How Green Public Procurement Contributes to Sustainable Development in China

The report uses the IISD GPP Model to quantify the benefits of greening public procurement in China across five product categories: air conditioners, lighting, cars, paper, and cement. It argues that while some categories require an initial 'cost of leadership,' others pay for themselves through energy savings and avoided health and environmental costs. The document proposes 13 recommendations, including making GPP mandatory for state-owned enterprises and extending it to infrastructure procurement.

• The IISD GPP Model demonstrates that increasing GPP ambition and stringency in China leads to energy cost savings, avoided health costs, and avoided environmental costs. For lighting, cars, and paper, GPP is less expensive from an inclusive cost perspective than less stringent practices, meaning these categories 'pay for itself with time'.
• Certain product categories, specifically air conditioners and cement, involve a 'cost of GPP leadership,' where the higher fiscal costs of purchasing more efficient or sustainable options are not fully offset by energy savings and avoided health or environmental costs.
• Cars have the highest ratio of health and environmental costs relative to procurement spending; CNY 1 of spending is estimated to result in CNY 0.87 of such costs.
• Cement procurement represents the largest aggregate cost and has significant health and environmental impacts, which account for approximately 24 per cent of its total inclusive costs.
• The report recommends making GPP mandatory for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to leverage their significant spending power. For example, if SOEs complied with a goal to transition 30 per cent of vehicle fleets to low-emission models, avoided health and environment costs could increase from CNY 200 million to CNY 800 million.
• Infrastructure projects account for 59.9 per cent of total procurement in China, yet current GPP frameworks based on product lists are unsuitable for this sector. The report suggests moving toward a life-cycle approach and incorporating environmental and social performance requirements into Requests for Proposals (RfPs).
• The Energy Conservation Product (ECP) list is currently not stringent enough, with over 80 per cent of available products in categories like refrigerators and washing machines qualifying for the list, meaning it does not reflect best-in-class efficiency.
• The report suggests making the Environment Labelling Product (ELP) list mandatory, as its current voluntary nature reduces effectiveness and provides fewer incentives for manufacturers to improve environmental footprints.
• There is a critical lack of disaggregated public data on the values and volumes of government spend, which hinders the ability of policy-makers to assess value-for-money and optimize GPP.
• The report advocates for a shift from product-list-based procurement to decisions based on functional requirements and integrated services to optimize value-for-money across the product life cycle.

APA

Dion, J., Uzsoki, D., Denjean, B., Huo, L., Liebert, T., & Bo, H. (2015). How Green Public Procurement Contributes to Sustainable Development in China. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/how-gpp-contributes-sustainable-development-china.pdf

Chicago

Dion, Jason, David Uzsoki, Benjamin Denjean, Lei Huo, Tilmann Liebert, and Hu Bo. How Green Public Procurement Contributes to Sustainable Development in China. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2015. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/how-gpp-contributes-sustainable-development-china.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Dion |first1=Jason |last2=Uzsoki |first2=David |last3=Denjean |first3=Benjamin |last4=Huo |first4=Lei |last5=Liebert |first5=Tilmann |last6=Bo |first6=Hu |title=How Green Public Procurement Contributes to Sustainable Development in China |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=October 2015 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/how-gpp-contributes-sustainable-development-china.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{dion2015how, author = {Dion, Jason and Uzsoki, David and Denjean, Benjamin and Huo, Lei and Liebert, Tilmann and Bo, Hu}, title = {{How Green Public Procurement Contributes to Sustainable Development in China}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2015}, month = oct, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/how-gpp-contributes-sustainable-development-china.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }