'The bar is too high'

Foxconn Technology Group has nine companies in Shenzhen listed under the local government's carbon-emissions management program. This year, the group received 2.97 million metric tons of carbon credits. The figure will rise to 3.37 million tons in 2014 and 3.52 million tons in 2015, accounting for about 10 percent of the city's total carbon credits.

Foxconn's statistics show the group has not been granted a sufficient number of carbon credits this year, said Tsen Yao-shen, director of the Energy Efficiency Technology Committee at Foxconn.

"The government allocated carbon credits to companies based on their industry value added and CO2 emissions per unit of GDP. This will encourage high-profit enterprises but will hit low-profit, low value-added companies like Foxconn," said Tsen. "Every cent we make is hard earned. We wish the government had distributed the credits according to companies' industrial production growth."