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Shenzhen economic development indicator value. In terms of positive and negative contribution from various indexes in evaluation system, we can calculate negative index with its reciprocal to indicate negative influential characteristics of this index. Detailed Analysis process of low-carbon development level is deleted for its similarity with evaluation method of economic development.
There only lists standardized low carbon development index principal component expression:. People can predict a gradual growth of the third industry, reduction of emission of CO 2 , improvement of urban air quality, and expansion of city green coverage.
All of these tell the truth that the government of Shenzhen is striving for solving the contradiction between production and environmental protection. Low-carbon development in Shenzhen. Shenzhen low-carbon development indicator value. Detailed Analysis process of social development level is again deleted for its similarity with calculation expression of synthetically index. And there only lists standardized low carbon development index principal component expression:.
During , there was a steady but slight declining trend in development. While the year of suffered a sharp drop resulting from high birth rate, which affected average distribution of social resource. Comparing with the gradual increase of economic and low-carbon development indicators, the trend of social development indicator proves that citizens in Shenzhen have to work hard to keeping the balance among economic, low-carbon and social development. Social development in Shenzhen. Shenzhen social development indicator value. Indicators matrix of shenzhen economy, low-carbon, social development.
However, social development once fluctuated or even declined. Especially, in , poor performance of social development level affected economic growth. Therefore, it can be concluded that the coordination and cooperation among economic, low-carbon and social development play as a significant role in strengthening comprehensive competitiveness of Shenzhen.
Shenzhen comprehensive development of lowcarbon economy indicators. Comparison of Shenzhen low-carbon economic development indicators. It will create a positive environment for its low-carbon economic transformation in the aspects of industrial structure adjustment, regional arrangement, technical progress and infrastructure. Especially in industrial adjustment, low-carbon strategy should be deeply integrated in the 12th five-year plan, and set low-carbon criteria as the standard and measurement.
There presents strong liquidity and substitution, overdependence on it, which will bring visible danger to industrial structure. Therefore, it is necessary to foster new industry backbone and economic growth point. In addition, it should increase the support in the field of recycled industry, energy-costing industry, energy-service industry etc. Technology development on clean energy should be listed in the future supporting technology field of Shenzhen government [20].
Moreover, object-oriented low-carbon economic statistics and evaluation system will be established, and low-carbonized strategic target and evaluation index system, the potential of green-gas emission reduction, cost and efficiency will be deeply studied. Shenzhen tries to make full use of the platform of Shenzhen Trade centre to establish carbon emission trade system. Carbon market system is a significant innovation to put green-gas emission under control, which is also a crucial economic strategy for various countries to control total emission of green-gas.
Therefore, the authors designed a city low-carbon evaluation system composing of 3 sub-systems, 14 specific indexes. This also implies that there is room for improvement in low-carbon development in Chinese cities. Third, geographically, the level of low-carbon city development is higher in the south than in the north. Shenzhen and Hangzhou scored the highest, followed by Nanchang in the central region, while the northern cities of Tianjin and Baoding present much lower low-carbon development indicators. Fourth, there is heterogeneity between the five cities across the selected five dimensions.
For example, Shenzhen has the highest overall level of low-carbon development among the five cities, but it scores the lowest for residential consumption. Tianjin has a relatively low overall score, but scores relatively high for economic growth. Baoding has the lowest score for the overall level of low-carbon development, but has a relatively high score for energy utilisation and the highest score for residential consumption. This suggests that cities may increase the level of low-carbon city development more effectively by targeting the weakest link.
Based on these main findings, we offer several policy suggestions to help promote the future development of low-carbon cities in China.
Axel; Ijjasz-Vasquez, Ede; Mehndiratta, Shomik. Sustainable Low- Carbon City Development in China. Directions in development;countries and regions. Sustainable low-carbon city development in China / edited by Axel Baeumler, Ede cross-cutting actions relate to overarching policy directions and guidance.
On the one hand, renewable sources such as solar, wind and tidal energy are carbon-free and can directly reduce carbon dioxide emissions if they are substituted for non-renewable fossil fuel—based energy sources, which also produce serious environmental pollution. On the other hand, the key to increasing energy efficiency is to upgrade, develop and extend low-carbon technology in a time-efficient manner.
