Works**: Environmental Protection Circle Author: Fubo Wang
Editor's note:
It's the end of the year again, and it's time for the year-end review.
This Monday, the "environmental protection circle" has taken stock of the major events in the environmental protection industry in 2023(Related link: Environmental Protection People's 2023: When will the wealth of the sky come?)）
Yesterday, we took stock of the changes in the policy level in 2023 from the perspective of policy(Related link: In 2023, environmental protection was launched in the ICU).
Today, from the perspective of the industry, the "environmental protection circle" will sort out the trend of the environmental protection industry in 2023 and the signals revealed in it.
After the eleventh day of 2023, one"Well-known universities plan to withdraw environmental majors".The news began to circulate in the environmental protection industry.
It turned out that on October 8, the University of Science and Technology of China issued a "Announcement on the Proposed Revocation of 6 Undergraduate Majors such as "English" on its official website, and planned to apply to the Ministry of Education for the cancellation of 6 undergraduate majors such as environmental science (082503).
As public opinion gradually fermented, events began to reverse. A person familiar with the matter refuted the rumors that the university was actually only expanding the original "environmental science major" to "environmental science and engineering major", not abolishing it.
The turmoil is slowly subsiding, but the problems reflected in it are worth pondering for environmental protection peopleWhy does a seemingly ordinary news of the adjustment of college majors trigger such a big reaction from the environmental protection industry?Behind this news, which sensitive nerve has touched the environmental protection people?
"Xiao Yangchun" was later beaten back to its original shape.
The environmental protection industry has stepped out of the "inverted V" curve.
At first, everyone expected the downturn in the 2022 annual report.
At the end of January and the beginning of February, 44 environmental protection listed companies disclosed their 2022 performance forecasts, of which 31 had a year-on-year decline in net profit, accounting for 705%。
On 24 February, Everbright Environment issued a profit warning, expecting 2022 earnings to drop by about 30%-35% compared to 2021Become an everbright environmentFor the first time in years, earnings growth was "negative".
Everbright Environment
At the end of March, Everbright Environment's annual report was officially released, with revenue falling by 25% year-on-year20%, and the actual decline in net profit was 3237%, which is basically consistent with the profit warning theory.
Later, at the 2023 China Environmental Technology Conference, held concurrently with IE Expo China, Hu Yanguo, Executive Director and Vice President of Everbright Environment, also said frankly that environmental protection companies are now "having a very hard time", and as urbanization enters a certain stage, both solid waste and sewage have reached a bottleneck. Therefore, the statements of environmental protection listed companies this year are very ugly, and it is the first time in history that there has been such a big decline.
Everbright Environment's situation is representative of the status of most environmental protection enterprises in the past year. From April to May, the 2022 annual report of environmental protection listed companies was released. "Environmental Circle" counted the annual reports of 190 environmental protection companies listed in A-shares, Hong Kong stocks and Singapore, and found thatNearly half of the listed environmental protection companies' revenue declined, and more than sixty percent of the net profit of environmental protection listed companies declined.
However, at that time, the industry's expectations for 2023 were still relatively optimistic. With the end of epidemic control and the return of all walks of life to normal, the environmental protection industry has indeed ushered in a wave in the first half of the year"Little Yangchun".
In the first quarter, according to the statistics of the China Environmental Protection Industry Association, the market demand for ecological environmental governance stabilized and rebounded, the market expectation improved significantly, and the overall operation of the ecological and environmental protection industry showed a warming trend.
In the semi-annual report, BEWG's net profit increased year-on-year, Infore environment's operating income in the first half of the year100 million, CICC Environment's net profit increased significantly……Compared with the "annual report season" a few months ago, the semi-annual report data has improved significantly, and the performance has recovered significantly.
The most typical is the waste incineration market. As of June 30, a total of 35 new domestic waste incineration power generation projects (including EPC and new contracts) have been opened in Chinese mainland, and the total scale of new domestic waste incineration power generation treatment is about 2560,000 tons per day, significantly higher than the same period in 2021 and 2022.
It's a pity that this wave of ** didn't last long, and by the time of the third quarterly report, the data became worse again.
2023 third quarter report statistics.
Towards the end of the year, rumors of salary cuts, layoffs, and even corporate closures began to circulate in the industry, and people were panicked for a while.
Overall,The environmental protection industry has come out of a "pour."vword", first the first quarter and the first half of the year ushered in the "little spring", and then the third and fourth quarters were beaten back to their original shape.
The entire industry is still hovering at the bottom, and the "darkest hour" is not over.
The oolong of "well-known universities planning to withdraw environmental majors" happened to catch up with the low tide of the industry, which made people "touch the scene", so it had a great repercussion.
The industry has reached an inflection point.
Xiao Yangchun" is just a return to the light.
In 2023, why is the environmental protection industry "advanced and backward"?The cause needs to be looked at over a longer time dimension.
