What should the construction industry do to help achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality?

How to help achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality has always been a hot topic in all walks of life in the near future, and it is also a topic that may be discussed for a long time. As a major carbon emitter, the construction industry has always had problems such as large resource consumption, high pollution emissions, and extensive construction methods. With the continuous improvement of my country's urbanization level, carbon emissions in the construction production process are also rising. The "China Building Energy Consumption Research Report (2020)" shows that in 2018, my country's entire building energy consumption accounted for 46.5 percent of the country's total energy consumption, and carbon dioxide emissions accounted for 51.3 percent of the country's carbon emissions.

A number of industry experts said that energy conservation and emission reduction in the construction field is a very important link in the chain of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, and it is necessary to promote the green low-carbon development of the whole industry chain of the construction industry from the whole life cycle of building material production, construction, operation and maintenance.

"It is urgent to promote the green transformation of traditional building materials industry"

"At present, the energy consumption of building materials in my country accounts for 39.5 percent of the national energy consumption. Green building materials are the material basis for building a green city, and the integration and innovation of the building materials industry and green development are the fundamental guarantee for supporting the development of green cities." Sui Yinping, deputy director of the Emerging Industry Development Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that it is urgent to promote the green transformation of the traditional building materials industry.

In August 2020, the General Office of the State Administration for Market Regulation, the General Office of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the ''Notice on Accelerating the Promotion of Green Building Material Product Certification and Production Application'', including photovoltaic modules and solar energy 51 kinds of products such as photovoltaic systems, building doors and windows and accessories are included in the scope of green building material product certification. In October 2020, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the ''Notice on Government Procurement Supporting Green Building Materials to Promote the Pilot Work of Building Quality Improvement'' and proposed to promote recyclable building materials that have obtained green building materials product certification and testing in government procurement projects., High-strength and high-durable building materials, green parts and components, green decoration materials, water-saving and energy-saving building materials and other green building materials.

As the application of green building materials has been vigorously promoted at the national level, many building materials companies have also boldly taken solid steps in the development and practice of green building materials. For example, the energy-saving doors and windows of Hebei Aorun Shunda Window Industry Co., Ltd. and the photovoltaic green building materials of Baoding Jiasheng Optoelectronic Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jiasheng Optoelectronic"). Zhang Yifei, general manager of Jiasheng Optoelectronics, said that in 2008, Hebei Baoding Diangu International Hotel installed a variety of photovoltaic green building materials in nine different parts, including the roof, facade and skirt roof. The actual operation data show that photovoltaic green building materials products have played a huge role in the energy saving and emission reduction of Electric Valley International Hotel. "From being put into use in 2009 to the end of 2020, the ten-year power generation attenuation rate is only 5%, and the average annual power generation reaches 278000 degrees. The electricity generated is basically used for the hotel's own use and can replace more than 100 tons of standard coal."

The development of green building materials is of great significance to the low-carbon development of the construction industry. However, in the development process of green building materials in China, there are some problems such as slow industrial transformation, fewer enterprises, poor overall development, lack of objective evaluation and high product prices, which greatly restrict the development of green building materials.

Next, how to vigorously promote the sustainable development of green building materials industry? Du Yun, chairman of the Green City Construction Working Committee of the China Association for the Promotion of International Economic and Technical Cooperation, said that it is necessary to further accelerate the construction of the green building materials 5G (fifth-generation mobile communication technology) digital industrial park, and use big data Internet technology and technological innovation to promote traditional building materials industry At the same time, it is necessary to accelerate the certification and promotion of green building materials, and promote the integration, systematization and assembly of green building materials products. In addition, it is necessary to create a new format for the digital development of the green building materials industry and build a systematic and complete ecological chain of the green building materials industry.

"Need to vigorously develop prefabricated buildings, green buildings, ultra-low energy buildings"

The construction industry is an important area for end-use energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. With the continuous improvement of the level of urbanization, China's new construction area is about 2 billion square meters every year, which poses a great challenge to the realization of the goal of "achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. Regarding energy conservation and carbon reduction in the construction industry, many interviewees unanimously stated that it is necessary to vigorously develop prefabricated buildings, green buildings, and ultra-low energy buildings.

The person in charge of a prefabricated building component manufacturer in Hunan said that it is necessary to vigorously develop prefabricated buildings, no matter from the perspective of low carbon and energy saving or from the reduction of construction waste. "Assembled buildings have the advantages of component modularization, production standardization and assembly standardization, which can greatly reduce building energy loss, save construction procedures, improve component recycling rate, and help carbon peak."

"After statistical analysis of the carbon emissions of 9 projects evaluated by the new version of the" Green Building Evaluation Standard ", the results show that the implementation of green buildings has a significant carbon reduction effect, and green buildings are the key direction of energy conservation and emission reduction in the construction industry in the future." Wang Qingqin, deputy general manager of China Academy of Building Research Co., Ltd., said that the average carbon emission per unit building area of green public buildings is 29.9kg of carbon dioxide per square meter, which is 50.81 lower than the national average of 60.78kg of carbon dioxide per square meter. The average carbon emission per unit building area is 14.13kg of carbon dioxide per square meter, which is 51.3 lower than the national average of 29.02kg of carbon dioxide per square meter.

For ultra-low energy consumption buildings with high comprehensive energy saving rate, Yao Bing, executive vice president of China Construction Supervision Association, said that because ultra-low energy consumption buildings do not need to install environmental conditioning equipment, energy waste caused by a large number of exposed transmission pipelines is reduced, and its design focuses on heat insulation and air tightness, which greatly reduces the ineffective heat exchange inside and outside the building, which saves more than 90% of energy consumption compared with traditional houses, it is of great significance to achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality.

In fact, in 2016, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions on Vigorously Developing Prefabricated Buildings" and proposed that it should strive to use about 10 years to make prefabricated buildings account for 30% of the newly built building area. In July 2020, the ''Green Building Creation Action Program'' jointly issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the National Development and Reform Commission and other 7 departments clearly stated that by 2022, the proportion of green building area in new urban buildings will reach 70%, and Encourage all localities to promote the development of ultra-low energy consumption buildings and near zero energy consumption buildings according to local conditions. Subsequently, most provinces and cities have also made great efforts to develop prefabricated buildings, green buildings and ultra-low energy consumption buildings as the key work of the transformation and upgrading of the construction industry and energy conservation and emission reduction, and have issued relevant guidance documents one after another.

According to Ni Jiangbo, a first-class inspector of the Standard and quota Department of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, by the end of 2020, the total number of projects that have obtained green building marks in China has reached 24700, with a construction area of more than 2.569 billion square meters. In 2020, new green buildings will account for 77% of new urban civil buildings. In addition, the newly started area of prefabricated buildings also increased from 0.073 billion square meters in 2015 to 0.63 billion square meters, accounting for more than 20% of the newly built urban construction area in that year from 2.7 in 2015. "China's green building and building energy efficiency has achieved remarkable development results."

On this basis, industry experts suggest that the next step should be to further promote the energy-saving transformation of existing buildings, improve building energy-saving standards, promote ultra-low energy consumption buildings, near-zero energy consumption buildings, and zero-carbon buildings, and finally achieve all new buildings in the future. Green building standards. On the basis of the existing national low-carbon industrial parks, low-carbon communities, green ecological urban areas, green building bases and other demonstration areas, we will continue to promote the application of renewable energy buildings, zero-carbon building demonstrations and the construction of near-zero emission demonstration areas, and promote building energy conservation and emission reduction on a large scale and institutionalized basis.