Facilitating the transition to sustainable construction: China's policies Rui-dong Chang a, * , Veronica Soebarto a , Zhen-yu Zhao a, b, ** , George Zillante a a School of Architecture and Built Environment, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, Australia b School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China article info Article history: Received 10 February 2015 Received in revised form 4 January 2016 Accepted 29 April 2016 Available online xxx Keywords: Sustainable construction Green building Policy Construction industry China abstract China faces a challenge to balance its future urbanization process with resource conservation and environmental protection. Promoting sustainable construction is identified by the Chinese government as an important strategy to tackle such challenges. To promote sustainable construction, the Chinese government has released a large number of laws, policies and regulations. This paper investigates the policy system in China which aims to facilitate the transition to sustainable construction. The related laws, policies and regulations are analyzed and three main functions are identified, namely regulation and control, economic incentives and supporting activities. The results show that the behaviours of various participants in the construction industry, including the government, developers, builders, sup- pliers, and designers, are regulated and controlled by these laws and regulations. Subsidy policies, award policies and economic innovation policies are adopted by the government to promote renewable energy applications in buildings and infrastructure construction. The key supporting activities for sustainable construction include strengthening technology innovation, improving standards and evaluation, estab- lishing demonstration projects, and publicity. Two emerging challenges of the current policy system are also identified. They are: a lack of considering social and economic dimensions of sustainable con- struction, and the ineffectiveness of some key policies such as the environmental impact assessment policy. This paper provides a useful reference for construction corporations and policy makers in China to facilitate sustainable construction in future urbanization process. Similarly, policy makers in other emerging economies can understand how sustainable construction is promoted in China. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Since the implementation of the opening-up policy in 1979, China's economy has gained a rapid development, with an average annual growth rate of the gross domestic product (GDP) consis- tently being around 10% in the past three decades (NBS, 2013a). Along with this huge economic expansion also comes rapid ur- banization. China's urbanization rate increased dramatically in the past three decades, from only 19% in 1979 to 53.73% in 2013 (Chen et al., 2013; NDRC, 2014). Compared to an average of 78% for high- income countries, China's current urbanization rate is still low (NBS, 2013b). In March 2014, the Chinese central government released the China's New-style Urbanization Plan (2014e2020), revealing an ambitious goal that by 2020 the urbanization rate needs to achieve 60% (NDRC, 2014). The rapid economic develop- ment and urbanization process in the past, however, brought about high amount of emissions, tremendous energy consumption and severe environmental problems. Back to 2006, China has surpassed America to become the world's largest CO 2 emitter (IEA, 2013a). Similarly in 2009, China became the world's largest energy con- sumer, accounting for approximately one fifth of the world's total energy consumption (IEA, 2013b). The environmental pollution in China is also severe, evidenced by the fact that less than 1% of the 500 largest cities in China met the air quality standards recom- mended by the World Health Organization (Asian Development Bank, 2012). Therefore, it presents a significant challenge to China to balance its future urbanization process with resource conserva- tion and environmental protection. The Chinese government has recognized this challenge and as a result, many new concepts of sustainable urban development, such as eco-city, low-carbon city and low-carbon eco-city, have been researched and implemented in several regions (Liu et al., 2014). To * Corresponding author. ** Corresponding author. School of Architecture and Built Environment, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, Australia. E-mail addresses: ruidong.chang@adelaide.edu.au (R.-d. Chang), zhaozhenyuxm@ 263.net (Z.-y. Zhao). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.147 0959-6526/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2016) 1e11 Please cite this article in press as: Chang, R.-d., et al., Facilitating the transition to sustainable construction: China's policies, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.147