Energy policy and standard for built environment in China Runming Yao a, * , Baizhan Li b , Koen Steemers a a Department of Architecture, The Martin Centre for Architectural Studies, University of Cambridge, 6 Chaucer Road, Cambridge CB2 2EB, UK b Key Laboratory of the Three Gorges Reservoir Region’s Eco-Environment, Ministry of Education, Faculty of Urban Construction and Environmental Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400045, China Received 1 June 2004; accepted 24 January 2005 Available online 4 March 2005 Abstract Trends in China’s energy future will have considerable consequences for both China and the global environment. Though China’s carbon emissions are low on a per capita basis, China is already ranked the world’s second largest producer of carbon, behind only America. China’s buildings sector currently accounts for 23% of China’s total energy use and is projected to increase to one-third by 2010. Energy policy plays an important role in China’s sustainable development. The purpose of this study is to provide a broad overview of energy efficiency issues in the built environment in China. This paper, firstly briefly, reviews the key national policies related to the built environment and demonstrates the government’s environmental concern. Secondly, the authors introduce recent energy policies in the built environment. Energy efficiency and renewable energy in the built environment, which are the key issues of the national energy policy, have been reviewed. Discussion of the implementation of energy policy has been carried out. q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Energy policy; Energy efficiency; Energy conservation; Environment; Renewable energy; Carbon emission; Built environment; China Renewable Energy 30 (2005) 1973–1988 www.elsevier.com/locate/renene 0960-1481/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2005.01.013 * Corresponding author. Fax: C44 1223 331701. E-mail addresses: ry207@cam.ac.uk (R. Yao), baizhanli@cqu.edu.cn (B. Li), kas11@cam.ac.uk (K. Steemers).