According to a research report released by China Securities Co., Ltd. (ASX: 601066), industrial parks in China occupy a dual strategic position as both carriers of economic growth and arenas for carbon emission control. Guided by the Central Economic Work Conference and supporting policies from multiple government departments, the construction of zero-carbon parks has become a systemic undertaking in China.

According to the firm's estimates, investment in zero-carbon retrofitting of national-level zero-carbon parks alone will reach the hundred-billion-yuan scale. On the sustainable finance tools front, green credit, ESG bonds, and green leasing have already reached significant scale and are highly compatible with the characteristics of park projects, which feature large capital expenditures, long payback periods, and stable cash flows from certain assets. Cases such as Ordos Mengsu and Yancheng Dafeng Port have validated the commercial closed loop of "low-cost, traceable green electricity plus industrial clustering," and zero-carbon parks are expected to become the next main line where green finance and industrial investment converge.

The main viewpoints of China Securities Co., Ltd. are as follows. First, zero-carbon parks represent the next key focus for sustainable finance. The fundamental reason zero-carbon parks can become a new core direction for sustainable finance lies in the dual strategic position of industrial parks in national economic development and carbon emission control, as well as the iterative upgrade of domestic green and low-carbon policies from single-point retrofitting to systemic zero-carbon construction. On one hand, through industrial clustering, infrastructure integration, and optimized allocation of factor resources, parks have become core spatial carriers supporting China's new industrialization, industrial structural upgrading, and opening-up layout, serving as important pillars of domestic economic growth. On the other hand, the highly concentrated industrial production and centralized energy supply scenarios within parks make them the core control scenario and key lever for achieving the "dual carbon" goals in China's industrial sector.

Against this backdrop, domestic green and low-carbon development policies for parks have shifted from single-point quality improvement models such as energy-saving retrofitting, resource recycling, and green factory construction to a systemic construction model that treats the park as an integrated unit, coordinating energy structure, industrial systems, infrastructure, and carbon asset management. In December 2025, with the release of the first batch of national-level zero-carbon park construction lists, top-level institutional requirements are being fully translated into physical projects and implemented initiatives. This transformation not only restructures the park's energy supply model and industrial organization but also broadens the service boundary of sustainable finance, upgrading from traditional single energy-saving and environmental protection project services to a comprehensive park project service system covering green electricity utilization, energy storage configuration, energy efficiency improvement, resource recycling, and digital carbon management, opening new business scenarios and investment tracks for financial institutions.

Industrial parks hold significant strategic status in China

Parks possess the dual attributes of being both economic growth carriers and green transformation units. From an economic dimension, by clustering market entities, integrating supporting facilities, and optimizing resource allocation, parks undertake manufacturing investment, promote industrial division of labor and collaboration, and cultivate industrial chain synergy advantages and economies of scale. From a low-carbon dimension, highly concentrated industrial production activities, centralized energy supply systems, and public supporting facilities make them the primary carriers of domestic energy consumption and carbon emissions. Based on this, various types of parks, primarily industrial parks, serve as both the core platform for advancing new industrialization, industrial upgrading, and expanding opening-up, and the core implementation scenario for low-carbon transformation and carbon emission reduction in the industrial sector.

Parks account for a large proportion of China's total economy

Various types of parks are the core spatial carriers for undertaking manufacturing investment, organizing industrial division of labor and collaboration, and promoting opening-up in China. Through unified planning and intensive allocation of resources such as land, standard factory buildings, energy supply, logistics facilities, pollution treatment, and public services, parks can guide upstream and downstream enterprises in industrial chains to cluster geographically, effectively reducing collaboration costs between enterprises and marginal costs of public service provision, and fully leveraging economies of scale and industrial cluster effects.

On February 6, 2017, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Several Opinions on Promoting Reform and Innovative Development of Development Zones," which explicitly stated that various development zones, as important components of industrial parks, play an irreplaceable role in promoting institutional reform, improving the investment environment, guiding industrial clustering, and developing an open economy, and are important platforms for advancing China's industrialization, urbanization, and expanding opening-up. National-level economic and technological development zones and national high-tech industrial development zones are typical platforms within industrial parks that have higher industrial levels, receive focused national policy support, and attract key attention from relevant ministries.

Using national-level economic development zones and national high-tech zones as typical samples can illustrate the carrying role of parks in industrial economy, innovation activities, and green transformation. From the perspective of industrial carrying capacity, national-level economic development zones occupy a relatively high proportion of the national secondary industry. Data from the Ministry of Commerce shows that in 2024, the 232 national-level economic development zones achieved a secondary industry added value of 9.8 trillion yuan; the National Bureau of Statistics reported a national secondary industry added value of 49.21 trillion yuan for the same period. Based on this calculation, the secondary industry added value of national-level economic development zones accounted for approximately 19.9% of the national total. This indicator demonstrates that national-level economic development zones have gathered a substantial scale of industrial and related production activities and are important spatial units for observing manufacturing green transformation, park infrastructure retrofitting, and industrial chain low-carbon upgrading.

From the perspective of advanced manufacturing and innovation resource clustering, national economic development zones and high-tech zones have a significant supporting effect on national industrial growth. Data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that in 2025, national high-tech zones achieved a park GDP of 20.4 trillion yuan, accounting for 14.6% of the national GDP, and realized tax revenue of approximately 2.1 trillion yuan; their industrial added value exceeded 10 trillion yuan, accounting for 24.1% of the national industrial added value. According to calculations based on data published by the Ministry of Commerce, the GDP of national-level economic development zones in 2024 accounted for approximately 12.5% of national GDP, also occupying a significant proportion of the national economy. Combining industrial output concentration, the overall scale of the park system, and comparable statistical data from high-level parks, it can be concluded that parks account for a relatively high proportion of China's industrial economy and regional economic development. The high proportion of national-level economic development zones and national high-tech zones in national industrial added value fully demonstrates that manufacturing and related economic activities are highly concentrated within park spaces. Parks are therefore an important spatial organizational form for promoting industrial growth, technological innovation, industrial chain collaboration, and green low-carbon transformation.

More than 30% of the first batch of national-level zero-carbon park construction targets are located in national-level economic and technological development zones and national high-tech industrial development zones. Through a one-by-one comparison of the first batch of national-level zero-carbon park construction lists, the Ministry of Commerce's national-level economic and technological development zone directory, and official query results for national high-tech industrial development zones, among the 52 national-level zero-carbon park construction targets, 12 are located within national-level economic development zones and 5 within national high-tech zones, totaling 17, or 32.7%. The remaining 35 are built on other economic development zones or port-adjacent economic zones, other high-tech industrial development zones, industrial parks, industrial clusters, and special functional carriers such as bonded zones, new districts, and science and technology innovation cities.

Other types of parks also have relatively high economic and industrial activity concentration. The 2024 assessment results released by the Fujian Provincial Department of Commerce show that development zones across the province achieved a regional GDP of 2,485.473 billion yuan, accounting for 43.0% of the province's GDP; revenue from industrial enterprises above designated size reached 4,187.932 billion yuan, accounting for 70.6% of the province's total; and tax revenue reached 195.155 billion yuan, accounting for 41.8% of the province's total. Provincial-level response data from the Liaoning Provincial Department of Commerce shows that in 2024, the 106 economic development zones above the provincial level in the province contributed 36.0%, 40.9%, 49.8%, and 61.6% of the province's total GDP, general public budget revenue, actually utilized foreign investment, and import-export volume, respectively, including 92 economic development zones and 14 high-tech industrial development zones. Research conducted by the Standing Committee of the Yunnan Provincial People's Congress shows that in 2024, the province's 89 development zones, covering less than 1% of the land area, contributed 20% of the province's regional GDP, 40% of industrial investment, and nearly 80% of industrial output value above designated size, including industrial parks, economic and technological development zones, high-tech industrial development zones, comprehensive bonded zones, and border (cross-border) cooperation zones. The above provincial-level evidence indicates that, in addition to national-level economic development zones and national high-tech zones, other development zones and industrial parks also carry highly concentrated industrial production, investment, and opening-up activities.

