During the 13th Five Year Plan period, there are six sub sectors of the environmental protection industry with significant market potential, namely soil remediation, environmental impact assessment, sponge cities, environmental monitoring, food waste treatment, and black and odorous water treatment.

However, in the trillion dollar environmental protection market, there are also significant opportunities for exploration in other environmental sub sectors.

Smart Environmental Protection

Smart environmental protection is a concept combining Internet technology and environmental informatization, that is, sensors and equipment are embedded into various environmental monitoring objects with the help of Internet of Things technology, and the Internet of Things in the environmental protection field is integrated through supercomputers and cloud computing, which can achieve the integration of human society and environmental business systems, and achieve the wisdom of environmental management and decision-making in a more refined and dynamic way.

From the perspective of environmental protection departments, smart environmental protection will play an important role in environmental impact assessment quality monitoring, pollution source monitoring, environmental emergency management, pollution discharge fee management, and other aspects.

From the perspective of polluting enterprises, smart environmental protection can accurately grasp the quantity indicators of wastewater, exhaust gas, waste residue, etc. generated by enterprises, thereby avoiding punishment from environmental protection departments due to excessive ｏｒ unqualified emissions

Through smart environmental protection, environmental monitoring can be made intelligent, systematic, and mobile, enabling related enterprises to transform from simply selling environmental monitoring instruments and equipment to becoming providers of overall environmental monitoring and governance solutions. These enterprises utilize smart environmental protection models to integrate regional environmental issues and solve local government pain points fundamentally by laying out a full range of monitoring.

According to analysis, overall environmental monitoring and governance solution providers are better able to enjoy development beyond the industry average growth rate compared to single category and pure governance companies, and gain more dividends from the huge market.

In April 2015, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development and the Ministry of Science and Technology announced the third batch of smart city pilot lists, and currently there are 290 smart city pilot projects. As an important component of smart cities, the scale of orders for smart environmental protection can be imagined.

Hazardous waste treatment

There are various types and complex properties of hazardous waste, and their pollution hazards exhibit long-term and hidden characteristics, which can easily lead to significant environmental pollution hazards. The characteristics of hazardous waste determine the importance and urgency of its management and disposal.

The hazardous waste treatment industry in China started around 2001 and has entered a rapid growth stage after more than ten years of development. However, due to the relatively complex hazardous waste treatment technology, large investment scale, and strict qualification certification required for enterprises entering the industry, the current industry market has not been opened up.

In addition, most of the hazardous waste treatment manufacturers in China are relatively small in scale and cannot effectively carry out hazardous waste treatment, which also dilutes the processing capacity of larger manufacturers. In addition, the actual hazardous waste recovery rate is not high, resulting in a low overall market operating rate.

However, as an important branch of the solid waste field, the prospects of the hazardous waste treatment market are still widely optimistic. According to analysis, due to the severe lack of hazardous waste treatment capacity in major polluting provinces in China, many hazardous wastes need to be transported to other places for treatment. The hazardous waste treatment field is likely to evolve into a situation where giant enterprises occupy a market share.

According to relevant professional institutions, the size of China's hazardous waste market is expected to reach around 100 billion yuan by 2020. At present, well-known enterprises in the environmental protection industry have also entered this blue ocean, and China's hazardous waste treatment market has ushered in good development opportunities.

Thermal power desulfurization and de sales

In recent years, the quality of China's atmospheric environment has not been optimistic. With the prolonged and widespread occurrence of severe weather such as haze, air pollution control has become the focus of almost everyone's attention.

The main pollutants in China's atmosphere are sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and dust. Data shows that sulfur dioxide emissions from thermal power and steel industries account for 55.4% of industrial sources; The nitrogen oxide emissions from the thermal power industry account for 65.4% of industrial sources; The smoke and dust emissions from the thermal power, cement, and steel industries account for 29.7% of industrial sources.

The Chinese thermal power desulfurization market originated around 1998 and has entered a mature stage after about 10 years of development. According to statistics, as of the end of 2014, the capacity of flue gas desulfurization units in thermal power plants that had been put into operation was about 760 million kilowatts, accounting for 83.0% of the capacity of thermal power units and 92.1% of the capacity of coal-fired power units.

At present, the development of flue gas desulfurization, denitrification, and dust removal in China's thermal power plants is basically mature. Some analyses indicate that the future growth of the desulfurization and denitrification market in thermal power plants will mainly come from the improvement of environmental standards and franchising in the operation process. The incremental market will come from the flue gas treatment of small boilers, steel, and cement.

Another analysis institution believes that the control of haze in China is urgent, and the law enforcement of air pollution control will be stricter in the future. The desulfurization and denitrification industry is expected to benefit significantly, and the market will usher in substantial growth.

Industrial wastewater treatment

The pollutants contained in industrial wastewater are complex and relatively difficult to treat compared to urban wastewater. The treatment of industrial wastewater usually requires the simultaneous cooperation of one ｏｒ several processes to achieve good results. At the same time, factors such as high technical barriers in the industry make China's industrial wastewater treatment industry still in the primary stage of development.

At present, the proportion of urban sewage treatment in China is relatively high, and it is expected that the growth of discharge will be relatively slow in the future, with little room for improvement in the proportion of treatment; However, the proportion of chemical wastewater treatment in China is relatively low, and there is great room for improvement in the future.

Data shows that in 2013, the total amount of wastewater discharged in China was 69.54 billion tons, of which 20.98 billion tons were industrial wastewater, accounting for 30%. The discharge of wastewater in the chemical industry is 9.3 billion tons, and the treatment capacity is 4.1 billion tons, with a treatment ratio of only 44%. The treatment capacity urgently needs to be improved.

Experts have analyzed that China's industrial wastewater has a large output, wide coverage, and diverse types, making it difficult and costly to treat. The chemical wastewater treatment market alone is expected to reach about 200 billion yuan per year in the future, nearly three times that of urban sewage.

With increasingly strict emission standards and stronger supervision, there will be more problems to be solved and improved in the treatment of industrial wastewater, which will also bring more market opportunities.