Urbanisation and its impact on building energy consumption and efficiency in China Baizhan Li a, b, * , Runming Yao c a Key Laboratory of the Three Gorges Reservoir Region’s Eco-Environment under the Ministry of Education, Chongqing University, P.R. China b Faculty of Urban Construction and Environmental Engineering, Chongqing University, P.R. China c School of Construction Management and Engineering, The University of Reading, UK article info Article history: Available online 9 March 2009 Keywords: Urbanisation Building energy efficiency Sustainable urban development abstract The People’s Republic of China and its 1.3 billion people have experienced a rapid economic growth in the past two decades. China’s urbanisation ratio rose from around 20% in the early 1980s to 45% in 2007 [China Urban Research Committee. Green building. Beijing: Chinese Construction Industrial Publish House; 2008. ISBN 978-7-112-09925-2.]. The large volume and rapid speed of building construction rarely have been seen in global development and cause substantial pressure on resources and the environment. Government policy makers and building professionals, including architects, building engineers, project managers and property developers, should play an important role in enhancing the planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance of the building energy efficiency process in forming the sustainable urban development. This paper addresses the emerging issues relating to building energy consumption and building energy efficiency due to the fast urbanisation development in China. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction to China’s economic development and urbanisation According to The Economist’s Executive Editor Daniel Franklin [1], ‘‘In China and other emerging economies, the current rapid growth momentum is expected to continue, but the challenges from resources and sustainable development will accompany with the economic growth’’. China has experienced fast-paced economic growth and has been in a stage of rapidly urbanising development for the past two decades. The country’s average annual GDP growth rate for the period between 1979 and 2007 was approximately 10% [2]. As a result, massive numbers of people have been migrating to cities and towns across China. This migration creates increasing pressure for urban development and urban renewal in urban areas. From Table 1 , we can see that the urbanisation rate in China in 1985 was 23.7%. Rapid urbanisation occurred at the beginning of the 1990s. The average annual increase in the urbanisation rate between 1990 and 2000 was 1.0%. The rate rose from 36.1% in 2000 to 45% in 2007, roughlyan increase of 1.4% annually. It is predicted that the urbanisation rate will continue increasing by 1% in each of the next five years, reaching 50% by 2012 [3]. Fig. 1 shows the country’s GDP in relation to the increase of urbanisation. Urbanisation has stimulated rapid economic growth. Fig. 2 shows that the Chinese government’s foreign exchange reserves increased rapidly since the early 1990s [4]. They rose from 3 billion US dollars in 1988 to 1 trillion US dollars in 2006, a mile- stone in its economic development [5]. China’s reserves reached an astonishing 1.65 trillion US dollars in March 2008 [4]. Urbanisation is one of the key issues in China’s economic development. Rapid urbanisation has caused much pressure on energy, resources and environment. It is estimated that over 210 million people from the countryside had been employed in towns and cities in 2006 [3]. Considerable resources are needed to invest in urban public utilities, infrastructure and services including housing, water supply, roads and bridges, etc. This poses a tremendous challenge since most cities already face difficulties in delivering adequate services. Approximately 400 out of 600 cities nationwide are classified as experiencing water shortage, with 60 facing critical situations [6]. The emerging environmental issues attributed to urbanisation, such as air pollution, water pollution, industrial pollution, traffic, vehicle-generated pollution, solid waste and carbon emission, are highly concerned as China continues developing. * Corresponding author at: Faculty of Urban Construction and Environmental Engineering, Chongqing University, P.R. China. E-mail address: baizhanli@cqu.edu.cn (B. Li). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Renewable Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene 0960-1481/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2009.02.015 Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 1994–1998