The flagship report recently released by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) points out that under the combined pressures of multiple stressors and global warming, many critical water systems around the world have suffered irreversible damage, and the world has entered an &#34;era of global water resource bankruptcy.&#34; Water resource management has transcended the traditional scope of ensuring people's livelihoods and has risen to become a key measure of whether a country can achieve sustainable development.
Since the new era, China has adhered to the ecological civilization development concept that &#34;lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets,&#34; unwaveringly following the path of ecological priority and green development, and has integrated relevant concepts into the Paris Agreement, playing a key role in promoting the Paris Agreement. Among these, the management paradigm of water resources has shifted towards a &#34;high-quality, low-energy consumption, and recyclable&#34; transformation. In this green transformation, practitioners in the water industry, such as China Water (00855.HK), are stepping into the spotlight, shouldering the new era mission of pollution reduction and carbon reduction.
<img src="https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.kaiwn.cn/186b44fe-630a-4bf1-8d8e-dc3530827fe8/query-aW1hZ2VNb2dyMi9hdXRvLW9yaWVudC9zdHJpcC9xdWFsaXR5LzUw?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg" alt="" original-src="https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.kaiwn.cn/186b44fe-630a-4bf1-8d8e-dc3530827fe8/query-aW1hZ2VNb2dyMi9hdXRvLW9yaWVudC9zdHJpcC9xdWFsaXR5LzUw"/>
Water Supply + Direct Drinking Water: Green Transformation of the Water Industry Driven by Dual Wheels
Drinking water safety is fundamental to people's livelihoods and is the core foundation of the water industry's development. Our country places great importance on ensuring drinking water for urban and rural residents, strictly implementing unified national drinking water quality standards, and building a solid safety defense line for water supply from multiple dimensions, including systems, standards, and supervision, ensuring that municipal tap water quality remains stable and meets standards, fully safeguarding the health of the public's drinking water.
Currently, our country has established a comprehensive and full-chain water quality supervision system that covers everything from water source protection, water plant purification and treatment, to the delivery of water through municipal pipelines to residents' taps. At the same time, relying on a collaborative supervision mechanism involving multiple departments such as water resources, ecological environment, housing and urban-rural development, and health, the industry regularly conducts water quality sampling, online real-time monitoring, and pipeline inspection tracing. If any abnormal fluctuations in water quality occur, multi-level early warnings and cross-verification are triggered.
The comprehensive national water quality control system lays a solid foundation for the high-quality and green development of the water industry and sets higher requirements. As the only publicly listed utility company in the country focused on pipeline direct drinking water, China Water (00855.HK) not only concerns water supply safety but also carries the national strategic mission of reducing plastic and carbon emissions and ecological collaboration. Since its establishment, the company has adhered to the business philosophy of &#34;water as the foundation, achieving a good society,&#34; promoting the resonance of corporate strategy with national strategy, embedding environmental friendliness and sustainable development into its business layout, thereby achieving a connection from strategic vision to specific business.
Water supply and sewage treatment serve as the company's operational foundation, being both the core vehicle for urban pollution reduction and carbon emissions reduction and the key means to ensure drinking water for people's livelihoods. The company vigorously promotes the integrated layout of urban and rural water supply and drainage, strictly adhering to national water quality control standards, while firmly maintaining the bottom line of national water supply standards and solidifying comprehensive water safety guarantees, systematically optimizing regional water recycling systems, and significantly improving the efficiency of water resource allocation and comprehensive utilization
In addition, based on stabilizing the basic supply of water for people's livelihoods, CHINA WATER further proactively focuses on the dual-driven model of &#34;water supply + direct drinking water,&#34; a new track aimed at high-quality living demands with positive environmental benefits. Pipeline direct drinking water is not only a technological upgrade but also an innovative practice of systematic green infrastructure. Since strategically entering the direct drinking water field in 2015, the company has promoted the transformation of social drinking water consumption from &#34;bottle dependency&#34; to &#34;pipeline direct supply&#34; by constructing a national direct drinking water network, reducing the use of single-use plastics and lowering logistics carbon emissions from the source, thus giving its business a more distinct green ecological color.
From Implicit to Explicit: Value Reconstruction of Pipeline Direct Drinking Water Empowered by Carbon Inclusiveness
The environmental benefits of CHINA WATER in the pipeline direct drinking water field are realizing a value transformation from &#34;implicit&#34; to &#34;explicit&#34; through an innovative carbon inclusiveness mechanism.
Wuhan has become a key &#34;detonation point&#34; in this process. In 2025, the Wuhan Ecological Environment Bureau issued the &#34;Carbon Inclusiveness Methodology for Pipeline Direct Drinking Water Systems in Wuhan (Trial),&#34; becoming the first local carbon accounting standard for pipeline direct drinking water in China, providing a measurement basis for the emission reductions generated by replacing bottled water with direct drinking water, turning intangible environmental protection actions into measurable and reportable carbon assets.
