China Securities Co.,Ltd.: Zero-carbon park construction has become a systematic project and is expected to become a main line of resonance between green finance and industrial investment.

China Securities Co.,Ltd. released a research report stating that in China, industrial parks hold a dual strategic position as both carriers of economic growth and scenarios for carbon emission control. Under the guidance of the Central Economic Work Conference and supporting policies from multiple government departments, zero-carbon park construction has become a systematic project in China. According to the firm's estimates, investment in zero-carbon retrofitting of national-level zero-carbon parks alone is in the hundreds of billions of yuan. At the level of sustainable financial instruments, green credit, ESG bonds, and green leasing have already reached scale, and are highly compatible with the project characteristics of parkslarge capital expenditure, long payback periods, and stable cash flows from some assets. Cases such as Inner Mongolia ERDOS Resources Monsu and Yancheng Dafeng Port have validated the commercial closed loop of "low-cost traceable green electricity + industrial agglomeration," and zero-carbon parks are expected to become the next main line of resonance between green finance and industrial investment. The main views of China Securities Co.,Ltd. are as follows: 1 Zero-carbon parks are the next key focus for sustainable finance The fundamental reason zero-carbon parks can become a new core focus for sustainable finance lies in the dual strategic position of various parks, mainly 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 systematic zero-carbon construction. On the one hand, through industrial agglomeration, infrastructure integration, and optimized allocation of factor resources, parks have become core spatial carriers supporting China's new industrialization, industrial structure upgrading, and opening-up layout, and are 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 core lever for achieving the "dual carbon" goals in China's industrial sector. Against this backdrop, domestic policies for green and low-carbon development of parks have shifted from single-point quality improvement models such as energy-saving retrofitting, resource recycling, and green factory construction to a systematic construction model that takes the park as an overall unit and coordinates energy structure, industrial system, infrastructure, and carbon asset management. In December 2025, with the landing of the first batch of national-level zero-carbon park construction lists, top-level institutional requirements are being comprehensively transformed into physical engineering and implemented projects. This transformation not only restructures the park's energy supply model and industrial organization form, but also broadens the service boundary of sustainable finance, upgrading traditional single energy-saving and environmental protection project services to a comprehensive park project service system covering green electricity utilization, energy storage support, energy efficiency improvement, resource recycling, and digital carbon management, opening up new business scenarios and investment tracks for financial institutions. 1.1 Parks hold important strategic status in China Parks possess the dual attributes of economic growth carriers and green transformation units. From the economic dimension, parks undertake manufacturing investment, promote industrial division of labor and collaboration, and cultivate industrial chain synergy advantages and economies of scale by agglomerating market entities, integrating supporting facilities, and optimizing resource allocation. From the low-carbon dimension, highly concentrated industrial production activities, centralized energy supply systems, and public supporting facilities make them the main carrying areas for domestic energy consumption and carbon emissions. Based on this, various parks, mainly industrial parks, are both core platforms for advancing China's new industrialization, industrial upgrading, and expanding opening-up, and core implementation scenarios for low-carbon transformation and carbon emission reduction in the industrial sector. 1.1.1 Parks account for a large proportion of China's total economy Various parks are core spatial carriers for undertaking manufacturing investment, organizing industrial division of labor and collaboration, and promoting opening-up. Through unified planning and intensive allocation of resources such as land, standard factories, energy supply, logistics support, pollution treatment, and public services, parks can guide upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain to geographically agglomerate, effectively reducing collaboration costs between enterprises and marginal costs of public service supply, 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 the Reform and Innovative Development of Development Zones," which explicitly stated that various development zones, as important components of industrial parks, have played an irreplaceable role in promoting institutional reform, improving the investment environment, guiding industrial agglomeration, 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 with higher industrial levels, key national policy support, and focused 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 the 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, 232 national-level economic development zones across the country 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, the secondary industry added value of national-level economic development zones accounts for approximately 19.9% of the national secondary industry added value. This indicator shows that national-level economic development zones have agglomerated a relatively large scale of industrial and related production activities, and are important spatial units for observing green transformation of manufacturing, park infrastructure retrofitting, and low-carbon upgrading of industrial chains. From the perspective of advanced manufacturing and innovation resource agglomeration, national economic development zones and high-tech zones have a significant supporting role in 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 national GDP, and achieved tax revenue of approximately 2.1 trillion yuan; their industrial added value exceeded 10 trillion yuan, accounting for 24.1% of national industrial added value. Based on data released 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 relatively large proportion of the national economy. Based on the concentration of industrial output, the overall scale of the park system, and comparable statistical data from high-level parks, it can be judged that parks account for a relatively high proportion of China's industrial economy and regional economic development. The relatively high proportion of national-level economic development zones and national high-tech zones in national industrial added value fully demonstrates the highly concentrated characteristics of manufacturing and related economic activities within park spaces. Parks are therefore an important spatial organization form for promoting industrial growth, technological innovation, industrial chain collaboration, and green and 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. After comparing 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 one by one, among the 52 national-level zero-carbon park construction targets, 12 are located in national-level economic development zones and 5 are located in national high-tech zones, totaling 17, accounting for 32.7%. The remaining 35 are built on other economic development zones or port economic zones, other high-tech industrial development zones, industrial parks, industrial parks, and special functional carriers such as bonded zones, new districts, and science and 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 regional GDP; operating revenue of industrial enterprises above designated size was 4,187.932 billion yuan, accounting for 70.6% of the province; tax revenue was 195.155 billion yuan, accounting for 41.8% of the province. Provincial-level reply data from the Liaoning Provincial Department of Commerce show that in 2024, the regional GDP, general public budget revenue, actual utilized foreign investment, and import and export volume achieved by 106 provincial-level and above economic development zones in the province accounted for 36.0%, 40.9%, 49.8%, and 61.6% of the province's total, respectively, including 92 economic development zones and 14 high-tech industrial development zones. A survey by the Standing Committee of the Yunnan Provincial People's Congress shows that in 2024, 89 development zones across the province contributed 20% of the province's regional GDP, 40% of industrial investment, and nearly 80% of industrial output value above designated size with less than 1% of the land area, 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. 1.1.2 Parks also account for a relatively 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 core scenarios 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, equipment manufacturing, and other sectors are agglomerated, along with supporting public infrastructure such as centralized heating, power supply, sewage 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 national total carbon emissions. According to estimates in Tsinghua University's "China Industrial Park Green and Low-Carbon Development Report (2023)," there are 2,543 national-level and provincial-level parks, 80% of industrial enterprises are concentrated in parks, and carbon emissions from national-level and provincial-level parks account for 31% of national carbon emissions. Recent emission data from micro-level industrial parks also corroborates the above conclusion. Taking Ningbo Petrochemical Economic and Technological Development Zone as an example, in 2024 the park's carbon emissions exceeded 11 million tons, 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 the city scale. The carbon intensity baseline disclosed in the latest policy interpretation further reflects the significant deep decarbonization pressure currently faced by 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," proposing that the current national park carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption are approximately 2.1 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of standard coal. According to the national-level zero-carbon park construction indicator system, parks with annual comprehensive energy consumption in the range of 200,000-1 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 is inseparable from systematic retrofitting of industrial parks. 1.2 Policy efforts on zero-carbon park construction China's park green and low-carbon policies have gradually shifted from individual retrofitting focused on energy conservation, recycling, and green manufacturing to systematic construction that takes the park as a unit and coordinates energy, industry, infrastructure, and carbon management. The main line of policy evolution can be summarized into three stages: in the initial stage, green park creation and park circular transformation consolidated the foundation for low-carbon development; in the middle stage, zero-carbon park construction was incorporated into national top-level deployment, establishing a unified standardized construction framework; at the current stage, through the landing of the first batch of national-level zero-carbon park lists, institutional norms are being comprehensively transformed into physical engineering projects and implementation results. Along with policy iteration, the goal of park low-carbon governance has achieved a deep upgrade from "reducing resource and environmental consumption intensity" to "building a near-zero emission comprehensive 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 upgrading of industrial structure, 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 park comprehensive project system covering green electricity application, energy storage support, energy efficiency upgrading, circular economy, and digital carbon management. 1.2.1 Initial stage: Green industrial parks Green industrial park creation and park circular transformation are the policy source and practical foundation 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 industrial parks characterized by high consumption, high emissions, and low recycling, 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 transformation such as cascade energy utilization, water resource recycling, solid waste exchange utilization, and intensive land use, promoting the green transformation of parks from scattered exploration to large-scale creation. Subsequent policies continued to complete the park green and low-carbon governance system, 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" park circular transformation work, clarifying that by the end of 2025, provincial-level and above parks with conditions should basically complete circular transformation, focusing on improving the utilization efficiency of water, land, energy, and other resources, and coordinating the reduction of carbon dioxide, solid waste, wastewater, and major air pollutant emissions. The carbon peak park pilot further enriched the practical scenarios of systematic 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 Gradient 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 operation management, and positioning them as platforms for the agglomeration 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 systematic 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 carbon peaking by 2030. 1.2.2 Development: Proposal of zero-carbon park construction On the practical basis 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 systematic task serving macroeconomic green transformation and industrial competitiveness improvement. Zero-carbon park construction thus entered an institutionalized construction stage oriented toward near-zero emissions and taking the park as an overall 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 stage significance linking the past and the future. The Central Economic Work Conference undertakes the important function of deploying the next year's economic work. 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 layout of the "15th Five-Year Plan," and the critical window period for carbon peaking before 2030. The "Action Plan for Carbon Peaking Before 2030" proposed that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, a solid foundation should be laid for carbon peaking, and during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, low-carbon development models in key areas should basically take shape, ensuring the achievement of the carbon peaking goal 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 peaking goals. The 2025 Government Work Report further transformed 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 together with 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 denial 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 relatively high carbon intensity of parks indicates that traditional individual 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 park carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption are 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 200,000-1 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 stock efficiency to systematic transformation jointly advanced through 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 footprint and carbon labeling certification provide the rule basis for carbon information accounting, certification, and supply chain transmission across the product life cycle, and parks provide a common physical carrier for green energy supply, public infrastructure retrofitting, and enterprise energy-carbon data management. In this policy coordination 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 support, and multi-energy complementary systems, parks can enhance renewable energy consumption capacity; through low-carbon upgrading of industrial structure, coordinated retrofitting of public infrastructure, and refined energy-carbon management across the entire area, 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 the 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. 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 should be taken as an overall unit to coordinate 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 entire 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 systematic coordination. The document supports parks in developing green electricity direct connection, nearby access 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 an industrial development model of "using green to produce green." Zero-carbon parks therefore do not obtain a "zero-carbon" label through a single project or simply purchasing carbon offsets, but form a replicable and scalable industrial near-zero emission transformation pathway through collaborative innovation in energy supply, industrial organization, infrastructure, and investment and financing mechanisms. 1.2.3 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 announcement - project implementation - 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 according to 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 list reflects the common characteristics of nationwide coverage, adapting to local conditions, and supporting manufacturing transformation with green electricity. The National Development and Reform Commission introduced that the first batch of 52 parks achieved at least one park selected in each province (region, municipality) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, with appropriate toward regions rich in new energy resources and with good construction foundations; after the parks are completed, the green electricity direct supply proportion is expected to be no less than 50% of park electricity consumption, and carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption are expected to be 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 systematic 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 started major projects and key low-carbon project construction, 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 the country'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 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 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 access to green electricity dedicated lines, and through green electricity green certificate trading, carbon emission inventory, and international certification, enhancing green energy service capabilities for new energy and export-oriented enterprises. 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 jointly advanced by industrial low-carbon upgrading and carbon management services. After the launch of the first batch of national-level zero-carbon park construction, local supporting implementation plans are also continuously following up, promoting the extension of national deployment to projects, funds, and financial support mechanisms. In September 2026, the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission and the 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 photovoltaics and energy storage, microgrids, energy-saving and carbon-reduction retrofitting, resource recycling, and digital energy-carbon management. The plan also proposes coordinating relevant national and municipal funds to support technology integration and demonstration projects such as park energy-saving retrofitting, 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 entering 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 retrofitting. 2 Analysis of zero-carbon park scale and construction retrofitting 2.1 Zero-carbon park scale analysis 2.1.1 Zero-carbon park construction goals 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. The applicants are parks with industrial foundations, energy conditions, and carbon reduction potential. After the construction period expires, they must pass 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 (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 list 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; other regions each have 1. Park types are mainly "parks within parks," with a few created as entire parks, meaning construction boundaries generally focus on qualified industrial areas 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 as of September 2026 that can be verified by issuing departments as examples, Zhejiang has 39, Guangdong 15, Yunnan 15, Fujian 5, and Sichuan 4, totaling at least 78 provincial-level construction or cultivation units. 