Parks also account for a high proportion of China's total carbon emissions

Industrial parks are highly concentrated spatial carriers of China's energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions and are the core scenario for carbon reduction governance in the industrial sector. Within park spaces, a large number of industrial production enterprises in steel, chemicals, building materials, non-ferrous metals, and equipment manufacturing are clustered, along with supporting public infrastructure such as centralized heating, power supply, wastewater treatment, and warehousing and logistics. The superposition of production process emissions from industrial enterprises and operational emissions from public infrastructure makes parks concentrated carriers of industrial carbon emissions and determines their key governance position in the industrial low-carbon transformation process.

Industrial park carbon emissions account for approximately 30% of the national total. According to estimates from Tsinghua University's "China Industrial Park Green and Low-Carbon Development Report (2023)," there are 2,543 national-level and provincial-level parks, with 80% of industrial enterprises already concentrated in parks, and carbon emissions from national-level and provincial-level parks accounting for 31% of national carbon emissions. Recent emission data from individual industrial parks corroborates these conclusions. Taking Ningbo Petrochemical Economic and Technological Development Zone as an example, the park's carbon emissions exceeded 11 million tons in 2024, accounting for 16.7% of Ningbo's total carbon emissions. In regions with concentrated layout of high-energy-consuming industries such as petrochemicals, steel, non-ferrous metals, and building materials, a single industrial park can generate large-scale carbon emissions equivalent to a city scale.

The carbon intensity baseline disclosed in the latest policy interpretation further reflects the significant deep decarbonization pressure facing industrial parks nationwide. In July 2025, the National Development and Reform Commission released an expert interpretation of the "Notice on Carrying Out Zero-Carbon Park Construction," stating that the current national average carbon emission per unit of energy consumption in parks is approximately 2.1 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of standard coal. In comparison with the national-level zero-carbon park construction indicator system, parks with annual comprehensive energy consumption between 200,000 and 1 million tons of standard coal should have carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption no higher than 0.2 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of standard coal; parks with annual comprehensive energy consumption of 1 million tons of standard coal or more should have carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption no higher than 0.3 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of standard coal. It can be seen that achieving the zero-carbon park construction goal requires systemic transformation of industrial parks.

Policy efforts drive zero-carbon park construction

China's green and low-carbon policies for parks have gradually shifted from individual retrofitting focused on energy conservation, recycling, and green manufacturing to systemic construction that treats the park as a unit for coordinating energy, industry, infrastructure, and carbon management. The main thread of policy evolution can be summarized in three stages: the initial stage focused on green park creation and park circular transformation to consolidate the foundation for low-carbon development; the intermediate stage incorporated zero-carbon park construction into national top-level deployment and established a unified standardized construction framework; and the current stage, through the implementation of the first batch of national-level zero-carbon park lists, promotes the comprehensive transformation of institutional norms into physical engineering projects and tangible results. Along with policy iteration, the low-carbon governance objectives for parks have achieved a deep upgrade from "reducing the intensity of resource and environmental consumption" to "building a comprehensive near-zero emission development system."

Traditional green park construction focused on improving resource and energy utilization efficiency and optimizing environmental performance; the new zero-carbon park construction focuses more on high-proportion renewable energy consumption, source-load-storage coordination, low-carbon industrial structural upgrading, refined energy-carbon management, and green business model innovation. Corresponding to the sustainable finance field, the service boundary has also expanded from single energy-saving and environmental protection projects to a full-chain comprehensive park project system covering green electricity application, energy storage configuration, energy efficiency upgrading, circular economy, and digital carbon management.

Early stage: green industrial parks

Green industrial park creation and park circular transformation are the policy origins and practical foundations of China's zero-carbon park construction. This stage relied on the green manufacturing system, focused on improving resource utilization efficiency, clean production, and recycling, aimed to improve the extensive development model of high consumption, high emissions, and low recycling in industrial parks, and accumulated practical experience, improved supporting standards, and cultivated transformation foundations for subsequent zero-carbon park construction.

In September 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments issued the "Green Manufacturing Engineering Implementation Guide (2016-2020)," formally incorporating green industrial parks into the green manufacturing system. The document proposed creating 100 green industrial parks by 2020, guiding parks to carry out basic green transformations such as cascading energy utilization, water resource recycling, solid waste exchange utilization, and intensive land use, promoting park green transformation from scattered exploration to large-scale creation. Subsequent policies continued to complete the green and low-carbon governance system for parks, promoting transformation work from demonstration creation to comprehensive promotion.

In December 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly deployed the "14th Five-Year Plan" park circular transformation work, specifying that by the end of 2025, provincial-level and above parks with conditions should basically complete circular transformation, focusing on improving water, land, and energy resource utilization efficiency, and coordinating the reduction of carbon dioxide, solid waste, wastewater, and major air pollutant emissions. Carbon peak park pilots further enriched the practical scenarios for systemic carbon reduction in parks. In November 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "National Carbon Peak Pilot Construction Plan," proposing to carry out carbon peak pilots in representative cities and parks; the first batch of pilot lists announced in December of the same year included 10 parks to explore differentiated and regionalized carbon peak pathways under different resource endowments and development foundations.

The definition, cultivation, and management mechanisms of green industrial parks were subsequently further standardized. In January 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Interim Measures for the Tiered Cultivation and Management of Green Factories," defining green industrial parks as industrial parks that integrate green and low-carbon concepts throughout the entire process of planning, spatial layout, industrial chain design, energy and resource utilization, infrastructure, ecological environment, and operational management, and positioning them as platforms for the clustering of green factories and green infrastructure. Overall, the core value of this stage lies in completing the foundational transformation of park green development. Related policies improved park resource utilization efficiency, standardized pollution treatment, and established a green manufacturing evaluation system; however, they mainly focused on individual technological transformation, resource recycling optimization, and environmental performance improvement, and had not yet formed a near-zero emission governance mechanism centered on unified carbon emission accounting, rigid target constraints, and systemic emission reduction pathways. Therefore, green parks and circular transformation constitute the preliminary groundwork for zero-carbon park construction but cannot alone meet the deep emission reduction requirements of the critical period before 2030 carbon peaking.

Development: proposing zero-carbon park construction

On the practical foundation of green parks, circular transformation, and carbon peak pilots, the state formally deployed zero-carbon park construction at a key time node, marking that park green transformation has risen from departmental-level stock transformation and pilot exploration to a systemic task serving macroeconomic green transformation and industrial competitiveness improvement. Zero-carbon park construction thereby entered an institutionalized construction stage oriented toward near-zero emissions and taking the park as a whole unit.

From the perspective of the timing of policy introduction, the 2024 Central Economic Work Conference proposed "establishing a batch of zero-carbon parks," which has transitional significance linking the past and the future. The Central Economic Work Conference undertakes the important function of deploying economic work for the following year. The inclusion of zero-carbon parks reflects that it is no longer merely a departmental green manufacturing or circular transformation matter but a key task connected to the transformation of economic development mode. This deployment coincided with the conclusion of the "14th Five-Year Plan," the planning of the "15th Five-Year Plan," and the critical window period for carbon peaking before 2030. The "Carbon Peak Action Plan Before 2030" proposed that the "14th Five-Year Plan" period should lay a solid foundation for carbon peaking, and the "15th Five-Year Plan" period should basically form low-carbon development models in key areas and ensure the achievement of the carbon peak target before 2030. Combined with the earlier estimate that park carbon emissions account for approximately 30% of the national total, parks are an important breakthrough for deep industrial carbon reduction. Advancing zero-carbon park construction at this node helps coordinate short-term economic green transformation with medium- and long-term carbon peak goals.

