Haikou charts path for sustainable future

Beneath the warm Hainan sun, a "solar tree" with silver-gray "leaves" quietly converts sunlight into electricity. Nearby, benches made of local volcanic stone, embedded with wireless chargers, offer park-goers a blend of rest and clean energy.

This is not a conceptual art exhibit, but a glimpse into daily operations at the Haikou National High-Tech Industrial Development Zone, recently selected as Hainan's sole pilot for a national-level zero-carbon park.

The scene here encapsulates a monumental, two-pronged push unfolding across China: creating tangible, from the ground up models of sustainable industry while simultaneously constructing a top-down financial architecture to fuel this green transition nationwide.

The Haikou zone aims to build a "model room" for a zero-carbon park with Hainan Free Trade Port characteristics within five years. Its strategy is comprehensively multidimensional, integrating low-carbon energy, construction and smart operations into a cohesive system.

Zheng Yuhua, general manager of the Hainan Special Economic Zone Donghu High-tech Investment Co, said the park's approach turns buildings themselves into "power generators" by deeply integrating photovoltaic panels into roofs and canopies. This is supported by essential energy storage systems and a smart energy management system for real-time dispatch, collectively forming a robust framework to effectively reduce carbon emissions.

The plan's vision also extends strategically beyond the park's immediate perimeter. Hong Jianhui, chief economist of the Haikou National High-Tech Industrial Development Zone, revealed a significant green power supply agreement with Datang International Power Generation Co Ltd, which will provide 100 to 400 million kilowatt-hours of offshore wind power annually to support the zone's long-term low-carbon development.

This initiative is part of a broader provincial drive, following detailed guidelines issued by Hainan's authorities in late December for building zero-carbon parks, which outline systematic tasks from creating new energy systems and upgrading infrastructure to implementing smart carbon management platforms.

Haikou's on-the-ground efforts are a focused microcosm of a vast national strategy where the "green factory" serves as the fundamental core unit. China has systematically cultivated 6,430 national-level green factories, 491 green industrial parks, and 727 green supply chains, promoting over 40,000 types of green products, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

These green factories now account for over 20 percent of China's manufacturing output by value, a substantial increase from just 9 percent in 2020. Their collective environmental impact is profoundly significant, with green industrial parks consuming only about two-thirds of the energy and one-fourth of the water per unit of industrial output compared to the national average, while also maintaining a solid waste utilization rate exceeding 95 percent.

Green manufacturing is a modern industrial model characterized by low resource consumption, minimal emissions, high efficiency and substantial benefits. In recent years, MIIT said it has accelerated the promotion and application of advanced green technologies and equipment in areas such as energy conservation, carbon reduction, water saving, environmental protection and comprehensive resource utilization.

According to MIIT, it has intensified efforts in green and low-carbon transformation, established a green manufacturing and service system, driven the coordinated transition of industrial and supply chains, and integrated the green development concept into the entire process of industrial production, achieving positive outcomes.

For instance, the advantages of China's green energy equipment industry have become more prominent. The nation's renewable energy products are exported to over 200 countries and regions, meeting more than 80 percent of global demand for photovoltaic modules and 70 percent for wind power equipment. This helps nations around the world, especially developing countries, access clean, reliable and affordable energy, data from MIIT show.

Meanwhile, from 2021 to 2024,China produced approximately 15.6 trillion kW of photovoltaic modules, helping the world generate about 3.2 trillion kilowatt-hours of green electricity and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by roughly 2.54 billion metric tons, MIIT said.

However, sustaining and accelerating this transformative growth require massive, sustained investment. Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), national green factories have undertaken over 10,000 green upgrade projects, with total investment exceeding 300 billion yuan ($43.1 billion), revealing a substantial and urgent demand for green financing.

Recognizing this critical need, MIIT and the People's Bank of China jointly issued a pivotal document in December, roughly translated as "Utilizing Green Financial Policies to Support Green Factory Development". The document establishes a vital working mechanism for green finance to support green factories.

Wang Peng, head of the department of energy conservation and comprehensive utilization at MIIT, said: "The policy aims to establish and improve the working mechanism for green finance supporting green factories, promote financial institutions to develop financial products supporting green manufacturing, and increase investment in areas like energy conservation, carbon reduction, water saving, environmental protection, and resource utilization for green factories."

The policy focuses its support on several key interconnected areas: facilitating breakthrough projects in traditional industries, such as major process innovation; boosting green upgrade projects for energy saving and pollution reduction; and crucially, supporting the construction of zero-carbon factories.

Moving beyond broad policy directives, the authorities are actively building specific, operational channels to efficiently connect green projects with necessary capital.

A central mechanism is the national industry-finance cooperation platform, which now hosts a dedicated industrial green development section. This section optimizes green labels for enterprises and features over a hundred tailored financial products such as "energy conservation loans" and "green factory loans". The effectiveness of this targeted approach is reflected in the growth data.

Lei Wen, deputy head of the finance department at MIIT, said in the first eleven months of 2025, green industrial loans grew by 22.3 percent year-on-year, reaching 73.56 billion yuan in new loans.

Furthermore, Wang from MIIT said the ministry has established formal working mechanisms with 12 major financial institutions, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Minsheng Bank, to strengthen policy guidance and support.

This evolving ecosystem is designed for precision and accessibility. Financial institutions are responding with integrated services. Yan Xinguo, chief manager of the corporate banking department at China Minsheng Bank, said: "We provide online credit-based 'Easy-Create' series products for listed technology companies, enabling faster start-ups and more stable growth."

He highlighted that the bank offers comprehensive services spanning equipment financing leases, investment wealth management and cross-border investment financing, and assists enterprises in issuing green innovation bonds.

On the regulatory side, Yu Jian, deputy head of the credit market department at PBOC, outlined the next steps for implementation. The central bank will utilize structural monetary policy tools and encourage financial institutions to optimize approval processes, develop tailored financial products like medium — and long-term loans, and broaden direct financing channels.

"We will continue to strengthen coordination with MIIT to guide financial institutions to standardize fund allocation management and ensure capital is directed toward genuine green projects," Yu said.

The ultimate goal is a continuous elevation of industrial standards, viewing green designation not as a final endpoint, but as a dynamic starting point for deeper transformation.

MIIT has unveiled plans to implement a "green factory quality improvement and expansion plan", with the ambitious aim of increasing the output value share of green factories at national, provincial and city levels to 40 percent by 2030, up from the current level of 20 percent.

The strategic path forward involves several interconnected initiatives: cultivating zero-carbon factories by encouraging existing green factories to dig deeper into carbon reduction potential; greening entire supply chains by leveraging the purchasing power of large corporations to drive upgrades across their supplier networks; and exploring innovative carbon footprint management by piloting data sharing for carbon emissions across interconnected supply chains.

These national directives have found their tangible expression in projects on the ground. Back in Haikou, the concrete projects underway — from smart vehicle dismantling and battery recycling to liquid hydrogen energy and methanol-powered commercial vehicle manufacturing — sketch the detailed blueprint for this sustainable future.

They represent the living reality of a national ambition, demonstrating that the powerful fusion of targeted financial mechanisms and localized, innovative execution is actively powering China's comprehensive industrial green transition, experts said.