The aim of this policy set is to provide recognition, certification and development strategy for the design and construction of green buildings and development areas. The six categories for green building are: 1) land use efficiency and outdoor environment; 2) energy saving and use; 3) water saving and use; 4) construction material saving and use; 5) indoor environmental quality; 6) operation management.
Exceptional projects can receive the Green Building Innovative Award, while all projects are able to receive the Green Building Label. So far, around 70 projects have received the Award in three rounds. In2012, there were about 187 certified projects overall, but there are additional projects under local certification schemes. In the future, the label will gradually become mandatory with various levels according to the different situations in each city.
The national subsidy for certified green buildings is 45 RMB per square metre for a 2-Star green building, and 80 RMB per square metre for a 3-Star green building.
Green Building Innovative Award
Evaluation Standard for Green Buildings
Accelerating green building development in China
1 | 全国绿色建筑创新奖管理办法 | Administrative Measures for National Green Building Innovation Award |
2 | 全国绿色建筑创新奖评审要点 | Evaluation Key Points for National Green Building Innovation Award |
3 | 住房城乡建设部关于印发《全国绿色建筑创新奖实施细则》和《全国绿色建筑创新奖评审标准》的通知 | Notice on issuance of ‘Implementation Details of National Green Building Innovation Award ’ and ‘Evaluation Standards of National Green Building Innovation Award’ |
4 | 绿色建筑评价标准 | Evaluation standard for green buildings |
5 | 绿色建筑评价技术细则(试行) | Technical Rules for Green Building Evaluation (interim) |
6 | 关于印发《绿色建筑评价标识实施细则(试行修订)》等文件的通知 | Notice on issuance of documents such as ‘Enforcement of Green Building Evaluation Label (interim revision)’ |
7 | 关于推进一二星级绿色建筑评价标识工作的通知 | Notice on Promotion of 1 and 2 Star-Green Building Evaluation and Labelling |
8 | 关于我市保障性住房应按照绿色建筑标准建设并落实节能减排措施的通知 | Notice on Adoption of Green Building Standard and Implementation of Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction for Social Housing |
9 | 关于加快推动我国绿色建筑发展的实施意见 | Opinion on Implementation of Accelerating China’s Green Building Development |
10 | 国务院办公厅关于转发发展改革委住房城乡建设部绿色建筑行动方案的通知 | Notice on “China Green Building Action Plan” by MOHURD and NDRC (transferred by General Office of the State Council) |
Urbanization levels in China increased from 19% to 47% between 1980 and 2010 and is estimated to achieve 59% in 2025. Green building has been recognized as one of the key development areas in the ‘urbanization and development’ section of the National Science And Technology Development Planning (2006-2020) issued by State Council in 2005.
The concept of ‘green building’ has been introduced to China since the end of 1990s. However, China had no specific standards at that time. Many people thought that green building meant buildings with a large green area, e.g. water gardens, etc. Although some foreign green building standards existed, they did not match the prevailing Chinese conditions.
Since 2005, the ‘International conference on green and energy-efficient building & new technologies and products expo’ (hereinafter referred to as ‘green building conference’) has been successfully organized every year. The China Green Building Council was established in 2008. Meanwhile, many provinces and cities have set up their own green building councils. Since 2008, the Chinese ‘Green Building Annual Report’ has been published every year. These series of activities have enormously expanded the influence of the green building concept in the construction industry and the whole society.
Policies 1-3 are to award prominent exemplary projects, technology and products, as well as organizations and individuals who make valuable contributions to promoting energy efficiency and environmentally sustainable development. The innovation encouraged by this award includes advanced technology deployment, good combination of building technologies and design, and implementation of green construction and operation management.
Policies 4-7 aim to establish an evaluation system for green building tailored to the Chinese context and to set up institutions for the development of a green building market.