Currently, low-carbon technologies in China include mainly solar energy to generate electricity photovoltaics , carbon capture and storage technology, green lighting light-emitting diodes , and so on Wang However, because China started developing low-carbon technology relatively late, its overall level of such technology is relatively low. Therefore, China should adopt and incorporate advanced low-carbon technology from abroad.
This would help not only to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but also to push forward innovation and the development of renewable energy technology, energy saving and emissions reduction technology and clean coal technology. Second, on the one hand, government can use subsidies, taxation and concessional financing to encourage enterprises through the research and development process or to introduce low-carbon technology and increase its application share in production and consumption.
For high energy consumption industries such as transportation and construction, the government should further encourage enterprises to accelerate industrial structural adjustment and upgrading. On the other hand, government should strengthen institutions and laws governing the low-carbon economy—for example, by operationalising a carbon trading and carbon finance market; improving taxation relating to the development of the low-carbon economy; implementing low-carbon economy laws and regulations; and better regulating and governing the construction and development of low-carbon cities.
Third, China should pay great attention to the development of strategic new industries, one of the main characteristics of which is low consumption of energy and resources. This is also among the targets for low-carbon development under the urbanisation policy. Of the seven strategic new industries promoted by the Chinese Government, 3 energy saving and environmentally friendly industries, new energy industries and the new energy car industry directly reflect the goal of low-carbon development. Compared with traditional heavy manufacturing industries, the new-generation information and communication technology industry, biology industry, high-end equipment manufacturing industry and new materials industry are also resource-saving industries.
As they develop, these strategic new industries will promote the upgrading of the local industrial structure and fundamentally change local economic development. From the perspective of low-carbon and sustainable development, developing strategic new industries provides a clear direction for the future development of Chinese cities. Fourth, China should allow the market to allocate resources and promote low-carbon development under the umbrella of new urbanisation. It is important to gradually establish market-oriented low-carbon mechanisms—for example, through developing carbon emissions trading rights and carbon finance.
China has created carbon dioxide emission trading exchanges in Shenzhen, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Hubei and Chongqing, and the Beijing environment exchange and Shanghai environment and energy exchange. However, the carbon trading quantity of these exchanges remains very low compared with those of developed countries in Europe and North America. The operation mechanism also needs to be improved. Fifth, raising public awareness of and encouraging low-carbon consumption are also important for low-carbon city development. It is little understood, for example, that low-carbon consumption does not have to be synonymous with reductions in quality.
It will take a relatively long time to increase awareness of low-carbon consumption and change traditional consumption behaviour. Government should therefore make great efforts to publicise the significance of low-carbon residential consumption and encourage the public to gradually adopt a low-carbon consumption lifestyle, thus contributing to low-carbon and sustainable city development.
Revolution in the way of human economic development, China Industrial Economics , 4: China low carbon city development, Financial Times [Chinese], 3 April. A paradigm shift, Energy Policy , Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. A more rational structural representation of sustainability, Global Environmental Change , Challenges faced by an EU candidate member, Ecological Economics , 68 6: Statistical Bureau of Baoding , Baoding statistical yearbook , Beijing: Analytic tools for unpacking the driving forces of environmental impacts, Ecological Economics , 46 3: China's New Sources of Economic Growth: A supply-side perspective Part I: Reform and Macroeconomic Development 2.
Can the Internet Revolutionise Finance in China? Termination of the soft budget constraint 8. Consumption and Savings of Migrant Households: China as a Global Investor Getting Rich after Getting Old: Exuberance and collapse in the Shanghai A-share stock market Changing Patterns of Corporate Leverage in China: Evidence from listed companies Part II: Resources, Energy, the Environment and Climate Change Study of five national pilot cities A decomposition and sectoral analysis Urban Density and Carbon Emissions in China.
Low-carbon cities in China Despite the number of low-carbon city pilots in China, there is no clear definition of what such a city is, with the implementation process also being used to shape the meaning of the concept for each city. The low-carbon city development index: Allocating weights There are two leading methods for assigning weights to selected indicators: Calculating the index Because different indicators are measured in different units, when calculating the low-carbon city development index LCCDI , our first step is to use the following equations to calculate the standard value for all indicators.
