7th Forum on Green Development

Cities are growing and emerging all over the world. Urbanization has been an unstoppable social phenomenon for decades, and its challenges are complex. Housing people takes up more and more of a city's surface area. At the same time, the demand for primary energy is growing with increasing prosperity.

The construction and building sector, i. e. building and demolition, housing and use, now account for a total of 38 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, in China even for more than half. In this context, the ecological footprint is divided proportionally between construction and demolition of buildings on the one hand, and the usage of the buildings on the other hand.

There was a large acceptance among all experts of the forum: To achieve climate targets, buildings must be constructed and renovated in a sustainable manner to reduce CO₂ emissions from the sector. In order to realize this, efficient solutions are needed that also ensure affordable housing. Chinese experts pointed out that large-scale application of (ultra-)low-emission buildings that draw energy from clean grids and/or are self-sufficient with solar panels, a sharp increase in energy-efficient renovation rates, and the implementation of market-based measures such as an effective CO₂ trading market are the keys to achieving climate neutrality targets quickly. However, figures from Germany show that this change is progressing far too slowly. Experts from both countries saw monitoring and surveillance of buildings as another pivotal factor to analyses and conclusions for the sustainable development of buildings. In Germany, however, a system for this is virtually non-existent, as it is associated with a massive demand for skilled workers, which cannot be met. China, on the other hand, already relies much more on technological tools for monitoring efficiency control. Furthermore, projects are underway in both countries for the random assessment of buildings.