital renminbi, through the “Carbon Inclusive” pilot, is essentially defining preliminary standards for the collection, calculation, and exchange of personal carbon behavior data.

When individual green behaviors can be credibly recorded and incentivized through the national financial infrastructure, digital renminbi may become the “payment and settlement center” for the future personal carbon asset value chain.

3. Starting from Shanghai, connecting to a broader market

Shanghai was not chosen by chance as the first city for the “Carbon Inclusive” mini-program. The city is at the forefront of carbon market development nationwide. The “Shanghai Carbon Market Comprehensive Deepening Reform Action Plan (2026–2030)” released in August 2025 explicitly states that Shanghai aims to establish a well-regulated, honest, transparent, and widely participatory voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction management system.

The plan emphasizes “promoting the formation of a personal carbon credit evaluation system and exploring the application of carbon credits in green finance, green consumption, and other fields.”

Meanwhile, Shanghai already has practical experience with carbon inclusive trading. On January 5, 2026, Shanghai’s first annual carbon inclusive emission reduction transaction took place in Chongming District, where 300 tons of carbon inclusive emission reductions were traded through market mechanisms, specifically for ecological damage remediation.

This transaction pioneered a new market path of “carbon trading + ecological restoration,” turning the “subtraction” of carbon emissions directly into an “addition” of ecological protection.

The connection point between digital renminbi’s “Carbon Inclusive” and these local carbon market practices lies in providing standardized tools for generating and recording personal carbon reductions. When countless small-scale personal reduction behaviors are credibly aggregated through the digital renminbi system, they can theoretically form tradable carbon asset bundles linked to local and even national carbon markets.

According to the planning of the Digital Renminbi Operation and Management Center, the next step for “Carbon Inclusive” is to “accelerate the expansion of participating regions and build a multi-city collaborative Carbon Inclusive service network.” The potential for cross-regional expansion should not be underestimated.

As early as July 2024, Wuhan, together with Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and other cities, initiated the “Carbon Inclusive City Cooperation Initiative” and established the Carbon Inclusive City Cooperation Alliance. The first batch of members includes 32 organizations such as Alipay, Didi Chuxing, and Amap, demonstrating that building a cross-regional, cross-platform carbon inclusive ecosystem has become an industry consensus.

4. Practical challenges: several hurdles to overcome for the ideal model

Despite the promising prospects of the digital renminbi “Carbon Inclusive” model, moving from pilot to maturity faces multiple practical challenges. These challenges span user incentives, data technology, financial compliance, and ecological collaboration, forming obstacles that this innovation must overcome.

The most immediate issue is the sustainability of user incentives. According to current rules, 1250 grams of carbon points can only be exchanged for 0.01 yuan of digital renminbi. Whether such a exchange rate can sufficiently motivate behavior change remains to be tested by the market.

The value discovery mechanism for green behaviors is still in early exploration. How to scientifically and fairly determine the carbon point values for different low-carbon behaviors, avoiding “insufficient incentives” or “excessive incentives,” is a practical difficulty for operations.

Deeper challenges involve data accuracy and security. Automatic collection of carbon points depends on data integration and real-time synchronization across platforms, requiring technical guarantees for data accuracy, tamper-proofing, and anti-cheating. Meanwhile, the “real-name wallet” requirement means large amounts of user behavior data will be linked to identity information.

Balancing data utilization with personal privacy protection, and designing rules for data ownership and usage, are legal and ethical issues that must be addressed.

Financial compliance boundaries are another constraint. Currently, “carbon points exchange” is essentially a one-way incentive behavior, fundamentally different from asset trading in finance. Whether personal carbon points have property attributes, can be transferred, or used as collateral, remains legally undefined.

Without clear regulatory frameworks, overemphasizing the financial attributes of personal carbon points may pose compliance risks. The digital renminbi operators need to carefully balance innovation with compliance.

The most fundamental challenge is how to connect with the existing carbon market system. China’s carbon markets mainly consist of the mandatory national emissions trading system and voluntary reduction markets. How personal emission reductions generated through green behaviors can interface with these markets remains an unresolved model.

Although there are explorations, such as Hello Travel integrating its users’ cycling carbon inclusive reductions into Shanghai and Guangdong provincial markets, these are still pilot projects. Establishing a unified national standard for personal carbon reduction accounting, certification, and trading mechanisms requires multiple breakthroughs in policy, technology, and market development.

5. The future of personal carbon points

Despite the challenges, the digital renminbi “Carbon Inclusive” pilot provides a valuable experimental platform for the evolution of personal carbon assets. Looking ahead, this model may gradually evolve from behavior incentives to asset recognition, fostering new financial services and business forms.

In the short term, “Carbon Inclusive” will continue to serve as a promoter of green behaviors. By expanding access scenarios (such as energy-saving appliances, green consumption, paperless offices) and increasing participating cities, a broader carbon inclusive network will form. The key at this stage is to cultivate user habits, establish a psychological link between carbon points and low-carbon behaviors, and improve data processing capabilities.

In the medium term, it may evolve into a personal carbon account system. With the implementation of the “Shanghai Carbon Market Comprehensive Deepening Reform Action Plan,” which aims to “promote the formation of a personal carbon credit evaluation system,” the data, technology, and user base accumulated by digital renminbi “Carbon Inclusive” could become an essential part of this system.

Personal carbon accounts will not only record emission reductions but may also include data on carbon footprints, green consumption preferences, and other dimensions, becoming a “green ID card” for individuals. Financial institutions could develop green loans, low-carbon credit cards, and other products based on such accounts, incorporating carbon account information into credit assessments.

Long-term, there is potential for development into a personal carbon asset trading platform. If future policies permit personal emission reductions to enter the carbon market for trading, then “Carbon Inclusive” built on the digital renminbi system could serve as a trading infrastructure.

Individuals could aggregate dispersed emission reductions into tradable asset bundles and sell them through compliant channels to companies or institutions with carbon offset needs. In this mode, personal green behaviors would truly shift from a “cost center” to a “value center,” forming a sustainable market-driven incentive mechanism.

Throughout this evolution, the advantages of digital renminbi will become increasingly apparent: its legal currency status provides the most stable anchor for carbon asset valuation; its controllable anonymity balances privacy and regulation; and its programmability enables automatic verification, segmentation, and settlement of carbon assets.

In Shanghai Metro, a passenger who just exchanged carbon points for digital renminbi puts away their phone as the train heads to the next station. Meanwhile, on the big screen at the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange, carbon price data fluctuates constantly, with each transaction seeking a buyer.

In the near future, “carbon points” in everyone’s phones may no longer be just simple exchange vouchers. They could become the digital foundation of personal green credit, a bridge connecting micro choices with macro goals, and a new carrier for measuring and circulating environmental rights in the digital economy era.

Source references for some materials:

· “Low-carbon travel can earn digital renminbi, Shanghai takes the lead in pilot”

· “Shanghai fully deepens carbon market reform, exploring models and pathways for personal participation in carbon trading”

· “Shanghai’s first carbon inclusive emission reduction transaction in 2026 lands in Chongming”