Energy Efficiency in China

A report made by International Energy Association(2011) pointed out that global investment in energy field has gradually form into the market that could improve the efficiency of energy consumption systematic, the market is consisted by investors and services provided by individuals, enterprises government. Meanwhile, energy policy and energy prices are two important factors that influence the energy efficiency of the market, the government could influence the energy efficiency, navigate the innovation on the energy-saving technology and change the way of energy consumption through establishing energy policy and reviewing the energy price subsidies.

According to the research made by International Energy Association, the key factors driving China energy efficiency market is the governmental policies and investment. China is one of the countries that concerned about the issue of energy, and established a five-year-plan, which set a goal by the government in the investment on energy consumption. Like other countries, the lack of reliable business model that could improve the energy efficiency is the most serious challenge in the development of energy market. The investment on energy efficiency mainly rely on the income of government financial system that is still under the reform. Despite the government, the civil participation could promote the power in the future energy efficiency improvement..

Energy Efficiency in China

A report made by International Energy Association pointed out that global investment in energy field has gradually form into the market that could improve the efficiency of energy consumption systematic, the market is consisted by investors and services provided by individuals, enterprises government. Meanwhile, energy policy and energy prices are two important factors that influence the energy efficiency of the market, the government could influence the energy efficiency, navigate the innovation on the energy-saving technology and change the way of energy consumption through establishing energy policy and reviewing the energy price subsidies.

According to the research made by International Energy Association, the key factors driving China energy efficiency market is the governmental policies and investment. China is one of the countries that concerned about the issue of energy, and established a five-year-plan, which set a goal by the government in the investment on energy consumption. Like other countries, the lack of reliable business model that could improve the energy efficiency is the most serious challenge in the development of energy market. The investment on energy efficiency mainly rely on the income of government financial system that is still under the reform. Despite the government, the civil participation could promote the power in the future energy efficiency improvement.

Polycentric city development

The characteristics of modern metropolis decide that the governance model of metropolitan area must change from single centre to multi centres, try to maintain and promote the autonomous order as the main objective of metropolitan governance. The polycentric development of space must be accompanied by the polycentric governance so that the formation of multi centre space is possible. The polycentric model of space development in modern metropolis is based on the thinking logic of multi centre governance instead of traditional public administration.

This new theory is not a new concept. Howard's conception of "social city" is actually the earliest elaboration of the compact and polycentric expansion of metropolis space, and then Mumford's "regional city" is also the advocacy of the polycentric spatial development model. No matter Howard or Mumford, both of them did not forget the polycentric governance when they constructed the multi centres space. Howard's exposition of "social city" aims to build a "Urban Agglomeration" surrounded by a permanent green matrix (Town-cluster). "Social city" is the basic model of spatial polycentric and governance polycentric coordination. It can be regarded as a city model that can grow and can be expanded continually. 

Sustainable development evaluation of London

From the example of sustainability assessment in Britain in recent years, sustainability assessment is an independent evaluation process which is carried out simultaneously with urban planning. In the evaluation of city planning, people in various aspects of an independent assessment team assessed the planning results of the main stage, then made formation of sustainability assessment report to the city planning team to modify and adjust the contents of city planning the next stage.

Through the analysis and summary of the sustainable development strategy of British urban planning, we can get following ideas:

(1) From more than 10 years to implement the strategy of sustainable development in Britain, sustainable development could possibly breakthrough in the field of city planning.

(2) With the strategic and comprehensive strengthening of urban planning, the role of urban planning and its policies has become increasingly powerful in the implementation of the national strategy.

(3) The strategy of sustainable development will also bring opportunities to the development of urban planning itself. To develop specific city planning from the national planning policy, local city planning, sustainable development may bring new ideas, new perspective and new thinking. Combined with the practice of creative city planning, they may promote the development of city planning theory, and method of the new exploration and sustainable development strategies as well.

Reference: Great London Authority. Sustainability Appraisal of London Plan[Z]. 2004.

  

Sustainable development in building 

Sustainability is one of the most important challenges for architecture design on the national or international scale. Sustainable practices pay equal attention to ecological, economic and social aspects, so that people could pass on an intact environment and the same opportunities in life to future generations. This is an extremely important topic, especially for the building sector due to the materials and resources consumed here and the related impacts on the environment. This will become even more important for the building sector due to climate change and the growing shortage of resources. Buildings are complex systems that are design to fulfil their defined task. They also provide both living space and a work environment, and they affect their users’ well-being, health and satisfaction as well as the quality of social life.
The aim of sustainable building design should hence be to create a building that ensures maximum sustainability and also saves energy and resources. The extensive inclusion of sustainability aspects in the life cycle of a building, for instance during planning, construction, use and modernism, as well as demolition, should be proactively designed and influenced. The building’s structural and technical concept must generally take standards and legal requirements into account as well as the generally accepted state of the art. In particular, the use requirements that are normally specified by the customer must be fulfilled under defined boundary conditions. Furthermore, sustainability requirements, in other words ecological, economic and social qualities, must be defined in the process of designing buildings in order to make sure that buildings could carry out their tasks in relation to the environment and society.

Green buildings in Canada

Green buildings have been regarded as the efficient method and practical strategy for mitigating climate change, minimizing energy consumption and creating more liveable and environmentally friendly communities. Green buildings benefit the whole society in several aspects, they lead to the improvement in the architecture industry, including the delivery and produce of service, product and technology design and manufacturing, the use of material and resource.

Commercial factor play an important role in the raise of green buildings, building owners and institutional investors prefer more eco-friendly buildings that could provide better experience during living in the towers. Policy makers prefer to give more assistance for the construction of green buildings because they could provide outcome in economic, social and environmental aspects.

A study in 2014 showed that green building industry employed over 290,000 full-time worker directly in Canada, and generate approximately 23 billion dollar in GDP. It shows the huge market in the green building industry, which could not only benefit local economic, but also lead to a more environmentally friendly culture and lifestyle. The growth of green building industry indicates the popularization of eco-friendly lifestyle and could create more opportunities for people to live with nature, invest on natural environment and benefit from environment.

Opportunities and Challenges of Compact City

The growth of population and shortage of flat land has led to the common sense that compact city could be seen as the answer for sustainable future. Although the risks of negative outcome of compact city should be taken into the consideration, the potency of urban development should also be considered. A city with compact formation could provide the potential power supporting the economic growth. It could enhance the efficiency of public service, and gather the commercial events and bring more energy for the local social life.Urban sustainability could be divided into three aspect: environmental, social and economic. Environmentally sustainable development has been seen the most initial part of urban design. However, compact city policy could lead to the economic growth that is friendly to environment through creating the connection between economic events and environmental challenge. Urban designers could design an innovation hub that is aim to build an environmentally friendly commercial system. Not only environmental and economic urban design should be established, sustainable social life should also be accompanied with urban development, compact city should create a lively social life according to its high density population, and provide safe urban life for citizens. As for people who live in suburbs, compact city should create an equal opportunity for them to enjoy the liveable life, and provide convenient infrastructure since suburbs potentially have significant residential capacity.

Compact City in Hong Kong 

Urban design has a long history in China since the continuous civil history and culture, while many cities after the World War Ⅱ became inefficient due to the dispersed formation compared with European cities, citizens suffered from the longtime travelling from home to work, which eventually resulted in the high dependency on automobile. Like many other Asian cities, those Chinese cities spent a little investment in the equipment of infrastructure at the beginning of the city’s development and design, Thus compact city turned out to be the answer of inefficient city management.

Although the idea of compact city has been seen the one of the most basic principles in urban design in China after the Reform in 1980s, it is still under the discussion about whether compact could be seen as the answer for a future sustainable urban formation. Hong Kong could be seen one of the best examples of compact city not only due to it is one of the most densely cities around the world- averagely over six thousand people live in one kilometer square, but also the urban form itself services for the compact city. Many public housing projects such as New Town and Resettlement Project created small blocks that consisted of narrow streets and high towers, apartments in those buildings are small and equipped with public bathroom and kitchen. The compact city formation created its own unique culture, high density and chaos of immigration (both legal and illegal) resulted in the criminal paradise, which attracted the attention of film makers and novel writers around the world.

Strategies to Mitigate UHI

University of Sussex declared that urban heat island (UHI) will cost around ten percent of local Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to change the decline in living condition caused by the HUI, in addition, urban heat island threaten the economic growth since it causes more energy consumption on refrigeration, low efficiency of work and more serious air pollution. Although urban area only possesses 1% of the earth's surface, cities create more than 80% product of the whole world, and take 78% of global energy consumption, over half of people on earth live in cities. It is necessary to apply practical and useful strategies to mitigate urban heat island.
Green infrastructure mitigates the effect of HUI directly and provides multi-functional answer to urban design. The vegetation could absorb greenhouse gas that causes the global warming, the process of photosynthesis also releases vapors that could cool the urban air. Generally, green space is accompanied by soil that has better capacity of thermal content than concrete, ground material like soil could mitigate HUI by absorbing more thermal energy and having less temperature change.
Public transportation could also mitigate HUI because it could reduce the energy consumption on roads, and produce less greenhouse gas in the process of daily transportation. Meanwhile, it could also reduce the waste heat that is produced by vehicles.  Finally, underground systems could also cool the city. Wind is tunnelled underground and cooled by the earth, which could make the air in cities cooler.