Evaluating low-carbon city development For this study, we select five cities—Tianjin, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanchang and Baoding—from the national pilot low-carbon city program. Other data indicate that annual PM2. Clearly, monitoring data for PM2. Co-benefits between Local Air Pollution and Carbon Emission Reduction Programs Since the combustion of fuel is a substantial source for both local air pollution and carbon emissions, there are significant linkages and co-benefits between air pollution abatement and climate change mitigation.
There are two kinds of synergies. First, many low-carbon growth strategies for cities can generate significant direct cost savings associated with the health and environmental benefits of reduced air pollution see box The Health and Environmental Impacts of Air Pollution High air pollution concentrations have a negative impact on the economy and human health. This includes the effects from SO2 and acid rain on agriculture, forestry, and material damages.
Fine particulates PM10, PM2. Global data from time-series analyses show a direct relation between increased mortality and short-term PM10 and PM2. Despite substantive declines in urban ambient air pollution levels, this value is 32 percent higher compared with , as a result of increased urbanization, aging population, and the statistical value of life rising with income. A particularly good example are strategies that reduce fossil fuel consumption in sectors with a strong impact on population exposure such as domestic stoves for heating and cooking, or small industrial and district heating boilers with small stacks located in urban areas.
A second synergy relates to the cost of complying with air quality standards, which could be lower if carbon emission reductions are incorporated. Effective energy efficiency programs would lower aggregate demand, leading to fewer plants burning fossil fuels and hence a need for fewer air pollution control devices and lower levels of associated costs. For example, Syri et al. Despite these synergies, the relationship between air pollution abatement and carbon emission reductions is not straightforward. Sometimes efforts to reduce the damage from a particularly severe pollutant may not significantly impact the level of energy consumed.
In some cases, there may even be trade-offs between air pollution and low-carbon goals. Three scenarios serve to illustrate the potential for such complexity. Some actions, such as energy efficiency improvements and increased use of natural gas, offer significant improvements in both carbon intensity and air pollution. However, large differences sometimes exist in the air pollution benefits of alternative strategies, which may yield similar reductions in carbon emissions. Wang and Smith suggest that efforts focusing on sources such as domestic stoves and area sources can yield health benefits 40 times greater than a reduction in emissions from centralized facilities with high stacks such as power plants.
At the same time, some air pollution abatement strategies may actually be detrimental to low-carbon objectives. For example, desulfurization of flue gases reduces SO2 emissions but can—to a limited extent—increase carbon emissions. Alternatively, investments in retrofitting older coal power plants and adding air pollution control equipment would lead to improved air quality, but may result in a lock-in of coal technologies that will make it more difficult to reduce future CO2 emissions McDonald ; Unruh Given this complexity, it is important that policy options and programs for low-carbon growth include the costs and benefits associated with air pollution, particularly health benefits.
This can help prioritize the activities with the biggest overall benefits see box Sometimes, policies and programs that may not be regarded as cost-effective from a climate change or an air pollution perspective alone may be found to be cost-effective if both aspects are considered. Similarly, there are opportunities to implement air pollution control plans to achieve cost-effective simultaneous reductions in carbon emissions.
This is already a focus in the Chinese pollution control efforts under the 12th Five-Year Plan. Calculating Health Co-benefits of Improved Air Quality in Carbon Emission Reduction Programs The co-benefits of improved health due to better air quality in carbon emission reduction programs have been calculated in several case studies in China, including Shanxi province where a World Bank supported study evaluated six different CO2 abatement measures related to coal consumptions. Significant co-benefits of varying degrees linked to improved air quality were identified. The cheapest option to reduce carbon emissions from a GHG abatement cost-only view is cogeneration of electricity and heat.
Another study estimates that replacing heavy-polluting stoves at a steel mill in Taiyuan with a larger arc-cast furnace is the most expensive of the analyzed interventions in terms of carbon abatement costs. However, installing the arc-cast furnace would lead to major local health benefits, which more than outweigh the total abatement costs. In comparison, a coke dry quenching project, which would reduce emissions and save coal, has abatement costs that are less than half of those associated with the arc-cast furnace project.
However, the local health benefits from this project are estimated to be negligible, and thus the net costs are far higher than for the arc-cast furnace project. Other projects evaluated in the same study corroborate that accounting for health-related co-benefits can change the relative attractiveness of alternative carbon reduction options.
Authors; Mestl et al. For each of the selected air pollution control options and scenarios, the associated changes in carbon emissions can be calculated, and its value entered into the multi-criteria or cost-benefit evaluations. The next section provides examples of air pollution activities supported by the World Bank in China, most of which have a concomitant benefit in reducing carbon emissions.
Lessons of Experience of World Bank Air Quality Improvement Activities in China The World Bank has addressed urban air quality management and the interlinkages with other sectors in China through analytical work, loans, regional initiatives, and partnerships. This section presents a small sample of these practical experiences in Chinese cities in the areas of integrated air quality management assessment, air quality monitoring systems, transport, energy and heating, fugitive dust and desertification, and indoor air quality. Developing a cost-effective comprehensive air quality management plan requires considerable analytical effort see box This study concentrated on the PM element of the pollution.
The air quality of Shanxi has suffered heavily from decades of coal mining and direct coal combustion such as power generation, coking, and metallurgy. Emissions of main air pollutants in Shanxi all far exceed the national average. Management efforts are complicated because multiple pollution sources, multiple sectors, and multiple stakeholders contribute to the pollution.
This framework articulates a step-bystep process towards a comprehensive approach to air quality management presented in Annex 2 in World Bank and MEP a: Through this data collection, it would be possible to acquire a better understanding of the ambient air pollution situation in the city, including areas with higher pollution concentrations. The second step is to determine the main sources contributing to the air pollution concentration levels.
In each city in China, local EPBs maintain a pollution source inventory of the main sources that can be applied as a starting point, focusing on main point sources such as power plants and industries, as well as distributed, individual sources with low chimneys, like coal-fired domestic heating units. The third step is to run models that estimate contributions different sources of the pollution make to ground-level concentrations. Typically analysts use appropriate atmospheric transport and dispersion models that include meteorological, topographic, and population data as input.
Such tools can also estimate the population exposure to the pollutants. Many cities are already using such tools, particularly to assess PM sources and intensities. Finally, the calibrated model can be used to compare and select the most feasible and cost-effective options to control the key sources of air pollution. A cost-effectiveness analysis will compare the costs of each abatement measure with the commensurate pollution reduction and, more importantly, population exposure.
Cost-benefit analysis goes a step further and incorporates the health effects of the pollution, by using dose-response relationships. Solutions can be found in reducing both the supply of polluting technologies as well as the demand for total energy. The supply-side reductions generally rely on improved technologies and investments such as in replacement of inefficient industrial plants and boilers, adoption of clean coal technologies, and phase-out of small-scale coal combustion. Demand can be influenced by measures such as regulation in the form of pollution charges, taxes, or other sanctions.
Marketbased instruments, such as the SO2 trading schemes already being piloted in Jiangsu province, are also highly efficient and could be scaled up. Based upon this data, as well as meteorological and topographic distribution data, an urban air quality model was developed to calculate hourly concentration and distribution within the cities. This model was then used to evaluate alternative abatement options. Shift fuel from coal to gas in small and medium-sized industries.
The darkness of the colors in the figure shows the average concentration of pollutants in each square kilometer of the selected city: The first modeled scenario corresponds to improvement of the cleaning efficiency of PM10 in the power plant located in the south of the city. This control option gives substantial reductions near the sites, but does not significantly reduce the concentrations in central Taiyuan, and it does not reduce the average population exposure much over the most populated areas.
Scenario 2, in which coal is replaced by gas in 50 percent of the small industries in the city, provides a more substantial reduction in PM10 concentrations and exposure, achieving about 10 percent reduction in concentration levels in large parts of the city. These scenarios are good illustrations of how abatement options can affect smaller and larger parts of the city to a varying extent.
Dispersion modeling is needed to generate such specific results necessary for determining cost-effective abatement scenarios in an urban area in terms of reduction of population exposure and subsequently reduction in health effects. Air quality monitoring and assessment.
A good air quality monitoring and modeling system is essential for developing air quality management plans. Attention is needed not only on monitoring hardware, but also on. The project includes an AQM component that supports the construction of a new Air Quality Monitoring Center; development of a motor vehicle emission inspection system; a management information system for the Xian environmental monitoring station; a data collection, transfer, and analysis platform for online monitoring of key fixed air pollution sources; and a motor vehicle emission control plan.
Sustainable transport and urban air quality. Policies and programs to reduce air pollution emissions from transport can broadly be categorized into those that target the technology of individual vehicles and their fuels, and those that are address the management of the transport system as a whole see box Pilots and programs that support the deployment of clean technologies—such as the GEF—supported Guangdong Green.
Central governments should establish a predictable and consistent policy and regulatory framework for urban air quality management. A specific agency should be given responsibility for securing coordination in urban air quality policy within each metropolitan authority. Establishing urban traffic management centers and involving police in system design and training for traffic management can be especially effective. Air quality action plan: Affected stakeholders—private sector participants, different levels of government, and civil society—should be engaged in developing an air quality action plan to the fullest extent possible.
The incentives to comply are likely to be more powerful if the stakeholders have been involved in policy formulation. Fuel quality and vehicle emission standards: Standards should be realistically set, progressively tightened, and stringently enforced. A targeted, well-designed, and adequately supervised emissions inspection program can foster a culture of continued next page. For two-stroke engines, it can be relatively low-cost and effective to promote proper lubrication practices for existing vehicles and to require new two-stroke engines to meet the same emission standards as fourstrokes.
Transit-oriented urban planning strategies and balanced land use should be developed to reduce trip lengths and concentrate movement on efficient public transport axial routes. Priority should be given to buses in the use of road infrastructure and the creation of segregated bus-way systems should particularly be considered, in order to improve and sustain environmental standards for buses. Competition for the market can also play an effective role in efficiency improvement and creation of incentives for raising environmental performance.
Taxes, import duties, and vehicle licensing can be designed to discourage purchase and continuing use of polluting vehicles and engines. In many countries, raising taxes on automotive diesel should be considered. Separate vehicle charges based on vehicle weight, axle loadings, and annual mileage may also be justified. Free on-street parking should not be provided in congested areas, and subsidies to public off-street parking should be eliminated. Provision for safe and comfortable walking, bicycling, and other forms of non-motorized transport can benefit air quality.
Careful differentiation of traffic by type of road can reduce accidents and promote nonmotorized transport for short trips. Both kinds of strategies have been and will remain relevant both to pollution abatement and carbon reduction strategies. Energy and urban air quality. Air pollution abatement is an essential element of a range of energy sector projects.
As already mentioned, efficiency improvements and modernizing district heating have the maximum synergy between carbon reduction and air pollution outcomes. World Bank—financed district heating improvements in Liaoning, Tianjin, and Urumqi, illustrate the potential for investments to support energy efficiency and generate significant local and global environmental co-benefits by reducing emissions of particulates, SO2, and CO2 see also chapter 8.
Energy efficiency scale-up projects can reduce aggregate demand for energy and thus reduce emissions from coal fired power plants. The GEF-funded China Thermal Power Efficiency Project in the provinces of Shanxi, Shandong, and Guangdong contributes to GHG mitigation and reduction in local air pollution by supporting the closure of small, inefficient, coal-fired power plants and facilitating investment in energy efficiency.
Fugitive dust and particulate matter. Fugitive dust is a significant source of PM, particularly in cities in the west and the drier northern regions of China. For many Chinese cities, this dust is originating from ecologically degraded areas affected by desertification and wind erosion. The program supports an integrated approach to desertification control and rehabilitation that includes the establishment of straw checkerboards, the seeding and planting of indigenous grass and shrub species, tree shelterbelts, as well as grazing control and land management in the Maowusu Desert along the eastern bank of the Yellow River.
Longer-term environmental and ecological benefits of such an approach include the environmental rehabilitation of entire landscapes that can sustain and regulate themselves based on natural processes; reduced silt and sand loads in water bodies, as well as reduced dust in the air and consequently the improvement of environmental quality indicators in nearby cities and towns; and, ultimately, over longer periods of time, the sequestration of carbon in soils and vegetation.
A major source of indoor air pollution in developing countries is the burning of solid fuels such as biomass animal dung, wood, crop residues and coal for heating and cooking WHO Young children and women are disproportionately affected by indoor air pollution see box Analytical work and research studies within the. Damage from pollution increases with proximity to sources and levels of which the pollutants are inhaled; and indoor pollutants are emitted close to the ground where people spend most of their time. Consequently, they are particularly deleterious to human health.
