Last week, the State Council of China issued the “Water Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan” (commonly known as the “Ten Measures for Water”)

While the “Ten Measures for Air” is being actively revised, the “Ten Measures for Soil” will be issued in the future. China’s strict environmental protection laws are being intensively introduced, demonstrating the government’s iron-fisted determination to control pollution. This has also led environmental industry professionals to see huge business opportunities. It is predicted that a series of environmental regulations will catalyze the birth of hundreds of thousands of industries.
 
 
On April 20, at the China Green Companies Annual Conference held in Shenyang, Liaoning, Chinese environmental protection industry professionals engaged in heated debates and reflections on future development.
 
 
The 2015 China Green Companies Annual Conference was attended by a thousand domestic and international business leaders, political figures, academic authorities, NGO representatives, and numerous media outlets, making it an annual grand event for Chinese private entrepreneurs.
 
 
“In China, the environmental protection industry has always been well-received but not well-performed. Compared to developed countries, we lack environmental protection enterprises that are truly large-scale and efficient,” said Wang Tie, Executive Vice President of Yikang Global. “Industry peers are discussing how to transform this ‘green’ industry that everyone advocates into a ‘golden’ industry with unlimited business opportunities.”
 
 
Since 2015, the Chinese government has successively introduced a series of increasingly stringent environmental protection policies. On January 1, the new Environmental Protection Law was implemented. This “law with teeth” was dubbed by Chinese netizens as “the strictest environmental protection law in history.”
Zhu Jinghai, Director of Liaoning Provincial Environmental Protection Department, stated that future environmental law enforcement will become increasingly strict. Last year, Liaoning Province filed 51 environmental pollution cases and arrested 71 criminal suspects.
 
As law-based pollution control and strict enforcement become the norm, market demand for environmental protection industries will further increase. China’s large-scale concentrated pollution control and government procurement of environmental services will promote the transformation and upgrade of China’s environmental protection industry. The diversification of environmental protection investment and financing entities will further stimulate market vitality.
 
“Strict environmental policies are favorable for us. If enterprises don’t increase investment in environmental protection, they face the risk of being shut down. This is a huge market,” said Zhou Xiaohua, General Manager of Veolia China Environmental Services. Industry professionals believe that China’s future environmental protection industry capacity will be at least 20 trillion yuan, while China’s current 20,000+ environmental protection enterprises only have an annual output value of several hundred billion yuan. Zhou Xiaohua said, “Even if all environmental protection companies worldwide participated in China’s pollution control, it wouldn’t be enough.”
 
Strict prevention is just passive deterrence against corporate environmental violations. Zhang Jianyu, China Program Director of the U.S. Environmental Defense Fund, stated that what truly motivates enterprises for environmental protection is the energy savings it brings, letting factory owners see the value of environmental investment.
 
Beijing Jianlong Heavy Industry Group Co., Ltd. is a large enterprise group producing steel, shipping, and electromechanical products. Chairman Zhang Weixiang said that high energy-consuming enterprises like steel must meet emission standards to survive. For this, they established an environmental protection company and built a professional environmental team to solve their pollution problems.
 
“From a practical perspective, the profits of the environmental protection industry far exceed the income of the steel industry. Now is a good time to invest in environmental protection, as the state provides preferential policies in taxation and credit for the environmental protection industry, giving hope to those in the industry,” said Zhang Weixiang.
 
Chen Yangchun, President of Shenzhen Techand Ecology & Environment Co., Ltd., said that in the future, China is likely to see environmental protection enterprises with hundred-billion-yuan scale, but China’s environmental protection industry still needs continuous technological improvement. “In the global and internet era, our existing technology falls far short of meeting practical needs. We need to enhance capital operation capabilities to make enterprises bigger and stronger.”
 
(Source: Xinhua News)