The 2025 Government Work Report further translated zero-carbon park construction into an annual key task. In March 2025, the Government Work Report proposed solidly carrying out the second batch of national carbon peak pilots, establishing a batch of zero-carbon parks and zero-carbon factories, and deploying them alongside the dual carbon control system, the expansion of the national carbon emissions trading market, the product carbon footprint management system, and the carbon labeling certification system, pushing top-level strategy into the implementation stage.

Moving from green parks to zero-carbon parks is not a negation of the effectiveness of earlier policies but an inevitable iteration adapting to upgraded emission reduction targets. Green parks and circular transformation mainly focus on resource efficiency, clean production, resource recycling, and pollution treatment, belonging to intensity improvement and basic capacity building; zero-carbon parks require coordinating energy supply, industrial structure, production processes, infrastructure, and energy-carbon management to achieve deep emission reduction and near-zero emissions. The current high carbon intensity of parks indicates that traditional single-point retrofitting alone can no longer meet near-zero emission targets. The National Development and Reform Commission's July 2025 policy interpretation shows that the current national average carbon emission per unit of energy consumption in parks is approximately 2.1 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of standard coal; national-level zero-carbon park construction requires parks with annual comprehensive energy consumption of 200,000 to 1 million tons of standard coal to be no higher than 0.2 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of standard coal, and parks with annual comprehensive energy consumption of no less than 1 million tons of standard coal to be no higher than 0.3 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of standard coal. The approximately 7-10 times gap between the two indicates that parks need to shift from optimizing existing efficiency to systemic transformation that coordinately advances green electricity substitution, energy storage regulation, industrial optimization, process transformation, and energy-carbon management.

Zero-carbon park construction also undertakes the policy function of connecting energy transformation, carbon markets, product carbon footprints, and green trade rules. The Central Economic Work Conference and the Government Work Report deployed zero-carbon parks, the national carbon market, the product carbon footprint management system, and the carbon labeling certification system in parallel, reflecting the synergistic relationship among related institutions: the carbon market forms market-based emission reduction constraints and incentives, product carbon footprints and carbon labeling certification provide the rule basis for carbon information accounting, certification, and supply chain transmission throughout the product lifecycle, and parks provide a common physical carrier for green energy supply, public infrastructure transformation, and enterprise energy-carbon data management. In this policy synergy system, the role of zero-carbon parks is to translate carbon constraints and product carbon information requirements into substantive emission reductions at the production end. Through unified layout of green electricity direct supply, energy storage configuration, and multi-energy complementary systems, parks can enhance renewable energy consumption capacity; through low-carbon industrial structural upgrading, coordinated transformation of public infrastructure, and refined territory-wide energy-carbon management, parks can implement carbon market price signals and product carbon footprint accounting requirements at the energy end, production end, and product end. The 2023 "Opinions on Accelerating the Establishment of a Product Carbon Footprint Management System" also proposed promoting enterprises to carry out process transformation, strengthen energy-saving and carbon reduction management, and drive upstream and downstream enterprises to strengthen carbon footprint management and supply chain collaborative transformation.

The document Fa Gai Huan Zi [2025] No. 910 formally established the standardized institutional framework for national-level zero-carbon park construction. On June 30, 2025, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the "Notice on Carrying Out Zero-Carbon Park Construction," clarifying that the park as a whole unit should coordinately advance energy structure transformation, energy conservation and carbon reduction, industrial structure optimization, resource conservation and intensification, infrastructure upgrading, technology application, energy-carbon management, and reform and innovation, and standardizing the full-process working mechanism of park application, local recommendation, national review, construction implementation, and acceptance evaluation. In terms of construction logic, zero-carbon parks emphasize achieving substantive emission reductions within park boundaries through green energy supply and systemic coordination. The document supports parks in developing green electricity direct connection, nearby connection of new energy to incremental distribution networks, energy storage, and multi-energy complementarity and other green electricity direct supply models, and encourages the formation of a "green for green" industrial development model. Zero-carbon parks therefore do not obtain a "zero-carbon" label through a single project or simple purchase of carbon offsets, but rather form replicable and scalable industrial near-zero emission transformation pathways through collaborative innovation in energy supply, industrial organization, infrastructure, and investment and financing mechanisms.

Current status: development of the first batch of zero-carbon parks

The first batch of national-level zero-carbon park construction has completed policy layout and fully entered the practical stage of "list publication, project implementation, and acceptance certification." On December 26, 2025, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the National Energy Administration announced the national-level zero-carbon park construction list (first batch), including 52 parks; the list requires localities and parks to prepare construction plans in accordance with the indicator system, optimize energy supply and consumption and source-load matching, plan key tasks and infrastructure projects, and organize acceptance evaluation after reaching the indicators.

The first batch of lists reflects the common characteristics of nationwide coverage, adaptation to local conditions, and green electricity supporting manufacturing transformation. The National Development and Reform Commission introduced that the first batch of 52 parks achieved at least one park selected in each province (autonomous region, municipality) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, with appropriate倾斜 toward regions rich in new energy resources and with good construction foundations; after completion, the parks are expected to have a green electricity direct supply ratio of no less than 50% of park electricity consumption, with carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption of approximately 0.25 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of standard coal, about one-eighth of the current national park average. The construction periods listed are mainly 2025-2027 or 2025-2030, reflecting that zero-carbon park construction is a medium- and long-term systemic project.

Currently, the first batch of zero-carbon park construction has fully shifted from preliminary scheme demonstration to the stage of physical project implementation. On December 31, 2025, the National Development and Reform Commission disclosed that among the 52 selected parks, 24 have launched major projects and key low-carbon projects, 24 have completed preliminary preparations and formed physical work volume, and 4 have finalized complete construction paths and implementation plans. Taking Yancheng Dafeng Port Economic Development Zone as an example, the park has built China's first park-level, physically traceable "source-grid-load-storage" integrated new power system and explored a "one-to-many" green electricity supply model; as of March 2026, it has connected 480,000 kilowatts of new energy installed capacity, with an annual green electricity supply of 800 million kilowatt-hours. According to the construction plan, by 2028 and 2030, the park's new energy installed capacity will reach 1.99 million kilowatts and 2.45 million kilowatts respectively, and the annual green electricity supply will increase to 3.4 billion kilowatt-hours and 4.3 billion kilowatt-hours respectively. At the same time, the park is advancing the transformation of offshore wind power connection to green electricity dedicated lines and enhancing green energy service capabilities for new energy and export-oriented enterprises through green electricity and green certificate trading, carbon emission inventory, and international certification. This case fully confirms that the first batch of zero-carbon park construction has entered a deep implementation stage driven by green infrastructure investment and coordinated advancement of industrial low-carbon upgrading and carbon management services.

After the launch of the first batch of national-level zero-carbon park construction, supporting implementation plans at the local level are also continuously following up, extending national deployment to projects, funding, and financial support mechanisms. In September 2026, the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission and the Shanghai Municipal Economic and Information Technology Commission issued the "Shanghai Zero-Carbon Park Construction Work Plan," explicitly supporting qualified key parks to carry out zero-carbon construction and proposing systematic implementation paths around green electricity direct supply and centralized green certificate procurement, distributed photovoltaic and energy storage, microgrids, energy-saving and carbon reduction transformation, resource recycling, and digital energy-carbon management. The plan also proposes coordinating national and municipal funds to support technology integration and demonstration projects in park energy-saving transformation, renewable energy development and utilization, and smart energy-carbon management; at the same time, guiding financial institutions to improve precise investment mechanisms and innovate green financial products. This local plan indicates that zero-carbon park construction is further moving from national-level pilot selection to a stage of coordinated advancement of local project reserves, construction implementation, and diversified funding support, and also provides clearer project carriers for sustainable finance to participate in park green infrastructure and low-carbon technology transformation.

