Private sector can boost urban sustainability

As we undergo the fourth industrial revolution, companies are uniquely positioned to form partnerships with governments to address some of the world's greatest challenges.

Urbanization continues to spread globally, with 70 percent of the world's population expected to live in cities by 2030. This trend brings with it the urgent need for more efficient use of energy, cleaner energy generation and effective energy storage. While the public sector must lead, it should work closely with the private sector to rapidly implement best policies, programs and projects that will improve urban efficiency and sustainability.

Buildings are responsible for up to one-third of greenhouse gas emissions globally. The most cost-effective time to reduce energy consumption in buildings is before construction, when integrated designs and off-the-shelf building technologies can yield up to a 50 percent reduction in energy use and positive returns on investment.

For existing buildings, energy efficiency retrofits using these same principles can deliver 15 to 40 percent savings that pay for themselves over time through energy cost savings.

Best practices for improving building energy efficiency in cities include: adopting and enforcing building codes and appliance standards; setting reduction targets and adopting sustainable construction and leasing policies; establishing retrofit programs for public and private-sector buildings; introducing certification, benchmarking and transparency programs; accepting innovative financial models and programs and coordinating efforts with local utilities. While the results are promising, very few cities globally have implemented a comprehensive set of these elements.

While buildings represent a great opportunity to improve demand-side urban efficiency, district energy systems are seeing a resurgence of interest in urban sustainability on the supply-side. Modern district energy systems provide centralized heating and cooling to urban areas with efficiency gains of up to 80 to 90 percent on conventional systems.

Paris initially developed a district heating system in 1927 to reduce air pollution from burning coal. Today, renewable energy provides over 50 percent of cogenerated heat to the equivalent of 500,000 households. Paris also developed Europe's first and largest district cooling system, using water from River Seine, while improving energy efficiency by 35 percent.

In Dubai, air conditioning represents 70 percent of electricity consumption. The city is developing the world's largest district cooling network, which will cut this electricity use in half while also reducing its consumption of fresh water through the use of treated sewage effluent. In China, the city of Anshan is integrating isolated boilers into their district heating network and capturing waste heat resulting in a 1.2 million ton reduction in annual coal use.

Driven by aggressive California goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption, Stanford University has developed and implemented an innovative strategy to reduce building energy use. The new energy system provides 90 percent of campus heating needs from heat recovery chillers and reduces water consumption by 15 percent. The design includes chilled and hot water storage systems managed by sophisticated predictive control algorithms that forecast weather conditions, campus energy requirements and energy costs 10 days in advance.

Increasing urban efficiency must be a priority for leaders at all levels as we collectively strive to promote the quality of life for city residents and address the great challenges of global climate change, energy security and economic development.

A number of global partnerships are helping build capability and capacity through increased collaboration between the public and private sectors. With a record numbers of cities, businesses and institutions making ambitious commitments at the Paris talks, now is the time to leverage the experience, resources and solutions of the private sector combined with the leadership of local governments to accelerate action toward urban efficiency and sustainability.

The author is chairman, president and CEO of Johnson Controls. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 01/29/2016 page11)