Environmentalists have mapped out a challenging but potentially achievable scenario for China in which energy-saving buildings are not just friendly to the environment but also attractive to profit-seeking developers.

The incentive for "going green" is spurred along by rising utility bills and an increasing awareness of the harm done by carbon footprints.

In a report jointly published yesterday by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the authors said that if by 2015, 5 percent of existing buildings and 60 percent of new buildings in China were to cut energy consumption 50 percent below those of comparable non-green buildings in similar climate zones, the subsequent annual energy savings would be 170 billion kWh of electricity.

This is the equivalent of turning off all the lights in US for one month and to twice the annual production of the Three Gorges Dam.

"What is not commonly understood is that building operational use accounts for about 25 percent of China's total energy consumption," said Justin Fung, co-author of the report and a project leader in BCG's Hong Kong office. "That is more energy than is used in China's cement, iron and steel sectors combined."

If the energy used for manufacturing building materials and transporting them to the sites is included, China's buildings consume 30 to 40 percent of the country's total energy consumption.

"Actually, it does not require fancy and expensive high-tech gadgets and procedures to achieve what we described in the scenario," said Kevin Mo, senior specialist of sustainable building in NRDC. "Using the existing technologies, it is feasible to achieve a 70-percent energy saving," he said.

The cost of "greening" a building in China is not as expensive as people think, typically being around 4 to 5 percent of the cost of a new building, he said.

Experts said investing in energy-saving buildings is also economically viable for building developers, as the cost can often be recovered fairly quickly in smaller utility bills - usually in five years or less.

"For example, installing energy-saving lights is not only cheap but will pay for itself in less than a year," according to Christoph Nettesheim, a Beijing-based senior partner at BCG.

In addition, retrofits also allow building owners to attract tenants by marketing them as "green". A recent survey by BCG showed that 90 percent of the Chinese consumers look at a "green" record as a plus.

(China Daily September 8, 2009)