Although IAP and its health impacts are generally a larger challenge in rural than in urban areas, many urban households in China still use biomass cooking facilities and partly coal-based facilities. These households have substantively higher IAP concentration levels than households that use gas. In urban areas of northern China, about 53 percent of households use coal and biomass for cooking compared to about 35 percent in south China. Using these data, it is possible to estimate the concentrations for daily PM10 in houses.
This is about 5. Households using gas for cooking have much lower IAP levels. These calculations illustrate that indoor air pollution is an important health issue that Chinese cities need to solve.
GHG emissions from coal and biomass burning link the indoor air pollution and climate change mitigation agendas. World Bank have focused on low-cost interventions such as improved cooking stoves, cleaner fuels, better stove placement and ventilation, behavioral modification, and other strategies for reducing exposures to smoke. A particularly interesting project that combines the benefits of GHG emission reduction and improvements in indoor air quality is the Hubei Eco-Farming Biogas Project. This project demonstrates innovative technical and methodological approaches and a household-based Clean Development Mechanism CDM biogas digester program.
In each household, the project would also support the improvement of a toilet, pig pen, renovation of the kitchen, and installation of a gas burner. Around 33, households in eight counties in Hubei Province have participated in the project. The establishment and use of biogas digesters by these households has led to a reduction of 59, tonnes of CO2 equivalent of carbon emissions annually.
The project also improves indoor air quality and reduces the incidence of respiratory diseases and eye ailments caused by the burning of coal and fuel wood. The combustion of fuels is the major source of local and global pollution in Chinese cities. Evidence suggests that although Chinese cities have made significant progress in improving air quality in recent years, significant additional effort is needed to reach WHO recommended standards, particularly for PM.
There is also potential to further coordinate carbon and pollution reduction efforts. This chapter illustrated a range of examples where coordinated air quality and carbon reduction programs would result in different choices if only one or the other would be the goal of policy makers. The chapter called for mainstreaming coordinated air pollution and carbon reduction efforts and noted the corresponding recommendation in the 12th Five-Year Plan for the development of climate-friendly urban air quality improvement plans.
Cities need to continue their efforts on air pollution abatement. The focus on reducing carbon intensity provides an opportunity to combine related objectives. Health Impacts in China. World Bank and MEP. With a projected million people being added to the urban population over the next 20 years, China is facing serious challenges. As energy demand for buildings and transport increases, CO2 emissions are likely to triple for buildings and appliances and more than quadruple for the transport sector. The effects of such increases in emissions dictate a comprehensive approach in transitioning to a low-carbon economy.
The previous chapters have described an agenda for cities that addresses climate change mitigation and adaptation, with a focus on established sectors. Some Chinese cities have already been taking action on issues related to climate change, whether dealing with industrial Other cities have focused their efforts on urban management, such as municipal finance, land use and urban planning, transport, energy provision, building energy efficiencies and district heating, air pollution, waste and wastewater management, and pollution reduction.
These are sectors where Chinese cities have accumulated a wealth of experience and achieved significant success in recent years. As they experiment with a range of policies and activities, Chinese cities may also consider taking advantage of additional experiences and innovations that are available internationally. This part of the book chapters 17—21 briefly discusses an emerging set of approaches and innovative ideas that municipal leaders potentially can use to transform their cities and direct them toward a livable, competitive, low-carbon future.
Some of these ideas—such as urban agriculture—fall outside the traditional sectors along which cities are organized, and some of these approaches—such as the use of information and communication technology ICT in low-carbon cities—attempt to implement ideas that reflect the global frontier of knowledge. China has the potential to be a global innovator in these domains. Other approaches presented in this part are well established in industrialized economies but have not yet been undertaken in China, such as a focus on downtown regeneration and the energy efficiency of historic built assets.
This part of the book concludes with a discussion of urban forestry chapter 21 , which along with urban agriculture is an innovative approach that can enhance resilience in future cities while reducing their carbon footprint. Overview This chapter reviews the concept of green buildings, discussing how historic buildings have already been integrating sustainability concepts.
