It may seem like a pipedream, but for advocates of green buildings it is the ultimate goal: perpetually clear air in Beijing free of the pollution that often shrouds the sky.

One of those in the vanguard of the fight to clean up Beijing's air is Siemens Infrastructure & Cities Sector, part of the German multinational based in Munich.

Green building is an effective way of cutting carbon dioxide emissions in Beijing, says Xiao Song, president of Siemens Infrastructure & Cities Sector Northeast Asia/ASEAN-Pacific.

"You can see so many high-rises being built everywhere (in China). Construction sector has accounted for more than 30 percent of total energy consumption in China. But energy consumption can be effectively lowered if you put up green buildings, and some phenomena such as the smog in Beijing would not be so prevalent."

Energy equivalent to that found in 45 million metric tons of standard coal could be saved by building green buildings during China's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), Zhang Shaochun, vice-finance minister, said at a news conference in May.

Xiao says that last year the environmental portfolio accounted for about 40 percent of Siemens' global revenue, and the Chinese green building market "has been earmarked as an important focus" for the company.

In 2008 Siemens worked with Shanghai Yangpu district on improving energy efficiency for the government office building.

The building was modernized, improving the heating, air-conditioning, lighting and building automation. Siemens says that as a result the local government saves 16 percent on energy costs, and carbon dioxide emissions are cut by 600 metric tons a year.

Siemens has also worked with other cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou, Qingdao and Wuhan on a series of urban development projects during the past couple of years.

Qiu Baoxing, vice-minister of housing and urban-rural development, says developing green buildings, stimulated by national policies, will become a trend in the building industry and demand will increase in coming years.

"China is in the process of urbanization," Qiu said at a news conference last month. "The building sector is central to the country's work on energy-saving and reducing carbon emissions."

China's urbanization is accelerating, and about 350 million people are expected to move into cities over the next 20 years, according to a World Bank report titled Sustainable Low-Carbon City Development in China, published in May.

Driven by this huge demand for space, about 2 billion square meters of building space is being built every year, says Liu Gang, a researcher at the China Institute of Building Standard Design and Research.

"However, many are high energy-consuming buildings," says Liu, who is also director of the energy efficiency and renewable energy department at the institute. "If energy is to be saved and carbon emissions reduced, green buildings must be built."

Under the Five-Year Plan, China has said that constructing green buildings is one way of meeting the target of reducing energy consumption by 16 percent and carbon emissions by 17 percent for every unit of gross domestic product by 2015.

According to a document the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued in May, the government has set a goal of green buildings accounting for 30 percent of new construction projects by 2020.

Driven by government support, the development of green buildings industry will create a green market worth trillions of yuan, benefiting domestic and foreign players in the sector, analysts say.

"The property sector has a strong ability to influence the demands of downstream industries," Zhang, with the Ministry of Finance, told Xinhua News Agency in May.

"It is responsible for 50 percent of the country's steel consumption and 60 percent of cement consumption. Developing green buildings will effectively drive the growth of new building materials, new energy and related service sectors."

But analysts are also adding a few doses of caution to the optimism, saying that stringent standards on green buildings are needed and that in building management domestic companies lag far behind their counterparts overseas.

Liu says China's green building evaluation work needs to be improved in a step-by-step process. The total energy consumption level of a building project should also be measured, he says.

"Although some building projects technically meet the requirements set by green building standards, they ignore the final effect on energy saving. If the buildings don't bring any improvement in quality and environmental protection, they are not real green buildings."

Aldous Wong, vice-president and general manager of Honeywell Building Solutions North Asia, says green buildings have become the major trend of the Chinese building market.

"'Green building doesn't just refer to using some energy-efficient materials, and only with joint efforts by solution providers and building developers can the goal of saving energy be met," Wong said in a company statement on July 2.

Honeywell has signed a cooperation agreement with Soho China to construct a green building in Wangjing in Chaoyang district of Beijing, it said. The building is to be finished by 2014.

Chen Yi, a professor at the college of architecture and urban planning of Tongji University, known for its architecture department, says that Chinese companies are still lagging behind in controlling carbon footprint during the whole life cycle of buildings, reducing the energy-saving effects of green buildings.

"The energy-saving results of green buildings are based on a building's life cycle. In this regard, each link along the life cycle, from construction to use, should be considered. But domestic companies often focus a lot on the technologies, instead of controlling the carbon footprint during the whole life cycle of the building."

Contact the writers at huhaiyan@chinadaily.com.cn and fengzhiwei@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/06/2012 page16)