National subsidy repayments accelerate! Everbright Green Environmental turns profitable by 2025, with the debt ratio decreasing by nearly 5%

Our reporter Liu Shimeng, from chinatimes.net.cn, Beijing

In the spring of 2026, for the environmental protection industry that has been weighed down by accounts receivable, even though the “winter” has not yet passed, signs of a thaw have quietly arrived.

On March 18, China Everbright Greentech (1257.HK) released its 2025 annual results. For the year ended December 31, 2025, revenue was HK$6.729 billion, down 4% from last year. Despite the decline in revenue, the company successfully turned a profit in 2025. During the year, equity shareholders of the company recorded a profit of HK$113 million, while this figure was a loss of HK$415 million in 2024.

It is worth noting that over the past year, China Everbright Greentech’s asset-liability ratio has fallen. By the end of 2025, the company’s asset-liability ratio was 63.01%, down 4.89% from 67.90% at the end of 2024.

The driving force behind this is the acceleration of government subsidy payment collection (national subsidies). Liang Dong, Executive General Manager of China Everbright Greentech, told media including reporters from Huaxia Times that over the past year, China Everbright Greentech’s receipts of national subsidy payments hit a record high. Eight new projects were added to the national subsidy list, and all biomass power generation projects were included in the subsidy list. By the end of 2025, the company had received from local power grid companies national subsidy settlement notices for 46 renewable energy projects, totaling HK$2.951 billion, all of which has been received in full, reaching the highest level in its history.

How to turn a loss into a profit?

As a controlling subsidiary of Everbright Environment, China Everbright Greentech focuses on biomass integrated utilization, hazardous waste and solid waste disposal, environmental remediation, and photovoltaic and wind power businesses.

Looking at revenue from these sub-sectors in 2025: Revenue in the biomass integrated utilization segment fell by 3%, mainly due to lower revenue from construction services. However, benefiting from active expansion in the district heating market and continued deepening of fuel cost control, the segment’s EBITA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) increased by 1.3% compared with 2024. Revenue in the hazardous waste and solid waste disposal segment fell by 8%, mainly because the disposal unit prices for landfill and incineration of solid waste decreased by 16% and 4%, respectively, compared with the same period. By canceling, selling, and writing off assets for some projects, and by improving cost control on the operations side, the segment’s EBITA loss narrowed by 67% compared with 2024. Revenue in the environmental remediation segment grew by 7% year over year during the same period, but EBITA decreased by 412% year over year. The underlying reason is that although the value of bid-winning contracts during the year rose compared with the previous year, the development of the environmental remediation market was not as expected, leading to losses from impairment of intangible assets, properties, plants and equipment, goodwill, and right-of-use assets. Meanwhile, revenue in the photovoltaic power generation segment grew by 3% year over year, and EBITA also increased by 7% compared with 2024. Among them, wind power projects faced difficulties with electricity volume utilization in Shanxi province, resulting in grid-connected power generation from wind power projects falling compared with the same period last year. However, photovoltaic power generation projects, due to newly added projects operating during the year, saw grid-connected generation grow compared with the same period last year, boosting segment profitability.

China Everbright Greentech’s Chief Financial Officer Qu Ning introduced that the company’s revenue decline in 2025 was mainly because the domestic hazardous waste and solid waste disposal market recovery was weaker than expected. With intense industry competition, disposal unit prices continued to come under pressure, and with adjustments to the development strategy, revenue from construction services accordingly decreased. However, by controlling fuel costs and reducing operating costs, the company ultimately achieved a turnaround to profitability. When answering questions from Huaxia Times reporters, she said that in 2025 the company carried out a comprehensive inventory and review of its hazardous waste and solid waste projects, and cleared and rectified assets that were continuously loss-making, had poor returns, and were outdated and phased out, ultimately reducing the amount of impaired assets. In addition, although unit prices for hazardous waste and solid waste disposal in the 2025 market fell, based on the first two months of 2026, overall prices have shown a trend of stabilizing after declining.

Acceleration of the rollout of national subsidies

As for the balance sheet, by the end of 2025 the company’s total assets amounted to HK$34.604 billion, and net assets were HK$12.801 billion. The asset-liability ratio declined compared with last year. Qu Ning said that during the contract period, the company received HK$2.9 billion in national subsidies, and repaid interest-bearing liabilities. Interest-bearing liabilities decreased by HK$2.615 billion compared with the same period, and the current ratio reached 129.6%.

A Huaxia Times reporter noted that since the second half of last year, some solid waste companies have also disclosed an improvement in national subsidy payment receipts. For example, in September 2025, when answering questions from researchers, Zhongke Environmental Protection said the company received two batches of national subsidy payments in the past two months and expected national subsidy payment receipts to improve before year-end. In October 2025, on an interactive platform, Shengyuan Environmental Protection said that in July 2025, the Ministry of Finance allocated an annual budget of RMB 46.183 billion in renewable energy electricity surcharge and supplementary funds to the State Grid Corporation, of which RMB 3.942 billion was for biomass power generation. The company has already received multiple payments of national subsidy income so far.

A research report from Huatai Securities pointed out that 2025 was the second year of the three-year campaign to replace existing stock of hidden debts. Starting from the third quarter, national subsidy payment receipts for municipal waste-to-power incineration and biomass power generation in the environmental protection sector exceeded expectations. In addition to China Everbright Greentech, companies such as Sanfeng Environment, Weiming Environmental Protection, Green Power, and Wangneng Environment also received payment receipts in varying amounts.

In addition, in August 2025, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment released a draft for public comments of the third batch of CCER methodologies. It includes, among other things, grid-connected power generation from pure agricultural and forestry biomass and combined heat and power (CHP). As of now, this methodology has not yet been officially released. Liang Dong said that China Everbright Greentech has participated in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) since 2011, and is also one of the co-authors of the biomass power generation and CHP CCER methodology for this round. He said that in the future, the approval of the methodology will provide an opportunity for green and low-carbon industry products to obtain green premiums, and it will also create more room for the company’s profitability. Currently, the company’s main efforts in green value-added are to continuously expand sales channels for green certificates trading. In 2025, the volume of green certificates trading increased by 11.3 times compared with 2024, further enhancing its ability to generate green revenue.

For 2026, he revealed that China Everbright Greentech will closely follow the direction of biomass development, accelerate the promotion of the CHP model, and focus on improving the quality utilization of biomass in areas such as heating, sugarification, and gasification. It will focus on advancing the construction of application scenarios centered on zero-carbon parks, integrate wind power, photovoltaic, energy storage, and virtual power plant technologies to build a smart energy system, promote “dual carbon” businesses for the B2B side, and leverage existing market layout advantages to strengthen efforts in light-asset businesses such as heat and gas supply, electricity trading, and environmental remediation. By pushing for a new pattern of coordinated development that balances both “light” and “heavy” assets, the company will enhance its profitability and its ability to respond to market changes.

Responsible editor: Xu Yunqi Chief editor: Gong Peijia