Zero-carbon park scale and construction transformation analysis

Zero-carbon park scale analysis

Zero-carbon park construction targets

In June 2025, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the National Energy Administration launched national-level zero-carbon park construction. Applicants are parks with industrial foundations, energy conditions, and carbon reduction potential. After the construction period expires, they must undergo provincial self-assessment and national assessment and acceptance, and only after passing acceptance can they formally become national-level zero-carbon parks. In December 2025, the three departments announced the first batch of national-level zero-carbon park construction lists, totaling 52 parks, covering 31 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps; construction periods are mainly from 2025-2027 to 2025-2030.

The National Development and Reform Commission disclosed that after completion, the 52 parks are expected to achieve an output value of 3.54 trillion yuan; among them, 24 parks are already advancing major projects and key projects, 24 have started preliminary work and formed certain physical work volume, and another 4 have formed clear construction paths. The first batch of lists presents the characteristics of "nationwide coverage and multi-point layout in key provinces." Hebei, Fujian, Jilin, and Guangxi each have 3 parks; Tianjin, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Guangdong, Yunnan, Gansu, Ningxia, and Xinjiang each have 2; and the remaining regions each have 1. Park types are mainly "parks within parks," with a few created as whole parks, meaning construction boundaries generally focus on qualified industrial zones rather than incorporating the entire original development zone at once.

At the provincial level, there is no unified national "provincial-level zero-carbon park" certification standard or aggregated list: different regions use different names such as "zero-carbon park," "near-zero-carbon park," "zero-carbon industrial park pilot," and "cultivation list," and the statistical status of construction, cultivation, certification, and acceptance differs, so they cannot be simply added to the national-level 52 list. Taking publicly disclosed lists that can be verified by issuing departments as of September 2026 as examples, Zhejiang has 39, Guangdong 15, Yunnan 15, Fujian 5, and Sichuan 4, totaling at least 78 provincial-level construction or cultivation units.

Zero-carbon park construction and transformation analysis

Zero-carbon park construction and transformation demand analysis

Zero-carbon park construction standards

Zero-carbon park construction is not merely building several photovoltaic and energy storage projects but aims to significantly reduce the overall carbon emission intensity of the park and systematically transform energy supply, industrial production, and resource utilization. National-level zero-carbon parks use "carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption" as the core acceptance constraint: parks with annual comprehensive energy consumption of 200,000 to 1 million tons of standard coal should have carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption no higher than 0.2 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of standard coal; parks with annual comprehensive energy consumption of no less than 1 million tons of standard coal should be no higher than 0.3 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of standard coal. Parks that do not meet this core indicator shall not, in principle, apply for acceptance. Park carbon emission accounting covers direct and indirect carbon dioxide emissions generated by energy activities and industrial production processes. Therefore, simply purchasing green certificates or building a single photovoltaic project is not sufficient to prove that the park as a whole meets zero-carbon requirements.

Around the core carbon intensity target, the national-level indicator system further proposes guidance requirements in three aspects: energy structure, energy efficiency, and circular utilization: the proportion of clean energy consumption should, in principle, be no less than 90%; the energy consumption per unit of product of park enterprises should meet or exceed the secondary energy consumption quota standard; and the comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste, comprehensive utilization rate of waste heat, waste cold, and waste pressure, and industrial water reuse rate should reach above 80%, 50%, and 80%, respectively. This means that the construction focus of zero-carbon parks is not only increasing green electricity supply but also reducing energy consumption in production and auxiliary systems, recovering and utilizing residual energy and heat, and improving water resource and solid waste recycling levels.

On the energy supply side, green electricity direct connection is an important path to achieving high-proportion green electricity consumption. According to national policy, green electricity direct connection refers to a model in which new energy sources such as wind power and photovoltaics supply power to users through dedicated lines and achieve physically traceable electricity. For high-energy-load parks or parks facing export carbon footprint requirements, the significance of green electricity direct connection is not only obtaining green electricity certificates but also simultaneously building new energy sources, dedicated lines, energy storage regulation, and operation management mechanisms so that the park can stably consume traceable green electricity.

The relationship between national-level standards and provincial-level standards combines "unified bottom line and locally adapted pathways." The national-level indicator system focuses on specifying acceptance results, namely the carbon intensity and clean energy and resource utilization levels that the park should ultimately achieve; provincial policies usually further refine implementation pathways based on local energy endowments, industry types, and construction foundations. For example, Sichuan incorporates zero-carbon management institutions, enterprise carbon accounting, green electricity direct supply, source-grid-load-storage, smart microgrids, and energy storage configuration into its evaluation system; Yunnan adds special indicators on top of benchmarking national indicators; and Jiangsu advances construction from six aspects: energy efficiency, production processes, energy supply, infrastructure, resource recycling, and digital-intelligent management. Therefore, provincial policies can answer "how exactly to build" for parks but cannot replace the binding constraints of national-level acceptance on core carbon intensity indicators.

Renovation and transformation demand corresponding to standards

The construction and transformation of zero-carbon parks can be summarized into two main lines: first, building an integrated "source-grid-load-storage" energy system around green electricity direct connection and high-proportion new energy consumption; second, implementing low-carbon transformation of existing production, auxiliary, and resource utilization systems. The former addresses "where energy comes from and how to stably deliver it to the park," while the latter addresses "how to reduce emissions from existing energy use and production processes." Both require support from energy-carbon data platforms for measurement, tracking, scheduling, and accounting.

It should be noted that not every park needs to fully configure the above projects. Resource-based and high-energy-load parks typically focus on external renewable energy bases, green electricity direct connection, energy storage regulation, and process decarbonization; manufacturing parks are more likely to focus on distributed photovoltaics, auxiliary system energy conservation, green electricity trading, and energy-carbon management; ports, logistics, and port-adjacent parks also need to add shore power, charging and swapping, low-carbon transportation, and port area energy facilities. Construction plans should be based on carbon emission baselines, load curves, renewable resources, heating methods, and leading industry processes to form a "one park, one policy" project list.

Zero-carbon park funding demand estimation

Among the first batch of 52 national-level zero-carbon parks, most have not yet publicly disclosed complete construction project lists that can be verified item by item. Some parks have announced planned investment amounts, but the scopes vary significantly. Overall, zero-carbon park investment can be divided into industrial investment and zero-carbon investment. Industrial investment refers to the park's own industries, mainly low-carbon industries such as new energy vehicles and wind-solar storage, and may also include emerging industries such as data centers or transforming industries such as chemicals. Zero-carbon investment includes various infrastructure and equipment renovation and transformation for achieving zero-carbon goals.

Currently, the estimated investment amounts of various scopes announced by 22 national-level zero-carbon parks exceed 700 billion yuan. Among all investments, we pay more attention to the incremental investment serving zero-carbon goals. Cangdong National-Level Zero-Carbon Park has published a detailed investment project list, and we define the zero-carbon investment measurement scope as "energy, energy-saving, recycling, and energy-carbon management projects directly built by the park to achieve zero-carbon goals, as well as park supporting facilities and infrastructure serving these goals." Industrial expansion projects such as battery manufacturing are not included. This scope aims to estimate the engineering investment required for park zero-carbon construction and is not equivalent to all park investment attraction or the full lifecycle emission reduction costs of individual enterprise products.

Cangdong's 2026 zero-carbon park project list includes 25 projects with a total investment of 19.401 billion yuan. Among them, identified direct zero-carbon construction investment is 4.703 billion yuan, and zero-carbon supporting and infrastructure investment is 218 million yuan, totaling 4.921 billion yuan. Considering that among the overall investment (industry plus zero-carbon transformation) already published for zero-carbon parks, Cangdong Zero-Carbon Park is at a mid-range level, it can be estimated that the zero-carbon transformation investment corresponding to the 52 zero-carbon parks is on the scale of hundreds of billions of yuan.

Sustainable finance tools support zero-carbon park development

A zero-carbon park is not an investment project completed by a single entity at one time; its funding sources should match asset attributes, construction entities, and debt-service cash flows. Park roads and pipe networks, reclaimed water, and public energy-carbon management platforms have strong public attributes and are usually coordinated by local governments or park platforms; energy assets such as new energy sources, green electricity direct connection, energy storage, and distribution networks can be invested and operated by power generation enterprises, grid enterprises, or integrated energy service providers; enterprise energy-saving transformation, waste heat utilization, and electrification transformation are mainly implemented by energy-using enterprises. National policies on zero-carbon park construction also explicitly support the participation of multiple entities such as local governments, park enterprises, power generation enterprises, grid enterprises, and integrated energy service providers, and propose supporting construction through existing funding channels, local government special bonds, policy bank medium- and long-term credit, and eligible enterprise bonds.

The funding sources for different construction projects depend on the public attributes of assets, cash flow stability, and technical risks. Energy assets such as green electricity direct connection, new energy, energy storage, and microgrids, if they have clear electricity purchase/sale or service revenue, can be financed by professional operating entities based on project returns through capital contributions, green credit, or project financing; public supporting facilities such as roads and pipe networks, reclaimed water, and public energy-carbon platforms have weaker returns and are suitable for fiscal funds, eligible special bonds, and policy-based medium- and long-term funds; enterprise energy-saving transformation mainly uses energy-saving returns as repayment sources and is suitable for green loans, equipment renewal loans, financial leasing, or energy management contracts. Projects such as hydrogen energy and long-duration energy storage, whose technologies and business models are not yet mature, need more industrial capital, industrial funds, or risk-sharing arrangements.

Sustainable finance is the most direct and systematic external funding channel for zero-carbon park construction and has now formed a multi-level tool system of debt instruments, equity and rights instruments, and environmental rights instruments. Since the People's Bank of China and six other departments issued the "Guiding Opinions on Building a Green Financial System" in 2016, China's green financial institutional framework has continued to improve; the "Green Finance Supported Projects Catalogue (2025 Edition)" unified the project identification standards for products such as green loans and green bonds, and in 2025 the General Offices of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Promoting Green and Low-Carbon Transformation and Strengthening the Construction of the National Carbon Market," further incorporating carbon finance into the top-level institutional agenda. Applied to zero-carbon park scenarios, debt instruments include green credit and ESG bonds, mainly used to match large, long-term engineering funds during the construction period; non-debt instruments include sovereign-type funds, financial leasing, and REITs, mainly used to supplement capital, cover equipment investment, and revitalize existing assets.

From the perspective of policy deployment, financial support for zero-carbon parks has entered an institutionalized and productized stage. The "Notice on Carrying Out Zero-Carbon Park Construction" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and two other departments clearly proposed supporting zero-carbon park construction through existing funding channels, local government special bonds, policy bank medium- and long-term credit, and eligible enterprise bonds; in March 2025, the Jiangsu Branch of the People's Bank of China, together with the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, and the Provincial Department of Finance, issued the "Implementation Plan for Financial Support for High-Quality Development of Zero-Carbon Parks," becoming the country's first provincial-level special policy for financial support of zero-carbon parks; the "Shanghai Zero-Carbon Park Construction Work Plan" issued in September 2026 further requires guiding financial institutions to improve precise investment mechanisms and innovate green financial products. The certainty of green infrastructure investment in zero-carbon parks, the cash flow attributes of assets, and the accounting foundation of carbon assets together constitute the scenario foundation for deep involvement of sustainable finance tools.

Debt instruments

Debt instruments are the most important source of funds during the construction period of zero-carbon parks. Zero-carbon park investment is mainly in energy infrastructure, energy-saving transformation, and public supporting projects, featuring large capital expenditures, long payback periods, and relatively stable cash flows, with the highest degree of match with the risk-return characteristics of debt financing. Structurally, green credit occupies an absolute dominant position in China's green financial system and is the main funding source for park projects and equipment transformation; green bonds, transition bonds, and sustainability-linked bonds provide medium- and long-term direct financing for park platforms and large enterprises; policy arrangements such as the carbon emission reduction support tool and fiscal interest subsidies further reduce the actual financing costs in key areas.

Green credit: the main force of the green financial system

Green credit has maintained high growth and has become the absolute main force of the green financial system. Statistics from the People's Bank of China show that by the end of the second quarter of 2026, the balance of green loans in domestic and foreign currencies was 48.63 trillion yuan, up 14.5% year-on-year, increasing by 3.82 trillion yuan in the first half of the year, with a growth rate significantly higher than the overall 5.2% growth rate of RMB loans during the same period. From the investment structure, loans for green upgrading of infrastructure and the clean energy industry account for the highest proportion, which highly overlaps with the investment direction of zero-carbon park energy supply system transformation and green upgrading of public infrastructure. Park green electricity direct connection, energy storage, microgrid, and energy-saving transformation projects naturally fall within the scope of green credit support.

In terms of financing costs, supported by the People's Bank of China's carbon emission reduction tool, green credit has a clear interest rate advantage. The carbon emission reduction support tool is a financial policy tool created by the People's Bank of China in November 2021, aiming to provide low-cost funds to financial institutions through a "lend first, borrow later" mechanism, guiding them to extend loans to clean energy, energy conservation and environmental protection, and carbon emission reduction technology fields. The carbon emission reduction tool initially provided financial institutions with funding support at 60% of loan principal, with an interest rate of 1.75%, a term of 1 year, extendable twice. After multiple policy extensions and interest rate cuts, the current one-year relending rate has been lowered to 1.25%. In January 2026, the People's Bank of China decided to include projects with direct carbon emission reduction effects such as energy-saving transformation, green upgrading, and green low-carbon energy transformation in the support areas of the carbon emission reduction support tool, further expanding policy coverage. At the same time, the total operation volume for the full year of 2026 shall not exceed 800 billion yuan, expected to leverage trillion-yuan-level green credit.

Jiangsu built the country's first provincial-level financial support policy framework for zero-carbon parks and took the lead in implementing products. In March 2025, the Jiangsu Branch of the People's Bank of China, together with the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, and the Provincial Department of Finance, issued the "Implementation Plan for Financial Support for High-Quality Development of Zero-Carbon Parks," the country's first provincial-level special plan for financial support of zero-carbon parks, officially launching the "Zero-Carbon Park Loan" product. The core innovation is incorporating the park's green electricity consumption ratio, carbon emission intensity, and carbon emission reduction into bank credit approval and risk management basis, and encouraging carbon asset pledges and syndicated loans. Subsequently, Bank of Nanjing issued a special work plan to support zero-carbon park construction and has signed green and low-carbon strategic cooperation agreements with nearly 30 parks; by the end of 2025, the loan balance in fields related to zero-carbon park construction exceeded 19 billion yuan. Among them, more than 1.3 billion yuan in green credit was cumulatively provided for zero-carbon industrial park pilots such as Yancheng Sheyang Port, Binhai Port, and Dafeng Port, including fishery-solar complementary photovoltaic project loans, sustainability-linked loans, and green agricultural carbon sink loans; Bank of Jiangsu implemented the first carbon account-linked loan in Yancheng Zero-Carbon Industrial Park, implementing differentiated pricing based on enterprise carbon performance, becoming a representative case of combining linkage mechanisms with park carbon management.

