"To green China’s overseas infrastructure, start with what it buys", 29 May 2026

[...] China has a lever to green its overseas infrastructure: using procurement rules to incentivise the use of lower-carbon steel and cement.

In a recent report [...] Steel and cement, the world’s two most emissions-intensive industrial sectors, make up nearly 20% of global CO2 emissions, making them major drivers of infrastructure’s carbon footprint.

Chinese development-financed infrastructure projects typically source cement domestically within the host country [...].

In contrast, we found case study evidence that steel may be more frequently imported from China [...]

[...] Chinese-supplied steel can carry up to 37% more embodied carbon than steel produced in or near most of the Global South countries hosting Chinese-backed projects. [...].

Green procurement [...] provides an opportunity for host countries. Chinese-designed frameworks that reward lower-carbon production could help local firms upgrade, reduce air pollution, build technical capacity, and stay competitive [...].

There are concrete steps they [...] can take now:

• Improving carbon transparency by requiring steel and cement producers involved in Chinese-financed overseas projects to disclose verified, product-level carbon emissions, [...].
• Establishing clear, tiered carbon-intensity benchmarks for steel and cement [...]
• Pairing standards with financial incentives for developers to make greener purchases, procurement performance metrics, and internal scoring systems [...]