The grading of innovative awards and green building labelling are both based on six categories of indicators (see Technological focus for the weightings of the indicators in the grading): 1) land use efficiency and outdoor environment; 2) energy saving and use; 3) water saving and use; 4) construction material saving and use; 5) indoor environmental quality; 6) operation management.
Policy 8 is a local mandatory policy for green buildings, which required that all new social housing must be constructed in accordance with green building standards. Specifically, they must install solar water heater and apply green and renewable construction materials.
Policy 9, as the most important step for green building development in recent years, provides the overall objectives of green building for 12th and 13th Five-Year period as well as suggestions on how to accelerate green building development in China, especially, through financial incentives.
Policy 10 specifies the targets and key measures for green buildings and energy efficiency retrofitting of existing buildings for the 12th Five-Year period.
Policy 1-7: national evaluation standards and labelling
Policy 8: local policy
Policy 9-10: national policy
Others
1) land use efficiency and outdoor environment (such as green space ratio, wind environment and intensity of heat island effect ); 2) water saving and use (e.g. utilization ratio of non-conventional water resources, such as collection and reuse of rain water and grey water); 3) construction material saving and use (e.g. utilization ratio of environmentally-friendly materials); 4) indoor environmental quality (e.g. shading, noise control, indoor ventilation); 5) operation management (e.g. pollution control, system commissioning).
Category | Residential Building | Public Building |
Land saving and outdoor environment | 0.15 | 0.1 |
Energy saving and use | 0.2 | 0.25 |
Water saving and use | 0.2 | 0.15 |
Construction material saving and use | 0.15 | 0.15 |
Indoor environmental quality | 0.2 | 0.20 |
Operation management. | 0.1 | 0.15 |
Source: Technical Rules for Green Building Evaluation (interim)
Policy 1: This policy defines green building concept, responsibilities of management and executive institutions, application, evaluation and certification procedures, etc.
Policy 2 (revised in Policy 3): this policy specifies different categories of awards and key aspects for evaluation:
Policy 3: This policy includes two important documents regarding the awards for current green building development. ‘Implementation Details for National Green Building Innovation Award ’ specifies only those projects obtaining the green building evaluation label are eligible for the innovation award. In ‘Evaluation Standards for National Green Building Innovation Award’, the qualifications for the projects, evaluation methods etc. are specified. These specifications are also revisions of those included in Policy
Policy 4: later revised by and specified in policy 5
Policy 5: This is to provide clear technical guidance for evaluation, awarding and labelling of green buildings in China. The applicants can understand how to design and construct a building that is qualified as a green building, which level their building can achieve and how to obtain labels, etc.
Policy 6: The notice released 3 documents, which are ‘Enforcement of Green Building Evaluation Label (interim revision)’, ‘Work procedures by expert committee for green building evaluation label (interim)’, and ‘Regulations of the use of green building evaluation label (interim)’. The first document specifies that there are two types of labels. One is the Green Building Design Label (to certify whether the design plan of buildings matches the green building standards), and the other is the Green Building Label (so-called operation label) to certify that the operation efficiency was achieved for more than one year. It provides standards for green building technology options throughout the whole building life cycle, which includes planning, design, construction, operation and management.).
Policy 7: The notice generally indicates that qualified construction bureaus at different administrative levels are now given authority to certify 1-Star and 2-Star green buildings. In the attachment ‘Management Measures of 1-Star and 2-Star Green Building Evaluation Label (interim)’ of this notice, it specifies the preconditions for a construction bureau to be able to apply to MOHURD for being an evaluation agency; preconditions for local technical support organizations; preconditions for being a local expert committee; work requirements, etc.. This policy has contributed to a wider implementation of green buildings in China. Up to 2011, 26 provinces and cities had been authorized to evaluate 1-Star and 2-Star buildings within their administrative boundaries.
Policy 8: This local policy targets the construction-related departments of the Shenzhen government and private stakeholders , e.g. building designers, construction companies, property management, etc. It specifies that newly-built social housing should conform to the green building standard. Solar water heaters and renewable construction materials should be applied, in particular.
Policy 9: This policy specifies the national targets for green building development until 2020: over 30% of new buildings shall be green buildings by 2020. New green building areas shall reach 1 billion m2 during the 12th Five-Year period. Major measures to achieve these targets include: (1) improving the green building standard and evaluation system; (2) establishing the green building subsidy system; (3) promoting the development of green eco-districts and large scale green buildings; (4) promoting green buildings in the field of social houses; (5) strengthening R&D in green building technologies
Policy 10: This policy highlights the following ten key fields in green building development and proposed measures in these fields: (1) Energy efficiency in new buildings; 2) Energy efficiency retrofitting in existing buildings; (3) Urban heating system retrofitting; (4) Large-scale application of renewable energy in buildings; (5) Improving energy-efficient management on public buildings; (6) Accelerating the R&D for green building technologies; (7) Promoting green material use; (8) Promoting the pre-fabricated building industry; (9) Strict control of building demolition management procedure; (10) Promoting the 3Rs “reduce, reuse and recycle” for construction waste management.
The policy package could also be optimised.
To complete the package with the green building design standard and improve the evaluation standard by including more building types;
To strengthen the capacity: to foster more evaluation organizations and provide independent services such as building product testing, regional planning, etc. Training accredited professionals for green building design, construction, evaluation, and so on;
To set up clearer rules for the fiscal incentive system for highly qualified projects.
The following pre-conditions are necessary to implement this type of policy
The development of an evaluation method for the six categories of indicators is a structural pre-condition for implementing the policy.
The policy set, therefore, includes the evaluation standard for green buildings. These enable the assessment whether a building can be classified as a ‘green’ building and are thus a necessary precondition for both the green building awards and the labelling scheme.
Buildings applying for the national green building evaluation must first fulfil national mandatory standards for building energy efficiency (cf. the bigEE China file on Regulations for Energy efficiency of building design and operation in new and refurbished buildings) and some architectural products design standards. Building construction drawings must be examined by the local construction bureau before applying for the green building evaluation label.
Agencies or other actors responsible for implementation
MOHURD and local construction bureaus are the administration institutions to ensure each applicant’s compliance with standards. They are in charge of the expert organizations to evaluate if the building is designed and built in accordance with the standard. The two designated management offices at national level are the Green Building Label Management Office under Science &Technology Center of Construction of MOHURD and Green Building Research Center under CSUS.
Funding
Prior to 2012, some provinces and cities had already established special funding to encourage green building construction. For example:
Other pre-conditions
Policy 8 regulates that a Shenzhen public housing developer must include the incremental investment of green building, solar water heaters and renewable materials in its total project investment, the bid documents and all related contracts.
Actors responsible for design
Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People's Republic of China (MOHURD)
Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China (MOF)
Actors responsible for implementation
MOHURD, as well as provincial and municipal construction bureaus and financial bureaus, are responsible for managing the Green Building Label system with its financial subsidy system.
Enterprises in the construction industry, such as property development companies, construction companies, building design units, etc. implement the standard.
Monitoring
The innovation award and green building standard both belong to ‘voluntary labelling schemes’, thus there is no mandatory impact and compliance monitoring system. The national management office has published a book called the ‘Green Building Annual Report’ to conclude China’s green building development and to assess the standard implementation every year since 2008.
Evaluation
Some research paper involves this content, which will be mentioned below.
Green building itself is an integrated system, and there are land, water, materials saving and indoor environment requirements in addition to energy efficiency requirements. The promoted technologies include optimized architectural design using computer simulation, renewable energy use, rainwater collection for irrigation, waste separation and recycling, renewable construction materials uses, and so on.
The following measures have been undertaken to overcome the barriers
Green buildings must fulfil national energy efficiency standards to ensure that it has a high level of energy efficiency. No specific evaluation of energy savings has been conducted for green buildings but for all buildings which meet national energy efficient standards. The energy saving achieved by the green building candidates varies with different label levels. They must all have at least the 50% energy saving required by law, compared to buildings in the 1980s.
Until late December 2010, a total of 113 projects had obtained green building labels, among which 10 were the Green Building Label (operation label) and the rest were Green Building Design Label. Up to the end of November 2011, 234 projects obtained green building labels from two national management offices. 40 projects obtained labels from local construction bureaus. However, compared to the construction boom during the current urbanization period, the green building share in new buildings is still very small.
Investigation of over 70 certified project samples by one of the two national management offices – Green Building Research Center of CSUS shows that: the indicators like residential building green area ratio, outdoor permeable pavement ratio, non-traditional water use percentage, etc. have an apparent improvement according to the label level upgrade during these years; but indicators like building energy saving, recycling material use percentage hasn’t been enhanced much. The insignificant improvement in energy performance is caused by the fact that the precondition of being green buildings is the fulfilment of building energy efficiency code, which all new buildings should fulfil.
National green building innovative award
1st session(2005):40
www.bigee.net/s/8mrinj
2rd session(2007):13
www.bigee.net/s/s19e9j
2011:16
www.bigee.net/s/yuujkb
Until late December 2010, a total of 113 projects had obtained green building labels, among which 10 were the Green Building Label (operation label) and the rest were Green Building Design Label. Up to the end of November 2011, 234 projects obtained green building labels from two national management offices. 40 projects obtained labels from local construction bureaus.
Investigation of the incremental cost for green buildings to investors, based on 40 labelled project samples implemented during 2008 -2010 by China Academy of Building Research:
Public buildings:
1-Star green buildings: 45 RMB/m2
2-Star green buildings: 176 RMB/m2
3-Star green buildings: 320 RMB/m2
Residential buildings:
1-Star green buildings: 63 RMB/m2
2-Star green buildings: 131 RMB/m2
3-Star green buildings: 219 RMB/m2
www.bigee.net/s/1sm8fd
Investigation of the incremental cost forgreen building to investors based on 64 labelled project samples implemented during 2008 -2010 by IBR:
Public buildings:
1-Star green buildings: 49 RMB/m2
2-Star green buildings:128 RMB/m2
3-Star green buildings: 345 RMB/m2
Residential buildings:
1-Star green buildings: 53 RMB/m2
2-Star green buildings: 141 RMB/m2
3-Star green buildings: 231 RMB/m2
Investigation of the incremental cost for green building to investors based on 77 labelled project samples during 2008 -2010 by one of the two national management offices – Green Building Research Center of CSUS :
Public buildings:
1-Star green buildings: 30 RMB/m2
2-Star green buildings: 230 RMB/m2
3-Star green buildings: 370 RMB/m2
Residential buildings:
1-Star green buildings: 60 RMB/m2
2-Star green buildings: 120 RMB/m2
3-Star green buildings: 300 RMB/m2
The labelling is expected to be cost-effective for the government. The costs of policy and compliance are rather small compared to the resources saved by green building design. For the investors and the building users, we do not know if the actual incremental costs mentioned above will be paid off by the resources saved.
Policy 1: 建科函[2004]183号 www.bigee.net/s/j7kguz
Policy 2: www.bigee.net/s/nthjxq
Policy 3: 建科[2010]216号 www.bigee.net/s/cpvnc5
Policy 4: GB/T50378-2006 www.bigee.net/s/ifbvaz
Policy 5: 建科[2007]205号 www.bigee.net/s/vtidfg
Policy 6: 建科综[2008]61号 www.bigee.net/s/dvhbyz
Policy 7: 建科[2009]109号 www.bigee.net/s/a6nymk
Policy 8: 深建节能[2010]131号 www.bigee.net/s/yevraa
Policy 9: 财建[2012]167号 www.bigee.net/s/f3p72m
Policy 10: 国办发[2013]1号 www.bigee.net/s/1i8tbn
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