In the future, green credit is expected to evolve toward carbon account-driven and park-wide comprehensive solutions. With the improvement of systems such as carbon pledges and carbon repurchases, environmental rights pledge financing is expected to scale up. The credit foundation will extend from single projects to park or enterprise carbon accounts. In addition, comprehensive financial services for the park as a whole are expected to account for a larger proportion. For example, Industrial Bank has launched a "financing plus intelligence" comprehensive service plan around low-carbon and zero-carbon park construction. Bank of Nanjing's 2026 semi-annual report disclosed that it implemented Jiangsu Province's first batch of special financial service plans for zero-carbon parks, covering the entire process of park planning, construction, and operation, providing comprehensive financial support for carbon reduction, equipment renewal, and energy-saving technological transformation.

ESG bonds: an important financing source for green finance

China's ESG bond market is large in scale and is an important financing source for green finance. According to Wind statistics, as of the end of September 2026, there were 4,277 outstanding ESG bonds, with an outstanding scale exceeding 6 trillion yuan. Green bond proceeds are invested in clean energy, green transportation, pollution treatment, and other fields, highly compatible with the project spectrum of zero-carbon parks. Bond varieties have formed a complete spectrum of "green bonds plus transition bonds plus sustainability-linked bonds." Carbon-neutral bonds within green bonds specifically use proceeds for projects with carbon emission reduction benefits; transition bonds specifically serve the low-carbon transformation of high-carbon industries; and sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) link coupon rates to key performance indicators (KPIs) such as carbon emission reduction and energy consumption intensity. Overall, various types of ESG bonds can provide financing support for zero-carbon park construction.

For park construction entities, ESG bonds provide medium- and long-term, batch-based direct financing channels. ESG bond issuance rates are basically flat or slightly lower than same-term credit bonds, and proceeds can be aligned with green industry catalogues such as the "Green Finance Supported Projects Catalogue (2025 Edition)." In November 2025, the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the General Office of the People's Bank of China issued the "Notice on Making Good Use of Green Financial Policies to Support Green Factory Construction," supporting eligible enterprises in issuing green bonds and transition bonds, focusing on supporting national green factories in implementing investments using green and low-carbon technologies listed in the "Green Finance Supported Projects Catalogue (2025 Edition)." Enterprises rated as national green factories within parks thereby obtain a direct policy basis for bond financing.

Green industries are already relatively mature in financing through ESG bonds. There are already quite mature cases of green bonds supporting related industries. CATL has been rolling out green technology innovation bonds since 2026 (first tranche of 5 billion yuan, multiple tranches throughout the year). The green projects disclosed in the prospectus are four major bases in Fuding, Liyang, Yibin, and Jining, among which the parks where Fuding, Liyang, and Yibin are located (Fuding Industrial Park, Liyang High-Tech Zone, and Yibin Lingang Eastern Industrial Park) have also been selected in the first batch of national-level zero-carbon park lists. The funds are used for the daily operation of subsidiary lithium-ion battery production projects. With the development of zero-carbon parks, ESG bonds are also expected to provide funding support in the industry and low-carbon transformation of zero-carbon parks. Compared with green credit, bond financing has larger single transaction sizes and longer terms, making it more suitable for undertaking funding needs at the park platform level.

Non-debt instruments

Non-debt instruments address the capital constraints and asset revitalization issues of zero-carbon park construction. Zero-carbon park projects have large investment scales and long payback periods, and relying solely on debt financing will push up asset-liability ratios and exacerbate refinancing risks. Among different types of non-debt instruments, sovereign-type funds ease capital gaps through equity investment, financial leasing broadens financing boundaries based on equipment asset credit, and REITs provide standardized exit channels for completed energy and park infrastructure.

Sovereign-type funds (national development funds, local special funds, etc.)

Central budget investment provides a source of capital supplementation for zero-carbon parks. In September 2025, the National Development and Reform Commission formulated the "Special Management Measures for Central Budget Investment in Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction," which supports low-carbon, zero-carbon, and negative-carbon demonstration projects, with a support ratio of 20% of approved total investment. The special measure explicitly proposes supporting projects such as energy supply facility construction, infrastructure transformation, and process carbon reduction transformation in zero-carbon parks and zero-carbon transportation corridors to achieve near-zero carbon goals. At the same time, it also supports basic capacity building such as carbon emission measurement, statistics, accounting, and monitoring. Central budget investment funds arranged under the special measure are provided through direct investment, capital injection, investment subsidies, and other methods according to actual conditions.

National-level green-themed funds have also become an important source of equity investment. China Green Development Fund Co., Ltd. was established in July 2020 with an initial scale of 88.5 billion yuan, jointly funded by the Ministry of Finance and 11 provincial and municipal finance departments along the Yangtze River Economic Belt and attracting social capital participation, focusing on environmental protection and pollution prevention, ecological restoration, energy and resource conservation and utilization, green transportation, and clean energy. By the end of 2025, the fund had completed investment decisions on 83 projects with a decision amount of 41.753 billion yuan, of which approximately 20 billion yuan was used for sub-fund investments, demonstrating obvious leveraging and amplification effects of fiscal funds. In addition, the 2026 Government Work Report and the "15th Five-Year Plan Carbon Peak Action Plan" issued by the State Council both clearly proposed establishing a national low-carbon transition fund and leveraging more commercial capital into low-carbon transition projects.

The synergy between local special funds and zero-carbon park construction is also expected to gradually materialize. The "Shanghai Zero-Carbon Park Construction Work Plan" issued in September 2026 proposed coordinating national and municipal related funds to support technology integration and demonstration projects in park energy-saving transformation, renewable energy development and utilization, and smart energy-carbon management. Looking ahead, government funds are expected to extend from investing in industries to investing in parks and infrastructure. As the first batch of zero-carbon parks enters the project implementation period and green electricity direct connection, energy storage, and microgrid projects gradually gain stable cash flows, they are suitable for funds to intervene through equity and other methods, playing a capital supply role in leveraging social capital; the linkage between national-level funds and local zero-carbon park special funds is expected to become closer, sinking to the park project level through sub-funds and joint investment to improve the circular use efficiency of fiscal funds.

Financial leasing: highly compatible with zero-carbon park investment

Green leasing has become the core engine of growth in the leasing industry and is highly compatible with the equipment-intensive investment of zero-carbon parks. As of the end of 2025, the total scale of green leasing assets nationwide reached 2.06 trillion yuan, up 11.7% year-on-year. From 2024 data, green financial leasing has become the industry's largest incremental direction. The "financing plus asset" characteristics of financial leasing enable it to cover almost all zero-carbon transformation equipment categories, including distributed photovoltaics, commercial and industrial energy storage, charging piles, waste heat utilization, and updates of high-efficiency motors and air conditioning and air compressor systems: leasing companies hold equipment ownership, and lessees pay rent in installments, significantly reducing the one-time capital expenditure of park enterprises.

Leading financial leasing companies have formed batch service models for park distributed energy and can directly connect with zero-carbon park demand. China CITIC Financial Leasing landed a 120 million yuan commercial and industrial rooftop distributed photovoltaic financial leasing project in November 2021 with three wholly owned subsidiaries of BOE Energy Technology; CMBC Financial Leasing's "Distributed Photovoltaic Leasing Solution: Centralized Credit Enhancement Small-Single Business Model" was selected as an excellent work achievement of the Shanghai Banking Association in 2023; BOCOM Financial Leasing's "You Neng Zu" commercial and industrial distributed power station "1+N" product was selected as one of the first national green leasing annual innovation cases, and it established a distributed photovoltaic and energy storage business innovation task group. At the same time, leasing companies, using equipment assets as a link, can jointly provide integrated renewable energy solutions for parks with integrated energy service providers.

