[Monthly Report] Green Finance and Carbon Reduction: In-Depth Analysis of the Catalogue of Green Finance-Supported Projects (2025 Edition) for Promoting Ecological Civilization and a “Beautiful China”

Preface: Systematic updates under policy guidance and market evolution

To fully implement the guiding principles of the 20^th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the Second and Third Plenary Sessions of the 20^th Communist Party of China Central Committee, as well as to advance the strategic directives of the Central Financial Work Conference on “advancing green finance as a priority”, the People’s Bank of China (“PBoC”), the National Financial Regulatory Administration, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission jointly released the Catalogue of Green Finance-Supported Projects (2025 Edition) on June 27, 2025, which will take effect on October 1, 2025. This revision aims to further refine China’s green finance standards and foundational systems.

This revision is based on :

• Opinions on Accelerating the Comprehensive Green Transformation of Economic and Social Development issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council;
• Guiding Opinions on Further Strengthening Financial Support for the Green and Low-Carbon Development (PBoC Document No. 70 [2024]) issued by the PBoC, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the National Financial Regulatory Administration, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

Building upon the Catalogue of Industries for Green and Low-carbon Transition (2024 Edition) and the Green Bond Endorsed Projects Catalogue (2021 Edition) (PBoC Document No. 96 [2021]), the revision systematically optimizes and expands key aspects such as project classification, scope of applicability, and carbon reduction attribution.

The new version of the catalogue adheres to the principle of “uniform application and classified guidance” and clearly states:

• The new catalogue is uniformly applicable to all types of green financial products (except those listed on the Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing Stock Exchanges and issued shares, and listed on the New Third Board) ;
• Encourage market players to proactively connect with historical financial product standards such as green loans and green bonds ;
• Support green projects to actively adopt the new catalogue in terms of classification, information disclosure, product design, etc .;
• Incorporate a dynamic adjustment mechanism into the institutional framework to ensure that the catalogue is consistent with policy, technology and market developments .

The following is Lianhe Green’s concise interpretation of the “Catalogue of Green Finance-Supported Projects (2025 Edition)” for reference by relevant institutions. For complete entry content, please refer to the full text of the catalogue [1].

Structural Overview: Covering 9 key areas and promoting full-cycle management of green projects

Compared with the 6 major areas in the 2021 version, the “Catalogue of Green Finance-Supported Projects (2025 Edition)” has been adjusted and expanded to 9 major green industry fields, fully covering the main development directions of the green economy:

1. Energy-Saving and Carbon-Reduction Industry
2. Environmental Protection Industry
3. Resource Recycling Industry
4. Green Energy and Low-Carbon Transition
5. Ecological Protection, Restoration and Utilization
6. Green Infrastructure Upgrade
7. Green Services
8. Green Trade
9. Green Consumption

Among them, green services, green trade and green consumption are new areas.

Based on the approximately 200 green bond support projects in the 2021 version, the 2025 version of the catalogue has been refined and expanded to cover more than 1,000 national economic industry categories, and each category has been systematically defined from the following three core dimensions :

• Name of national economic industry category
• Project conditions / implementation standards
• Greenhouse gas emission reduction contribution attribute (“√√” indicates direct emission reduction benefits, “√” indicates indirect low-carbon enabling contribution)

Through this structured and standardized approach, the catalogue not only helps financial institutions quickly identify green projects, but also establishes a clear and transparent basic path for corporate project declaration, carbon performance disclosure, and financial instrument docking.

Highlights of the new catalogue: Technology-oriented + Carbon-oriented + Financial adaptation

The 2025 version of the catalogue has been systematically optimized based on the original framework. The main highlights include:

1. New carbon emission reduction attribute classification: innovative introduction of the “√/√√” mark, where “√” indicates low-carbon enabling effect, and “√√” indicates direct emission reduction benefits; those not marked are projects that do not yet have a clear emission reduction path; It is worth noting that the concept of “carbon enabling”, represented by the symbol “√”, also has parallels in international practice. The Green Bond Principles (2025 Edition) [2] introduce a similar concept of Green Enabling Projects, emphasizing that while such projects may not directly generate environmental benefits themselves, they play a critical supporting role in the development, manufacturing, implementation, or scaling-up of green projects. Both approaches reflect a shared recognition and inclusiveness toward the mechanism of “indirect contribution” within green finance support systems.
2. Closely follow the country's key strategic areas: comprehensively cover hydrogen energy, CCUS, smart grid, new energy storage, carbon capture, utilization and storage, and closely follow the key technology areas of the “14^th Five-Year Plan”;
3. Unify the applicable standards for various green financial products : The scope of application has been expanded from the 2021 version of “green bonds” to “green finance”, covering multiple products such as loans, insurance, and carbon finance, marking the comprehensive unification of the green finance caliber;
4. Strengthen the citation of technical standards : more than 100 national standards (GB) and industry standards (GB/T, HJ, JT, etc.) are cited, which is a significant increase compared to the 2021 version, enhancing the operability and uniformity of project identification, due diligence and verification ;
5. Clear support for green project identification and information disclosure: The 2025 version of the catalogue includes green finance compliance certification, environmental information disclosure, climate information disclosure, etc. in the scope of green support for the first time in the “professional technical services industry”. It encourages enterprises to combine carbon emission reduction attribute identification with professional consulting services in the process of applying for green bonds and loans, carry out project identification, information disclosure and carbon financial product design, and enhance the verifiability and transparency of green finance.

Lianhe Green Insight: New catalogue becomes key hub for integration of green finance and carbon market

The “Catalogue of the Green Finance-Supported Projects ( 2025 Edition)” marks that China's green finance has entered a new stage of systematic, standardized and data-based development. It not only provides a unified identification basis for green financial products, but also lays the foundation for green identification, carbon performance evaluation, financial product design, information disclosure and other links , indicating that the development of green finance in the next few years will show the following new trends :

1. Refined identification enables high-quality development of green finance

The new version of the catalogue upgrades the green project certification from traditional “environmental protection” and “energy-saving” labels to a structured system centered on project conditions and carbon emission reduction attributes , significantly improving the identification efficiency and verifiability of green assets, and helping to improve the standardization level and market comparability of financial products such as green loans and green bonds .

2. “Green + Transition” dual-track development to expand the boundaries of financial support

The catalogue systematically includes the field of “green and low-carbon transition of energy “ for the first time, responding to the financing demands of “transformable but not yet green” projects in high-carbon industries. The green transition of industries such as coal-fired power, steel, and cement will receive institutional recognition and financial channel support, and the pattern of parallel development of transition finance and green finance will be initially formed.

3. Carbon information management capability becomes one of the core capabilities of financial institutions

Carbon accounting, carbon monitoring, carbon asset management, carbon information disclosure, etc. are explicitly included in the supportable projects, which will promote financial institutions to gradually establish a capability system from carbon data identification - performance evaluation - risk management - continuous disclosure , and meet the management needs of the future integration of green finance and carbon markets .

4. Product innovation and policy collaboration space are fully opened

The new version of the catalogue provides classification basis and environmental benefit evaluation standards for green bonds, green linked-loans, transition and climate-themed finance, carbon asset securitization, etc., and promotes the integrated development of green financial products with carbon markets, ESG investments, and industrial policies.

Conclusion: Building an integrated ecosystem and consolidating the foundation for green development

Lianhe Green believes that the “Catalogue of Green Finance-Supported Projects (2025 Edition)” is not only an important milestone in the construction of China's green finance standard system, but also a key hub connecting green finance, carbon market, transition finance and ESG investment. Looking to the future, we should accelerate the construction of a green financial ecosystem guided by the government, dominated by the market and driven by data, and promote the deep integration of green and low-carbon development. In this context, enterprises should actively refer to the new version of the catalogue, systematically promote the identification, declaration, certification and carbon performance verification of green and transition projects, and comprehensively improve the management level and transparency of environmental information; at the same time, financial institutions should also continuously improve the green credit and bond management mechanism, strengthen the green asset identification and carbon information management capabilities, and improve the professionalization, digitization and compliance of green financial services, so as to provide strong support for the realization of the “dual carbon” goals and high-quality development.