Statistics show that GDP-by-industry is over 4,500 billion Yuan in energy conservation, environmental protection and resources recycling industries in 2016. In the 13th “Five Years Plan”, the intended social investment in environmental protection will reach 17,000 billion Yuan, in which 8,600 billion Yuan will be put in the action plans against air, water and soil pollutions. Sales revenue of environmental protection industry in 2016 is about 1,150 billion Yuan, a 20% increase over the previous year. It is estimated that China’s annual green investments should be 3,000 to 4,000 billion Yuan by 2030 to meet the environmental protection target and peak value of carbon emissions.

In the view of Fu Tao, dean of E20 Institute of Environment Industry, the development of environmental protection industry (EPI) has been through three stages:

EPI 1.0: The environmental protection in the earliest stage mainly served the government and took care of the requirements of the government. If wastewater treatment is substandard, focus in wastewater treatment; if waste management is substandard, focus in waste management.

EPI 2.0: The issuance of a series of “ten-measure action plans” to tackle water, air and soil pollutions marked the arrival of second stage of environmental protection. The three “ten-measure action plans” required environmental effects. This stage examined the systematic service of enterprises.

EPI 3.0: Unlike the previous two stages which needed to spend government money, the third stage now is the practice period of “beautiful scenery is the gold and silver mines”, which means trying to spend less or even none of government money in ecological management.