REITs: an important way to revitalize existing assets and recover early-stage funds

The public REITs market has entered a stage of regular issuance, and green asset types continue to expand. In July 2024, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Notice on Comprehensively Promoting the Regular Issuance of Real Estate Investment Trust Fund Projects in the Infrastructure Field," promoting REITs issuance from pilot to regular operation, simplifying application procedures, and opening an institutional channel for the securitization of park new energy assets and industrial park properties.

New energy REITs have moved from pilot to batch supply. In March 2023, CITIC Securities National Power Investment New Energy REIT and AVIC Jingneng International Energy REIT were among the first listed, achieving a breakthrough in new energy public REITs; subsequently, Harvest China Power Construction Clean Energy REIT and China Transfar Electric New Energy REIT were successively launched, enriching asset types such as wind power, photovoltaics, and hydropower; since 2026, Huatai Three Gorges New Energy REIT (issuance scale 4.007 billion yuan) and AVIC CNNC Huineng New Energy REIT (issuance scale 2.324 billion yuan) have completed fundraising, with sponsors covering large power central enterprises such as State Power Investment, Three Gorges Group, and CNNC. Industrial park REITs and new asset REITs such as data centers have also expanded simultaneously. New energy REITs have validated the complete closed loop of "invest, finance, build, manage, and exit" for green electricity assets, and industrial park REITs provide a funding mechanism for park platforms to revitalize existing assets and feed back into zero-carbon transformation. The underlying assets of the first batch of new energy REITs were offshore wind power and photovoltaic power stations, and after listing, their operating stability and dividend levels were recognized by the market. The issuance scale of individual new energy REITs issued in 2026 has significantly expanded compared with those issued in 2024-2025.

For zero-carbon parks, the significance of REITs lies in providing standardized exit channels for new energy assets. Industrial park REITs such as Zhangjiang, Lingang, and Suzhou Industrial Park have been successively listed. Park development entities recover funds by selling mature properties and invest them in new parks and green transformation, forming a rolling model of "development-operation-securitization-reinvestment." Standard factory buildings, R&D buildings, and supporting energy facilities held by park platforms in zero-carbon park construction can all be included in the scope of REITs reserve assets, together with new energy REITs forming two paths for revitalizing park existing assets.

Thematic investment opportunities brought by zero-carbon parks

Energy system transformation

Green electricity direct connection projects supporting new loads are the prerequisite for zero-carbon parks to meet standards, and power access, distribution network transformation, and energy storage projects are the most certain investment directions during the construction period. In terms of policy, according to national-level zero-carbon park assessment rules, parks with annual comprehensive energy consumption of 200,000 to 1 million tons of standard coal should have carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption of no more than 0.2 tons of CO2 per ton of standard coal, and parks with energy consumption exceeding 1 million tons of standard coal have a limit of 0.3 tons of CO2 per ton of standard coal; after completion, the green electricity direct supply ratio should, in principle, be no less than 50% of park electricity consumption, and the clean energy consumption proportion should strive to reach above 90%. The mandatory policy requirements bring certain investment demand for green electricity sources and supporting facilities. Various provinces have issued documents to constrain energy storage configuration in zero-carbon parks, fully implementing source-grid-load-storage in zero-carbon parks. Shanghai, Jiangsu, and other places require provincial-level zero-carbon parks to configure a certain proportion of energy storage to promote consumption.

From the perspective of source-grid-load-storage system construction, 38 integrated source-grid-load-storage projects nationwide made actual progress in 2025. According to the project scenario distribution of China Energy Storage Network, industrial parks are one of the core carriers for integrated source-grid-load-storage implementation, with the number of integrated source-grid-load-storage projects in industrial park scenarios ranking first, totaling 19, or 50%; from the perspective of energy storage application, the user side is the current main direction of source-grid-load-storage construction, occupying an absolutely dominant position, totaling 28, or 74%, mainly corresponding to industrial park and transportation sector projects.

Low-carbon transformation of equipment and technology

Industrial park energy consumption is mainly divided into four categories, with production equipment energy consumption accounting for the highest proportion, requiring key attention to investment opportunities brought by related equipment updates. First, production equipment energy consumption accounts for 60%-80% of park energy consumption, including high-energy-consuming industrial boilers, kilns, compressor units, motor drives, and various production lines; second, public engineering and power auxiliary systems serving as general power support, including air compressor units, industrial refrigeration and heating pipe networks; third, park buildings and HVAC lighting, covering factory and office building HVAC and lighting; fourth, internal park logistics and transportation, involving mobile energy use scenarios such as heavy trucks, forklifts, and AGVs in the factory area. Together, these four constitute the full picture of refined energy-carbon management in parks.

High-energy-load industries can achieve carbon reduction through technological or equipment progress. According to information from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, petrochemical enterprises in Ningbo Petrochemical Economic and Technological Development Zone have accelerated energy-saving and carbon reduction transformation by introducing heavy regenerated oil liquid-phase selective hydrodeolefination technology (FHDO) to replace the clay adsorption process with high solid waste disposal risks and costs, reducing waste clay by more than 1,000 tons per year and reducing carbon emissions by 1,800 tons; using "ultrasonic plus centrifugal dehydration" technology to treat oil sludge, reducing annual oil sludge generation by more than 10,000 tons and reducing carbon emissions by more than 4,000 tons. At the production end, carbon governance can also be carried out, using technologies such as CCUS to reduce carbon emissions.

Domestic and international zero-carbon park cases

Domestic practice: Ordos Mengsu Economic Development Zone Zero-Carbon Industrial Park

Ordos Mengsu Economic Development Zone Zero-Carbon Industrial Park leverages the low-cost green electricity advantage of integrated wind-solar-storage to attract investment. The park is jointly built by the Ordos Municipal Government, Yijinholo Banner Government, and Envision Group and is the world's first implemented zero-carbon industrial park. The park has deployed wind and solar farms within a 150-kilometer radius, built a 385,000-kilowatt wind-solar-storage integrated project, generating approximately 900 million kilowatt-hours of green electricity annually, and through a microgrid achieves 80% green electricity self-generated direct supply and 20% grid trading. Cheap and traceable green electricity directly lowers the electricity costs of high-energy-load manufacturing enterprises. The park's new energy industry output value jumped from approximately 10 billion yuan in 2023 to 20.09 billion yuan in 2024, and the park's total industrial output value reached 65.29 billion yuan. The park extends the industrial chain around green electricity to support industrial transformation. The park has laid out five major zero-carbon industrial chain clusters according to "wind-solar-hydrogen-storage-vehicle," with projects such as Envision AESC batteries, Rongli, Baofeng, and CATL successively landing or starting construction; the government has completed a 10-million-kilowatt new energy planning scheme, established a green power company in the incremental distribution area, and set up a net-zero industrial environment service company and carbon footprint accounting platform. According to the plan, during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the park's green electricity consumption scale will reach 10 billion kilowatt-hours, more than ten times the current level.

Domestic practice: Yancheng Dafeng Port Zero-Carbon Industrial Park

Dafeng Port is backed by offshore wind farms and enjoys unique conditions. Dafeng has 112 kilometers of coastline, 4,844 square kilometers of sea area, and more than 1,000 square kilometers of tidal flats. The average annual wind speed at 100 meters offshore exceeds 7.6 meters per second, and annual sunshine hours exceed 2,000 hours, with abundant wind and solar resources. Under superior natural conditions, Yancheng's offshore wind power installed capacity accounts for 46% of Jiangsu Province, 15% of the country, and about 8% of the world. In 2025, Dafeng's total new energy power generation exceeded 10 billion kilowatt-hours, fully meeting the clean energy consumption demand of the zero-carbon park.

Yancheng Dafeng Port Zero-Carbon Industrial Park helps enterprises go overseas with traceable direct green electricity. Export enterprises need to achieve verifiable green electricity sources, traceable flows, and provable data, and green electricity verifiability has become a hard threshold for entering supply chains. Yancheng Dafeng Port Zero-Carbon Industrial Park cooperated with State Grid Yancheng Power Supply Company to transform the 110kV Jincheng substation by relocating all other loads on the II bus section, making the bus section a dedicated green electricity line supplying park loads, building a physically traceable "source-grid-load-storage" integrated new power system based on the existing State Grid architecture, and obtaining BSI certification and approval; the electricity-carbon factor dropped to 0.14 tons of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour, more than 75% lower than the national grid average. Using green electricity resources to attract projects, the park successfully attracted a batch of export-oriented enterprises such as Shanghai Forever, Weina Hongxin, and Shawang Technology.

In terms of energy-carbon management, Yancheng Dafeng Port Zero-Carbon Industrial Park also provides smart management services. The park takes enterprise energy use and carbon emission data as management objects and, through three core functional modules, achieves closed-loop management from monitoring, accounting, to optimization: first, the data collection and monitoring module. Through intelligent sensors deployed at wind and solar stations, substations, and enterprise production workshops, it collects green electricity data in real time and accurately, as well as carbon emission data during enterprise production. The platform screen updates park energy-carbon data in real time, displaying each enterprise's energy consumption, carbon emissions, and green electricity use. Second, the carbon footprint accounting and certification module. The platform has built-in internationally common carbon accounting standards and can automatically match accounting rules according to enterprise export destinations. Enterprise users only need to log into the enterprise end and input basic production data, and the system automatically generates carbon emission inventory reports that meet international standards. Currently, this service covers 81 industrial enterprises above designated size in Dafeng Port Economic Development Zone. Third, the intelligent regulation and optimization module. Based on artificial intelligence algorithms and combining multi-dimensional data such as enterprise electricity demand and product export destinations, the platform provides enterprises with personalized energy efficiency optimization plans and carbon emission reduction pathway recommendations.

Overseas practice: Kalundborg Park in Denmark

Kalundborg Park is a typical example of carbon reduction in high-energy-load industries, reducing carbon and pollution through industrial symbiosis. Kalundborg Park is an industrial system composed of four enterprises: a coal-fired power plant, an oil refinery, a pharmaceutical plant, and a gypsum board plant. Among them, the core nodes of the park are the Asnaes coal-fired power plant and the Statoil refinery. Through combined heat and power, the coal-fired power plant saves approximately 100 million kilowatt-hours of electricity or fuel consumption annually. Based on the Kalundborg symbiosis system and scientific data, using 2015 as a baseline, enterprises in the symbiosis system have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 80%, an annual reduction of 586,000 tons. At the same time, through the exchange of wastewater and waste materials throughout the industrial system, pollution reduction and resource synergy have been achieved.

Overseas practice: Saudi NEOM-Oxagon Net-Zero Industrial City

Saudi Oxagon is the "net-zero industrial city" planned by NEOM, and its planning mainly includes two aspects. First, as an important port hub in the planned Red Sea region, Oxagon will develop a fully automated logistics hub, adopting a technical solution combining renewable energy and intelligent systems, with the goal of making Oxagon an energy and data hub. Therefore, energy self-sufficiency is the core of the port strategy: the port area design extensively uses on-site renewable energy to support shore power operations and provide cleaner and more resilient energy supply; while maximizing renewable energy use, it also designs supporting systems to ensure power supply reliability and reserves expansion plans for electricity demand growth. Second, Oxagon is building the world's first gigawatt-scale green hydrogen project. The project has a total investment of 8.4 billion US dollars, jointly developed by NEOM, ACWA Power, and Air Products, and plans to support approximately 4GW of wind and photovoltaic power sources, producing approximately 600 tons of green hydrogen per day, which will be synthesized into green ammonia for export; the project is expected to commence production in 2027, by which time it can produce up to 1.2 million tons of green ammonia annually, serving the decarbonization of global hard-to-abate industries such as heavy industry and transportation. The project location has superior wind and solar resource conditions and is adjacent to a port: equipment and materials during construction can be shipped directly by sea, and after completion, green ammonia can be directly loaded and shipped out, significantly improving construction and export efficiency.

Summary and recommendations

Zero-carbon parks are the pivotal carrier for the "dual carbon" goals to move from top-level institutions to physical engineering and are also the next systemic focus for sustainable finance. With the establishment of the standardized institutional framework by Fa Gai Huan Zi [2025] No. 910 in June 2025 and the implementation of the first batch of 52 national-level zero-carbon park lists in December 2025, China's zero-carbon park construction has officially shifted from policy deployment to the practical stage of project implementation and acceptance certification. Looking ahead to the "15th Five-Year Plan," we propose the following summary and recommendations from the park side, financial side, and policy side.

Park side: reconstruct emission reduction systematically and make carbon reduction capability a core competitiveness for investment attraction. The national-level indicator system uses "carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption" as the core acceptance constraint and uses a clean energy consumption proportion of no less than 90%, comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste of 80%, utilization rate of waste heat, cold, and pressure of 50%, and industrial water reuse rate of 80% as guiding requirements. This means that a zero-carbon park is not a superposition of renewable power projects but a comprehensive systemic transformation. On one hand, the park should build an integrated "source-grid-load-storage" energy system with green electricity direct connection as the key path; on the other hand, it should carry out low-carbon updates of production, auxiliary, and resource utilization links. Therefore, we recommend planning the project list starting from carbon emission baselines and load curves, prioritizing physical platforms such as green electricity direct connection and energy storage; at the same time, it is necessary to build an energy-carbon data platform so that carbon data can be measured, reported, and verified, thereby forming tradable carbon assets and traceable green electricity supply. This will create a park that effectively reduces export carbon costs for enterprises.

Financial side: move from single products to comprehensive services and build parks into a high ground for green finance scenarios. Zero-carbon park investment has risk-return characteristics of large capital expenditures, long payback periods, and relatively stable cash flows, naturally matching sustainable finance tools. We advocate that financial institutions treat zero-carbon parks as an important direction for green finance and carry out green financial innovation. Taking Jiangsu's "Zero-Carbon Park Loan" as a reference, the park's green electricity consumption ratio, carbon emission intensity, and carbon emission reduction can be incorporated into credit approval and risk pricing, promoting the credit foundation to extend from single projects to park and enterprise carbon accounts. At the same time, more actively promote the application of financial products such as REITs in the zero-carbon park field.

Policy side: improve incentive mechanisms so that carbon reduction can be accounted, monetized, and sustained. Policy has completed a "three-step" process: the initial stage consolidated the foundation with green industrial parks and circular transformation, the intermediate stage established unified standards and acceptance mechanisms with Document No. 910, and the current stage promotes the transformation of institutions into projects with the first batch of lists. Looking ahead, we expect policy to continue strengthening in three directions: first, improve price and revenue mechanisms, accelerate the clarification of green electricity direct connection prices and transmission and distribution prices, and improve energy storage capacity compensation and revenue mechanisms so that the most certain green electricity and energy storage investments obtain sustainable returns; second, strengthen the institutional connection of environmental rights, promote mutual recognition and interoperability of green certificates, carbon markets, and carbon footprint accounting, avoid double counting, and accelerate mutual recognition between park carbon accounting standards and international certification to help export-oriented enterprises respond to green trade rules such as CBAM; third, broaden funding channels, expand the coverage of carbon emission reduction support tools and fiscal interest subsidies, encourage special bonds, policy finance, and government funds to sink into park projects in the form of capital, and advance the selection of subsequent batches of zero-carbon parks through a regular mechanism to stabilize market expectations.

Overall, zero-carbon parks translate the dual carbon goals into physical projects that can be accounted, accepted, and have cash flows. Under the three-way resonance of policy, parks, and sustainable finance, zero-carbon parks are expected to reshape the infrastructure track for industrial green development during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period.