With good understanding of the barriers to promoting Building Energy Efficiency (BEE), the current regulations and market incentive schemes can thus be expanded and improved. This paper discusses the typology of barriers to promoting Building Energy Efficiency (BEE) in China. It explores their origins and suggests government measures that could change the institutions to overcome these barriers. Since most of the barriers dealt with can be found scattering in the literature on "market barriers", the originality in the paper lies in the systematic organization, synoptic view and holistic treatment of the possible and unique barriers from the view point of Chinese institution (government and market perspectives) regarding to BEE and a theoretical framework is proposed to identify and review the barriers. Therefore, this paper has delivered a comprehensive review of institutional barriers, including market barriers and regulatory distortions, and their origins and has suggested the measures that contribute to overcoming them. Such a treatment will facilitate the implementation of energy efficiency improvements involving a wide diversity of ever-changing energy end-users and consumer preferences.@en

Policy makers in government can choose various options of policy instrument to improve energy efficiency. In order to make an appropriate choice, they need to take into consideration the characteristics of all policy instruments. As one of principal policy instruments, informational instrument plays an important role in promoting sustainable built development, and this is the major component of this paper. In this paper, comparative study of voluntary environmental labelling-Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method (HK-BEAM) and Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) in United Stated will be undertaken to analyze the characteristics of each instrument, their objectives and underlying working principles. Their major differences are highlighted and explained. The findings will provide valuable insights into implementations and effectiveness of each instrument.@en

Energy consumption in buildings accounts for a significant portion of total energy demand, the potential for energy efficiency in building sector is tremendous. As one of the world's most rapidly developing economies, industrial and domestic activities in China has a major impact on the world's energy market and the global environment. The Chinese government has taken several steps to control and improve energy use in the building sector; however, the situation of building energy efficiency (BEE) still deserves serious study to appreciate any problem that needs to be resolved. This paper introduces the current situation related to Mainland China's policy measures on BEE and discusses the government's role to enhance BEE control from four aspects: law & policy maker, incentive motivator, financing hub and advocator. Through comparative study with its developed counterparts, such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom (UK), this paper highlights the importance of government intervention and consideration of economic efficiency in the decision-making process of BEE promotion by Chinese government. The findings were further supported with the results of a questionnaire with building design professionals on the Favorable Factors (FF) for furthering green building development in Mainland China.@en

For cities facing post-industrial transition, urban greenways are proven strategies to activate urban spaces and improve the sustainability of cities. However, significant challenges remain when seeking to link greenways as a greenway network and integrate greenway networks to urban spaces. Given this shortcoming, Yantai National Economic and Technical Development Zone (YEDZ) was selected as a representative case. This paper analyzed the potential role of greenway network and requirements of post-industrial development for the urban environment. It seeks to develop a regeneration approach that integrating urban greenway planning with overall urban reform. Our priorities are providing a pedestrian network with non-utilitarian rhythms by activating former industrial spaces, restructuring urban green spaces, and integrating greenway networks into diverse urban spaces. In this way, it reveals the comprehensive benefits of the urban greenway network and improves overall urban form - multiple benefits, including economic development and social rewards, be created in the regeneration.@en

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to investigate the major differences between the government's role in building energy efficiency (BEE) in China and three developed countries, and to further the understanding of market expectations of the most effective government measures to encourage BEE development in China. Design/methodology/approach: The approach taken was: establish a framework for a critical comparative study; compare and assess the BEE promotion measures available to governments in the USA, Canada, the UK and China; survey the BEEmarket expectations of building design professionals to better understand the favourable measures the Chinese Government could take to further promote BEE; and triangulate the findings of the comparative study and questionnaire survey to develop recommendations for BEE promotion in mainland China. Findings: Economic incentives are important for BEE promotion at the current stage, but they are lacking in China. Active government interventions, such as adjusting energy pricing and implementing BEE legislation, are needed in China if BEE is to become economically viable and efficient. Research limitations/implications: Owing to limited resources, the questionnaire survey did not reach every part of China. A further study should be carried out to extend the investigation to more areas of China and to obtain wider stakeholder coverage. Originality/value: The originality of this paper lies in its development of a theoretical framework to further understanding of the government's role in BEE promotion and its use of first-hand data collected from industry to verify market expectations of that role in China.@en

Green building (GB) is part of the concept of promoting sustainability. Although GB and the concept of sustainability are well studied for environmental concerns, their business rationale and related social concerns have not been fully explored or widely accepted by the parties involved in the building sector. In this study, the situation of GB market in relation to the general building market is reviewed and the business rationales of stakeholders to invest in the GB market have been investigated from the perspective of building designers. In addition, the factors that enhance the popularity of GB have been explored and the obstacles that hinder its market have been examined. The data are collected by a questionnaire survey covering building designers in Hong Kong and Singapore, the cities that are categorized as economically developed cities in Asia. After data analysis of the survey, this paper presents the findings of the business reasons for stakeholders to be involved in GB, the most favorable conditions required to promote GB business and the important obstacles that hinder its popularity. Based on the findings, recommendations and policy implications are tendered.@en

Hotel building is a type of high-energy-consuming building and most existing hotel buildings need energy efficiency improvement in China. Energy performance contracting (EPC) is considered a win-win mechanism to organize building energy efficiency retrofit (BEER) project. However, EPC mechanism has been introduced into China relatively recently and many EPCs have not been successful in building energy efficiency retrofit projects. This research aims to develop a set of critical success factors (CSFs) of EPC for sustainable energy efficiency retrofit (BEER) of hotel buildings in China. Semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey with practitioners and other professionals were conducted. The findings reveal the relative importance of the 21 number of identified success factors. In order to explore the underlying relationship among the identified critical success factors (CSFs), factor analysis method was adopted for further investigation, which leads to grouping the 21 identified CSFs into six clusters. These are (1) project organization process, (2) EPC project financing for hotel retrofit, (3) knowledge and innovation of EPC, sustainable development (SD), and M&V, (4) implementation of sustainable development strategy, (5) contractual arrangement, and (6) external economic environment. Finally, several relevant policies were proposed to implement EPC successfully in sustainable BEER in hotel buildings.@en

China's future energy consumption in the building sector will have considerable influence on both China and the world energy markets. Building activities undertaken in China will have a significant influence on the global effort to reduce the growth, and the absolute quantity of greenhouse gas emissions. Energy policy plays an important role in China's sustainable development. In the building sector, government has implemented a great many of policies to improve energy efficiency. However, in the last 3 decades, these policies are designed and adjusted with a purpose to echo the economy status and national situation in each of stage in China. With reference to the previous studies on government's roles in promoting BEE (Qian and Chan, 2007, 2010), this paper traced the Building Energy Efficiency (BEE) policies back since 1980s and review the development of the policies^ the transitional China into four stages: Kick-off & demo stage 1980-1994, warming up stage 1995-2001, immediate action stage 2002-2005, and comprehensive promotion stage 2006-till now. The authors provide a broad overview of government involvements relating to energy efficiency issues in the built environment in China. This paper, firstly, introduces the five government's roles in promoting BEE and its market development; secondly, the authors review the key national BEE policies related to the built environment in the past three decades and demonstrate the government's environmental concern and efforts. Discussion on the implementation of the BEE policies and ways to be improved has been carried out. It thus provides a critical overall review and assessment of the policies and programs to understand BEE issues that will contribute to China's energy and economic future.@en

Based on extensive review of the literature, this paper tries to generalize the application of BCA in environmental regulations. Specifically, this study talks about the practice of Benefit-cost analysis (BCA) in governments of such developed countries as USA, UK and EU, steps to conduct BCA in policy-making, strengths and limitations of its application in policy area. Evaluation of non-market impacts and social discount rate, are thoroughly discussed. Some suggestions are summarized for better application of BCA in regulatory choice.@en