The introduction of the carbon accounting standard did not come out of nowhere but is the result of scientific research cooperation between Hubei Yinlong Water and the Carbon Emission Reduction and Trading Research Center of Hubei University, rooted in Wuhan's continuous exploration in the green low-carbon field. As early as July 2024, at the China Carbon Market Conference held in Wuhan, the &#34;Zhong Carbon Deng&#34; building's low-carbon scenario demonstration point became the focus of the conference, with its pipeline direct drinking water system—derived from CHINA WATER's forward-looking layout—being regarded as a typical representative of &#34;Hubei practice,&#34; providing a complete logical closed loop from scenario demonstration to methodological upgrade for subsequent standard formulation.
<img src="https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.kaiwn.cn/dcc49c10-549b-4c62-ae94-2df74165c5cc/query-aW1hZ2VNb2dyMi9hdXRvLW9yaWVudC9zdHJpcC9xdWFsaXR5LzUw?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg" alt="" original-src="https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.kaiwn.cn/dcc49c10-549b-4c62-ae94-2df74165c5cc/query-aW1hZ2VNb2dyMi9hdXRvLW9yaWVudC9zdHJpcC9xdWFsaXR5LzUw"/>
Thanks to the introduction of the carbon inclusiveness methodology, green development has bid farewell to &#34;slogans&#34; and become a benefit that can be accurately calculated. According to scientific statistics, supplying 1 ton of pipeline direct drinking water is equivalent to reducing 54 kg of plastic use and 98.8 kg of carbon dioxide emissions. Taking CHINA WATER's sales of over 1 million tons of water in the fiscal year 2025 as an example, it can achieve a carbon reduction of 98,800 tons and a plastic reduction of 54,000 tons in a year, with environmental benefits equivalent to planting about 540,000 trees or taking 21,000 fuel vehicles off the road for a year. The measurable data not only makes the concept of &#34;lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets&#34; concrete and visible but also provides a practical path for cities to implement &#34;dual carbon&#34; goals and promote green transformation of production and lifestyle.
Therefore, CHINA WATER's practice in the pipeline direct drinking water field is no longer limited to a single project demonstration but has given rise to a replicable commercial paradigm. By standardizing, assetizing, and making the low-carbon attributes of infrastructure tradable, it has opened up a new dimension of profitability and valuation logic for the public utility industry
More importantly, it provides a mature methodology for transforming long-term environmental benefits into immediate market incentives, encouraging more peers to shift from &#34;passive emission reduction&#34; to &#34;active green creation&#34; value transformation.
Notably, the &#34;Water Cup&#34; direct drinking water technology under China Water, selected as one of the first low-carbon technologies by the Wuhan Carbon Neutrality Industry Research Institute, has been prominently promoted on the &#34;Wuhan Carbon Link&#34; platform and is gradually paving the way for &#34;technology - market application - carbon sink value transformation,&#34; laying the foundation for future participation in carbon market transactions.
Internal and external excellence: Dual verification of international certification and top ESG ratings
The outstanding performance in sustainable development stems from the company's rigorous internal governance. Currently, China Water has obtained management system certifications in quality, environment, and occupational health and safety, including ISO9001, ISO14001, and OHSAS18001, indicating that the company's operational management has reached an internationally advanced level.
At the same time, with a solid foundation in standardized management, the company's performance in the ESG field has also received high praise from the international capital market. The international authoritative index organization MSCI has awarded the company an ESG rating of &#34;A,&#34; and the international rating agency Moody's has given it the highest rating of &#34;SQS1 (Excellent),&#34; confirming the effectiveness and foresight of the company's long-term sustainable governance strategy.
From the blueprint of Wuhan to ecological leap: Reshaping the value boundary of water services with water as a pivot
The successful practice of the &#34;Wuhan Carbon Neutrality Tower&#34; provides a replicable and verifiable blueprint for the nationwide promotion of pipeline direct drinking water. In the future, pipeline direct drinking water is expected to emerge as a new type of urban infrastructure, deeply integrating with modern urban concepts such as smart cities, sponge cities, and zero-carbon communities, and achieving large-scale applications in scenarios such as hospitals, schools, office buildings, and large communities. It is noteworthy that policy levels are also promoting the nationwide dissemination of carbon-inclusive methodologies, exploring the inclusion of pipeline direct drinking water projects into national certified voluntary emission reduction (CCER) trading systems, allowing their emission reduction benefits to receive market incentives.
For China Water, its corporate vision is becoming increasingly clear: using &#34;water&#34; as a strategic pivot, through the synergy of water supply, sewage, and direct drinking water businesses, it strongly promotes social carbon reduction and pollution reduction, becoming a solid force in China's journey to achieve its &#34;dual carbon&#34; goals. The company demonstrates through practice that public utility enterprises can also become enablers of green transformation.
Under the multiple drives of national policy promotion and the market's shift towards high-quality development, China Water, as a core entity in the water industry, is gradually breaking away from the traditional single role of water operation and evolving into a comprehensive service provider integrating water resource management, environmental governance, and low-carbon cycles.
A cup of direct drinking water reflects the positive development trajectory of the enterprise and showcases the infinite possibilities of China's economic and social comprehensive green transformation

00855

The report from the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health points out that global water resources are facing a serious crisis. China adheres to the concept of ecological civilization development, promoting the transformation of water resource management towards high quality, low energy consumption, and circularity. CHINA WATER, as the only publicly listed company providing direct drinking water through pipelines, is committed to ensuring drinking water safety and undertaking the mission of pollution reduction and carbon reduction, promoting green transformation

From "Water Security" to "Water Civilization": CHINA WATER is deeply rooted in the green gene of direct drinking water