Mapping China’s green-digital synergistic transformation policy: transmission mechanism to product design management
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3846/bm.2026.2500Abstract
This study examines how China’s green-digital synergistic transformation creates design-relevant institutional conditions for product design management (PDM) and how these conditions are reflected across policy, standards, and innovation outcomes. Using a multi-level institutional mapping framework based on qualitative document analysis, the study analyzes national policy and standard documents (2015–2025), 55 provincial green-subsidy policies (2025), and green patent statistics (2016–2024). The analysis identifies a policy transmission mechanism linking national strategies, governance arrangements, standards, and provincial fiscal instruments. It also reveals a more standardized governance chain and stronger ex ante design requirements, but uneven standards coverage, with environmental attributes present in all 7 selected standards and explicit low-carbon attributes in only 1. Provincial subsidies remain concentrated in investment subsidies (28/55), with weaker support for circular and upstream design-related activities. Green patent applications increased from 49,609 to 111,910 and remained concentrated in energy-system domains, yet they fail to directly reflect the alignment with innovation directions related to PDM. The study contributes by mapping policy transmission toward PDM across multiple institutional levels and identifying structural gaps in support for design-oriented green innovation.
Keywords:
product design management, green-digital synergistic transformation, green technology innovation, policy mix, ChinaHow to Cite
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