Embodied and Operational Energy in Buildings Most of the current debate on energy in buildings focuses on operational energy, but buildings are actually associated with two types of energy: While operational energy is easily defined as the energy needed to allow building occupancy and use, embodied energy is defined as the energy consumed by all of the processes related to the production of a building, including mining and the processing of natural resources to manufacture building materials, transport, product delivery, and final assembly at the construction site.
More refined concepts con Recent studies demonstrate that embodied and operational energies contribute to the overall energy balance of a building in almost equal shares and that their combination is responsible for about 50 percent of global CO2 emissions. Conserving Energy in Historic Built Assets The common perception is that historic buildings that is, built in the early 20th century and before are energy inefficient and that the environmental impacts of demolition and new construction are easily outweighed by the energy savings of contemporary, green buildings see figure However, studies and evidence reveal that not only can conserving and adaptively reusing historic buildings conserve the energy used for their construction embodied energy , but that these buildings are more energy efficient than most 20th century buildings because of their site sensitivity, quality of construction, and use of passive heating and cooling operational energy.
Embodied Energy in Historic Built Assets The approach to embodied energy focuses on a dual objective: In both cases, international practice has demonstrated that the most important factor is to focus on long-life, durable buildings, in order to make them smart repositories of embodied energy. In fact, the optimal way to save embodied energy is to make buildings last longer. In the case of new buildings, a higher embodied energy can be justified only if it contributes to lower operational energy. For example, large amounts of thermal mass, high in embodied energy, can significantly reduce heating and cooling needs in well-designed and insulated passive solar houses.
For built assets, priority should go to conserving embodied energy by considering the various options to adaptively reuse them, as opposed to demolition and reconstruction. While operational energy can be easily determined by measuring what is needed to operate a building, embodied energy is less apparent because it is embedded in the various steps of building construction and material production. Various tools exist, however, to analyze embodied energy, and they are becoming increasingly refined. Gross energy requirement GER , for instance, is a measure of the true embodied energy of a material, which would ideally include all of the steps from mining to assembly.
Research has made significant progress toward assessing GER, and a number of tools have been widely tested to measure a subset of GER, which is process energy requirement PER. PER is the energy directly related to the manufacturing of building materials see table It includes the energy consumed in transporting the raw materials to the factory and material production, but not the energy consumed in transporting the final product to the building site and assembling it, which are the missing steps to assess GER.
The consensus on PER data for a wide range of materials is extremely encouraging, and the data can already be used by stakeholders, designers, and developers to make effective decisions in urban development, especially to advocate conservation and adaptive reuse of historic built assets. In practice, this means that choosing materials with a lower PER dramatically reduces the embodied energy of a building.
It also means that by conserving and adaptively reusing existing buildings, the PER that is, the cumulative PER of their constituent materials can be kept instead of being discarded, which substantially reduces CO2 emissions. They are very effective tools to promote the conservation of embodied energy in historic built assets.
As an example, according to U. Green Building Council—would further support the conservation of historic built assets, as these are often located in easily accessible and dense urban cores. Unlike traditional embodied energy calculations, LCA provides an assessment of direct and indirect environmental impacts associated with a building by quantifying energy, material use, and environmental releases at each stage of the life cycle, including resource extraction, goods manufacturing, construction, use, and disposal.
LCA makes an even stronger case for conserving and adaptively reusing historic built assets and is the basis for the distribution of points under the updated U. Acknowledging the importance of embodied energy, one project component focuses on the conservation and adaptive reuse of two large historic buildings that are currently underutilized.
The Confucius and Mencius mansions are vast former residences, which today are mostly abandoned see figure The buildings will be revitalized to host a number of new productive functions, from knowledge centers to growth poles for sustainable tourism. The physical conservation of the mansions will maximize the use of low-impact traditional techniques and locally available building materials to reduce the additional embodied energy the project will create.
Reusing historic assets for new functions, instead of constructing new buildings, will conserve the embodied energy and reduce the need for accumulating additional embodied energy that the construction of new buildings would require. Operational Energy in Historic Built Assets While CO2 emissions result from the consumption of natural resources, activities to reduce those emissions often lead to further consumption.
A World Bank project will finance the adaptive reuse of the temple, mansion, and other large, underutilized, historic buildings in Shandong Province, conserving their embodied energy. Demolishing existing buildings to construct new ones results in additional CO2 emissions for their demolition, for debris and waste disposal, for the production of new materials, and for assembling replacement buildings.