2.2 Zero-carbon park construction and retrofitting analysis 2.2.1 Zero-carbon park construction and retrofitting demand analysis 2.2.1.1 Zero-carbon park construction standards Zero-carbon park construction is not merely building several photovoltaic and energy storage projects, but systematically transforming energy supply, industrial production, and resource utilization with the goal of significantly reducing the overall carbon emission intensity of the park. 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 200,000-1 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 in principle not 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 guiding requirements from three aspects: energy structure, energy efficiency, and recycling: clean energy consumption proportion should in principle be no less than 90%, park enterprise energy consumption per unit of product should meet or exceed the secondary energy consumption limit standard, and industrial solid waste comprehensive utilization rate, waste heat, waste cold, and waste pressure comprehensive utilization rate, and industrial water reuse rate should reach 80%, 50%, and 80% or more, respectively. This means that the construction focus of zero-carbon parks is not only increasing green electricity supply, but also reducing energy consumption of production and auxiliary systems, recovering and utilizing waste energy and waste heat, and improving water resource and solid waste recycling levels. On the energy supply side, green electricity direct connection is an important pathway for 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, enabling the park to stably consume traceable green electricity. The relationship between national-level standards and provincial-level standards presents a combination of "unified bottom line and locally adapted pathways." The national-level indicator system focuses on specifying acceptance results, i.e., the carbon intensity and clean energy and resource utilization levels that the park should ultimately achieve; provincial-level 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 distinctive indicators on top of benchmarking national indicators; Jiangsu advances construction from six aspects: energy efficiency, production processes, energy supply, infrastructure, resource recycling, and digital-intelligent management. Therefore, provincial-level policies can answer "how specifically to build" for parks, but cannot replace the constraint of national-level acceptance on core carbon intensity indicators. 2.2.1.2 Retrofitting demand corresponding to standards Zero-carbon park construction and retrofitting 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 energy-carbon data platforms to provide measurement, tracking, scheduling, and accounting support. It should be noted that the above projects do not need to be fully configured in every park. Resource-based and high-energy-load parks usually 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; port, logistics, and port-side 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" engineering list. 2.2.2 Zero-carbon park funding demand estimation Among the first batch of 52 national-level zero-carbon parks, most parks 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 calibers vary significantly. Overall, zero-carbon park investment can be divided into two parts: industrial investment and zero-carbon investment. Industrial investment is for 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 retrofitting carried out to achieve zero-carbon goals. Currently, the estimated investment amounts of various calibers already announced by 22 national-level zero-carbon parks exceed 700 billion yuan. Among all investments, we pay more attention to the investment increment serving zero-carbon goals. Cangdong National-Level Zero-Carbon Park has announced a detailed investment project list. We define the zero-carbon investment estimation caliber 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 and infrastructure projects serving these goals." Industrial expansion projects such as battery manufacturing are not included. This caliber aims to estimate the engineering investment required for park zero-carbon construction, and is not equivalent to all park investment attraction, nor to the full life-cycle emission reduction cost of individual enterprise products. The Cangdong 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 zero-carbon park investments already published (industry + zero-carbon retrofitting), Cangdong Zero-Carbon Park is at the mid-range level, it can be estimated that the zero-carbon retrofitting investment scale corresponding to 52 zero-carbon parks is in the hundreds of billions of yuan. 3 Sustainable financial instruments supporting zero-carbon park development Zero-carbon parks are not investment projects completed by a single entity at one time; their 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 retrofitting, waste heat utilization, and electrification retrofitting 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 support through existing funding channels, local government special bonds, policy bank medium- and long-term credit, and qualified 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 configured with capital, green credit, or project financing by professional operating entities based on project revenue; public supporting facilities such as roads and pipe networks, reclaimed water, and public energy-carbon platforms have weaker revenue and are suitable for fiscal funds, qualified special bonds, and policy-based medium- and long-term funds; enterprise energy-saving retrofitting mainly uses energy-saving revenue as the repayment source and is suitable for green loans, equipment renewal loans, financial leasing, or energy performance contracting. Projects with technologies and business models that are not yet mature, such as hydrogen energy and long-duration energy storage, require 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 instrument 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 Project Catalogue (2025 Edition)" unified the project identification caliber for products such as green loans and green bonds. 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 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 the institutionalized and productized stage. The "Notice on Carrying Out Zero-Carbon Park Construction" by the National