Research on the Use of Government Procurement Policies to Support the Development of Outstanding ESG Enterprises

Government procurement, as an important component of GDP, plays a guiding role in the sustainable development of enterprises. At the same time, the scale of government procurement is huge, with the scale of China's government procurement reaching 3,392.96 billion yuan in 2023, involving goods, engineering, services, and industries closely related to the dual-carbon goal, which helps to promote energy conservation, emission reduction, and green and low-carbon development. This study aims to help improve the government procurement policy system in Shanghai, promote the practice of ESG concepts, and explore their application in the field of government procurement. The ESG concept, proposed by the United Nations Global Compact in 2004, focuses on the performance of enterprises in environmental, social, and governance aspects. Taking the mainstream domestic and international ESG evaluation agencies MSCI, FTSE, Huazheng, and Wind as examples, standardized indicators are used to score enterprises to understand their sustainable development capabilities. In addition, the implementation of ESG concepts in the field of government procurement, benchmarking the world-class business standards regarding ESG requirements, clarifies the advantages and shortcomings faced by the field of government procurement. International experience shows that countries such as the United States, Germany, Sweden, Australia, and Japan have not yet introduced clear government procurement policies to implement ESG concepts, but the existing government procurement policies all reflect ESG concepts, involving renewable energy, low-carbon emission reduction, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, and priority for local labor. The paths for government procurement policies to support the development of outstanding ESG enterprises include differentiated ESG evaluation standards and multiple measures to help the development of outstanding ESG enterprises. On the one hand, there are differentiated ESG evaluation standards, involving large infrastructure projects adopting project-based ESG report disclosure, listed companies and central state-owned enterprises based on information disclosure report grading, and small and medium-sized enterprises gradually implementing ESG indicator evaluation methods. On the other hand, there are multiple measures to help the development of outstanding ESG enterprises, including reserved procurement shares, price review preferences, fund payment, and credit guarantee support policies, to promote the sustainable development of enterprises and enhance their market competitiveness.