Green Public Procurement in China: Quantifying the benefits

The report examines China's green public procurement (GPP) landscape, highlighting a reliance on two product lists: the mandatory Energy Conservation Product (ECP) list and the voluntary Environment Labeling Product (ELP) list. It identifies significant barriers to effectiveness, including a fragmented legal framework split between the Bidding Law and the Government Procurement Law, a lack of life-cycle cost assessments, and corruption. The authors argue for a transition toward performance-based specifications and the expansion of GPP to include services and construction projects. To support this, the report introduces the 'China Green Public Procurement model,' a system dynamics tool designed to monetize and quantify the trade-offs and multiplier benefits of more ambitious GPP policies across various product categories.

• Public procurement in China represents a significant portion of national spending, with expenditures exceeding RMB 1.63 trillion (US$ 263.73 billion) in 2013, which was approximately 2.8 per cent of the country's GDP.
• China's GPP implementation primarily relies on two product lists: the Energy Conservation Product (ECP) list, where procurement is mandatory, and the Environment Labeling Product (ELP) list, where procurement is voluntary.
• The GPP system is hindered by a fragmented administrative structure where responsibilities are split across the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Ministry of Finance (MOF), and the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).
• A significant regulatory gap exists because several implementing regulations for the Bidding Law and the Government Procurement Law (GPL) have been drafted but not yet enacted.
• Public procurement is governed by two overlapping and sometimes conflicting legal frameworks: the Bidding Law and the Government Procurement Law (GPL).
• Current GPP effectiveness is limited because most award decisions are based on the initial purchase price rather than a life-cycle assessment of costs.
• There is a substantial opportunity to expand GPP beyond goods, as construction projects and services accounted for 59.9% and 8.7% of procurement shares respectively in 2012.
• Informal challenges, including corruption and the illegal practice of dividing large projects into smaller ones to avoid procurement thresholds, undermine the formal GPP rules.
• The IISD's China GPP model uses system dynamics to estimate the net impacts of GPP across economic (capital and current expenditure), social (employment and health), and environmental (greenhouse gas emissions and ecosystem services) spheres.
• The report recommends moving away from the 'lists approach' toward performance-based specifications to better incentivize market innovation and optimize value for money.

APA

Denjean, B., Dion, J., Huo, L., & Liebert, T. (2015). Green Public Procurement in China: Quantifying the benefits. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/green-public-procurement-china-quantifying-benefits-en.pdf

Chicago

Denjean, Benjamin, Jason Dion, Lei Huo, and Tilmann Liebert. Green Public Procurement in China: Quantifying the benefits. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2015. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/green-public-procurement-china-quantifying-benefits-en.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Denjean |first1=Benjamin |last2=Dion |first2=Jason |last3=Huo |first3=Lei |last4=Liebert |first4=Tilmann |title=Green Public Procurement in China: Quantifying the benefits |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=April 2015 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/green-public-procurement-china-quantifying-benefits-en.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{denjean2015green, author = {Denjean, Benjamin and Dion, Jason and Huo, Lei and Liebert, Tilmann}, title = {{Green Public Procurement in China: Quantifying the benefits}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2015}, month = apr, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/green-public-procurement-china-quantifying-benefits-en.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }