The "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Promoting the Development and Growth of the Private Economy" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions") has been released with significant impact and has drawn widespread attention. The private economy serves as an indicator of economic vitality, and for private enterprises and entrepreneurs, confidence is even more valuable than gold. The "Opinions" can be seen as a booster for all private enterprises and entrepreneurs.
The "Opinions" specifically mention the participation of private enterprises in carbon peaking and carbon neutrality: "Supporting private enterprises to increase their efforts in green and low-carbon transformation of production processes, equipment, and technology"; "Supporting private enterprises to participate in advancing carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, providing decarbonization technologies and services, increasing investment in renewable energy generation and energy storage, and participating in carbon emissions rights and energy use rights trading."
Some insights can be drawn from this:
The efforts of private enterprises in green and low-carbon transformation are relatively insufficient, and there is a need to increase efforts in this area in the future. State-owned enterprises have administrative mechanisms for regulation, while private enterprises mainly decide the level of their green and low-carbon transformation based on their own operations. The focus of "support" will be to provide private enterprises with equal treatment in market access, financial support, subsidy funding, and other aspects compared to state-owned enterprises.
Support for private enterprises' participation in the "dual-carbon" objectives clarifies that strategic dividends are primarily in three areas: decarbonization technologies and services, investment in new energy and energy storage, and participation in carbon trading. In simpler terms, this means funding, technology, services, and an active market. Compared with the previous requirement of state-owned enterprises' "transition towards professionalization and intensification" in the new energy sector, there is a noticeable difference. The implementation of the dual-carbon strategy requires extensive participation of private enterprises. To avoid the deeply-rooted dual-carbon goals from being "half seawater and half flames" in the implementation process, private enterprises have already been widely involved in the past two years since the dual-carbon goals were announced, but it is clear that their role needs to be more significant.
Furthermore, the "Opinions" also propose "exploring the establishment of a social responsibility evaluation system and incentive mechanism for private enterprises," which may imply the promotion of the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) evaluation system among private enterprises, and this awaits further observation.