Today, the most innovative approaches are shifting toward conserving existing resources rather than consuming more. The common perception is that existing built assets are not energy efficient. This is not exactly true: In contrast, assets built in the early 20th century and before are extremely energy efficient. Indeed, energy costs in the past were very high, and building designers and developers had found very good solutions to make their buildings energy efficient.
A groundbreaking study by the U. Energy Information Administration EIA , since followed by a number of similar investigations worldwide, has demonstrated the energy efficiency of historic built assets. The study is based on a simple analysis of the operational energy needed to operate similar categories of existing buildings, still in use, simply looking at their year of construction see figure The efficiency of historic buildings is largely due to a difference in construction methods.
Generally, historic buildings have thick, solid walls with high thermal mass that reduces the amount of operational energy needed for heating and cooling. Moreover, buildings designed before the widespread use of electricity feature well-designed windows for natural light and ventilation, as well as shaded porches and other details to reduce solar gain.
Fourth, China should allow the market to allocate resources and promote low-carbon development under the umbrella of new urbanisation. Its high and new technology industries are growing rapidly. Some of these supply-side options, however, are very energy intensive. In addition, there is inadequate public access and participation in the planning process. Low-carbon development in Shenzhen. However, the local health benefits from this project are estimated to be negligible, and thus the net costs are far higher than for the arc-cast furnace project.
In the past, designers and developers also paid close attention to location, orientation, and landscaping as methods for maximizing sun exposure during the winter months and minimizing it during warmer months in other words, designers created passive heating and cooling systems. In addition, historic buildings are mostly located in densely built areas.
Compact urban development means reduced heating and cooling costs because units are smaller or are in multiunit buildings.
District energy systems can be used for power generation, as China has been doing for Figure Municipal infrastructure requirements for roads, sewers, communication, power, and water are also reduced by high-density developments, which is where most historic buildings are located. Reducing Operational Energy in the Empire State Building in New York City In , sustainability experts joined forces to retrofit the Empire State Building, using an innovative design process and state-of-the-art tools with one key goal in mind: After comprehen- Figure Rather, it was more energy efficient and cost effective to conserve the glass and frames of the existing 6, dual-pane windows, and then upgrade them to superinsulating glass units in a dedicated processing space located onsite.
As a result, 96 percent of the frames and glass of the Empire State Building were conserved and reused. The work was completed in October as one of eight measures in an innovative energy retrofit of the building. The project, which will pay for itself in three years, featured the following accomplishments: Conclusion It has been demonstrated that historic assets can have energy efficiency comparable to newly constructed buildings. The relocation of new functions into historic buildings as well as the provision of appropriate retrofit measures can contribute to significant energy and resources conservation.
With this in mind, China, with its thousands of years of history and its extensive collection of historic assets, has a great opportunity to excel in the conservation of heritage—and its embodied energy. SBTool is software for assessing the environmental and sustainability performance of buildings.
Bibliography Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Brookings Institution Center on Metropolitan Policy. A Competitive Agenda for Renewing Pennsylvania. Shrinking the Carbon Footprint of Metropolitan America. New Tricks with Old Bricks. City of New York. City of San Francisco. Building A Bright Future: How Much and at What Cost? The Urban Land Institute. National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Inventory of Carbon and Energy. Redefining Urban and Suburban America: Evidence from Census Annual Energy Outlook Consumption and Expenditures Tables. Financing Historic Federal Buildings: An Analysis of Current Practice. Overview This chapter presents a brief overview of the objectives, sustainability, and economic benefits of downtown regeneration and cultural heritage conservation. Objectives of Downtown Regeneration Downtown areas in developing countries are usually surrounded by fastgrowing neighborhoods. Regenerating these downtown areas is an asset-based approach to local economic development.
This regeneration has two main objectives: Healthy and vibrant downtowns can boost the quality of life in local communities. Livable downtowns are also symbols of community pride and custodians of rich history and heritage see figure Sustainability of Downtown Regeneration Downtown regeneration is a challenging process, requiring the development of a complex, well-integrated mix of uses, all within walking disFigure Pingyao in Shanxi Province.