The reason why the 2022 annual report will become "the worst year in history" is that some people say that it is because of the epidemic, but in factThe deep-seated reason is the increasing saturation of the traditional pollution control market and the industryThe "inflection point" has arrived
Chen Yu consulting company has analyzed that under the influence of multiple factors, the development of some environmental protection market segments has exceeded expectations, and is expected to reach the inflection point in advanceThe sectors that have reached the inflection point ahead of schedule include: water supply, sewage, domestic garbage, livestock and poultry waste, sanitation, etc.
Tatsu Yu consults.
This is also confirmed by the latest bulletin on the state of urban development. On October 13, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development released the "2022 Communiqué on China's Urban Construction Status", and the results showed:
At the end of 2022, the national sewage treatment rate has reached 9811%, an increase of 022 percentage points;The centralized collection rate of urban domestic sewage has also reached 7006%, an increase of 1 over the previous year47 percentage points.
In 2022, the harmless treatment rate of municipal solid waste in China will be as high as 9990%, an increase of 002 percentage points;The harmless treatment capacity of domestic waste is 110940,000 tons per day, a year-on-year increase of 495%, of which the incineration treatment capacity accounts for 7253%。
CloseThe "sewage treatment rate" and "harmless treatment rate of municipal solid waste" indicate that the traditional environmental protection market is close to saturation, leaving extremely limited space for environmental protection enterprises.
Since the market has been saturated, why did there be another wave of "Xiaoyangchun" in the first half of the year?There are analysts who believe thatThis could be three years of the pandemic"Inventory", with the end of the control policy, was released all at once.
However, this kind of opportunity is hard to come by, and with the release of the stock, the environmental protection market is back to the real state.
Look for a second growth curve.
EnterpriseHave your own"Diamond diamond".
It is precisely based on this judgment that the topic of "finding the second growth curve" has been heard endlessly since the beginning of this year.
This issue is being discussed at several of the industry's top conferences. On March 1, the 2023 Environmental Entrepreneurs Meeting was held, and Li Qilin, President of the Environmental Chamber of Commerce of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and President of Fresh Environment, said that the environmental industry has experienced a beautiful era of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, and the bottoming period of the "New Crown Three Years".At present, we are exploring new development opportunities and building"Quadratic Growth Curve".
On March 23, at the "2023 (21st) Water Industry Strategy Forum", Fu Tao, chief partner of the e20 environmental platform and president of the research institute, believedThe year is the "first year of industrialization" of China's environmental industry, and it is also the starting point of the third wave, and "industrialization" will become the road of self-salvation of the environmental industry.
On April 19, the "24th IE Expo China 2023" opened in Shanghai, and Jiang Gang, general manager of China Trade Munich Exhibition (Shanghai)**, also said:The environmental protection industry is undergoing major changes unseen in many years, and it is not easy to draw a secondary growth curveThe success of this year's IE Expo China is timely, and it has built a communication platform for the industry to build consensus and see the direction clearly.
In the face of changes in the industry, how should environmental protection enterprises respond?The "environmental circle" has also interviewed many companies this year to try to find answers.
Some people think that it is necessary to do things that customers need more.
Pan Test (Beijing) Environmental Technology *** CEO Guan Zuguang said,It is not that the first period of environmental protection has passed, but that the bubble period has passed, and now it is the return of market rationality.
In this case, the enterprise must see the real needs of customers, do what customers need more and more justly, and spend money on the edge. If you can meet the needs of your customers, especially those"Difficult demand", then the market will always be yours.
There are also companies that use new technologies to win the market.
On December 20, it took only 89 days (some say 88 days) to complete the country's largest prefabricated sewage treatment plant, Xining Huangle Sewage Treatment Plant.
The reason why this is so is because it adopts the prefabricated sewage treatment plant construction model. Compared with traditional sewage plants, the construction period of prefabricated sewage plants is greatly shortened, the construction impact is greatly reduced, and the quality control is more stringent.
Therefore, there is a view that the prefabricated sewage plant represents the direction of the future "productization" of the environmental protection industry, and 2023 is also the "first year" of the prefabricated sewage plant.
Some companies have begun to embrace new tracks.
For example, Fujie Environmental Protection, from last year to the present, they have acquired two dual-carbon companies - Jiecarbon Technology and Beijing Blu Hydrogen Energy.
The reason for this is that it is hoped to build a full-chain demonstration project of hydrogen production, hydrogen storage and hydrogen use in the sewage treatment plant, and turn the sewage treatment plant into a hydrogen production plant. The large consumers of energy resources in the past have become a treasure trove of energy resources.
In the view of Fujie environmental protection,If it is still according to the original idea, constructionon the deviceCopy, that industry has indeed reached its peak, and the project "does one less one". However, if we adjust our thinking and look at the problem from the perspective of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality and resource and energy standards, we will find that sewage still contains great potential, and the market space in the future is also large enough.
In short, whether it is "doing what customers need more", or "using new technologies to win the market", or "embracing new tracks", these are all "upgraded" environmental protection markets, which are different from the original.
If you want to occupy it, environmental protection companies must have their own "diamonds", otherwise they have nothing to do with you.
Going around and around, it seems to go back to the old saying we often say-Environmental protection enterprises should insist on finding their own core competitiveness and have their own hard coreOnlyThat's ittalentsFind your own future