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Developers plans green overhaul of construction industry

By Li Xing (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-12-09 16:35

Several real estate developers led by Wang Shi, Chairman of China Vanke Inc called for a green overhaul of construction industry on Tuesday on the sideline of the the UN Climate Change Conference.

The urban expansion and housing boom in the past 30 years have caused excessive use of energy and natural resources such as wood and produced a lot of waste with little consideration for taking advantage of renewable energy, Wang Shi said.

As a result, China has to import a lot of timber from around the world. The timber is turned into wood panels, which go into landfill as trash after reuse only six times.

The barrier is still in place that discourage developers to make full use of solar and wind energy, said Zhang Zaidong, Chairman of Beijing-based real estate company, Tiptop International. There is no way for residential zones to generate their own electricity from solar systems and feed into the power grid.

"We need to reexamine the model of our consumption,” said Song Jun, Chairman of Jiu Han Tian Cheng Group, “and place a cap not only for carbon dioxide emissions but also caps for all our behaviors that disrupt the harmony between the ecology and human society.”

Wang Shi proposed setting technological standards to reduce the use of wood in construction business.

Steel panels can replace wood panels as moulds and the steel products can be reused more than 400 times, Wang Shi said. That alone will be able to save 9,000 hectares of wood a year.

Zhang Zaidong proposed that the government adopt policy incentives so real estate developers will spend money on new systems taking advantage of renewable energy.

"We should stop building power plants and use the money instead to install low-carbon and renewable energy systems,” Zhang said.