Low Carbon Urban Infrastructure Investment in Asian Cities

ANALYSIS OF ECONOMIC INCENTIVE POLICIES... 53

3.4 dIscussIon

3.4.1 Barriers to Green Building Development in China

The literature review reveals numerous problems associated with Green
Standard implementation (MOHURD 2013 ). For example, in existing
green buildings, 30 % of sun-shading systems do not work due to design
flaws, 6.7 % of renewable facilities are no longer used, only 10 % of mate-
rials are reused, and 20 % of tools are not maintained regularly—and all
these results are obtained after only one year of operation. Other problems
associated with green buildings include indoor environments and water-
saving systems that do not meet standards and plants that have died due
to watering system failures. These issues mean that some green buildings
are no longer “green,” as they do not meet Green Standards during opera-
tion periods.
In addition to the issues presented above, Wang ( 2013 ) also notes two
main reasons for the discrepancy between design- and operation-stage
green buildings:

• The term of approving the green label for the design stage is much
  shorter than at the operation stage.


• Green label awarding processes are more complicated at the opera-
  tion stage.

For these two reasons, developers must face more technical and finan-
cial risks to obtain green labels for buildings at the operation stage (Wang
2013 ); in addition, these two reasons also explain why fewer green labels
are awarded at the operation stage than at the design stage.
As numerous new green buildings have only operated for one or two
years, they require more time to fully meet low-carbon and “green”
operation targets, which is understandable in light of the issues presented
above. Although the speed of green building growth has been high in
recent years, Yao and Wu ( 2014 ) describe the constraints on green build-
ing development in China as follows:

• Securing Green Standards and green labels during the operation
  stage is difficult and complicated.


• Three-star green building awards are more difficult and costly to
  obtain than two-star green building awards.