Green real estate development in China_ State of art ...

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 47 (2015) 1–13

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Green real estate development in China: State of art and prospect agenda—A review Xiaoling Zhang Urban Research Group, Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 8 September 2014 Received in revised form 25 January 2015 Accepted 1 March 2015 Available online 20 March 2015

Green real estate development is one of measures being implemented to reduce negative impacts of the building industry on the environment, society, and economy. However, there is lack of a systematic review of this large number of studies that is critical for the future endeavor. This paper reviews the existing body of knowledge related to green development. At first, the common research themes on green real estate development were identified, including concept, measure, business, and result. Then, the connotation and denotation of green real estate development was introduced in four dimensions. Third, the stakeholders of green real estate development and its benefits and costs were expatiated. Then, how to realize the green real estate development and its current weakness were analyzed in various aspects. It is found that the existing studies mainly focus on the environmental aspect of green building, other dimensions of sustainability of green building, especially the social sustainability is largely overlooked. Future research opportunities were identified such as the innovation of evaluation systems, integration of planning and design frameworks, management mechanisms and financing modes, and future proofing. & 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Green real estate development Sustainability Stakeholder Research review

Contents 1. 2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Common research themes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 What is green real estate development? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.1. Land transfer and green real estate development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.2. Design and consultation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.3. Green technologies in real estate development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.4. Marketing strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.5. Green real estate development operation and assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Green real estate developed for whom? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4.1. Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4.2. Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.3. Financial institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.4. Material and equipment suppliers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.5. Consultants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.6. Design unit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.7. Construction unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.8. Supervising unit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.9. Property management companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.10. Universities and research institutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.11. Consumers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Benefits and costs of green real estate development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 How to realize the green real estate development concept? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 6.1. Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 6.2. Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

E-mail address: [email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.03.012 1364-0321/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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X. Zhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 47 (2015) 1–13

6.3. Behavior/culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. Current weaknesses in green real estate development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1. Introduction The real estate and building industry has a significant impact on society in many aspects, including the environment and the economy [1]. It plays an important role in urbanization by providing buildings and facilities to satisfy human requirements and employment opportunities directly or indirectly in related industries [2]. In addition, the importance of the real estate and construction industry is related to both its size and its role in economic and social development [3]. Indeed, it makes a great contribution to national economic development. For instance, the construction industry contributed 6.86% to China’s GDP in 2013 [4]. The industry also consumes a large quantity of raw materials, social resources and human resources [5], with the construction of buildings, for example, one of its main products, consuming 40% of the stone, sand and gravel, 25% of the timber and 16% of the water in the world every year [6]. A great deal of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) is also produced in the process of construction—in the manufacture and transporting of building materials for example. Many forms of resources (power, fuel, water, etc.) are also consumed in the post-occupancy phase. As Zhang et al. indicate the use of buildings account for approximately 38.5% of all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, of which 21% and 17.5% are from noncommercial and commercial buildings, respectively [7]. The carbon emissions of buildings all over the world are forecasted to reach 42.4 billion tons by 2035, an increase of 43% on 2007 [8]. In short, buildings are one of the major sources of GHG and have an acknowledged important impact on climate change. Green buildings (GBs), on the other hand, aim to minimize their impact on the environment by promoting life cycle considerations during their planning and development process while enhancing the health of occupants and return on investment to developers and the local community [9]. Hence, GB is an inevitable choice to meet the need for environmental protection and sustainable development. Dating back to 1960s, it was initially put forward as “Arology” in 1960s by Paolo Soleri, an architect combining ecology and architecture [10]. Since then, many developed countries (e.g., USA, Canada, Germany and France) have been working on the green building development. Generally speaking, they are in the frontiers for going green as they have designed a set of institutional norm and improved the green building evaluation standard (e.g., LEED) by relying on the industry and technology advantages. For example, the EU approved the Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD) in 2002 to strengthen control over the total energy consumption of buildings. In 2007, EPBD adopted a regulation that forces building purchasers and tenants to provide energy performance certificates (EPCs) in the building sale or rental process [11]. In USA, buildings consume approximately 40% of all energy, 72% of all electricity and produce 39% of primary greenhouse gas emissions. In this context, the US Department of energy has put forward the Building Energy Efficiency & Technology Improvement Act which aims to define how to make it energy saving by technical details and promote the buildings labeled with “Energy Star” in a nation-wide scale. It is estimated that through all its partnership programs, US consumers will save nearly 50 billion kilowatt-hours of energy over the next 10 years, which translates to a net savings of $3 billion a year [12]. Also,

10 10 11 11 11

the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) became one of the front runners when it launched the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) guidelines in 2000. Several other green building evaluation systems are in various stages of development in North Europe, UK (BREEAM) and Japan (CASBEE), and are enjoying different levels of market impact in their respective countries. In Japan, the CASBEE (Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency) was developed in Japan, beginning in 2001. The U. K. announced in December 2006 that it would realize its nearly-zeroenergy building target on all new homes in the country by 2016 [13]. Comparing with these developing countries, the green building development in the developed countries is lagging behind as they usually face with challenges such as ‘lack of R&D development funds’, ‘outdated technologies’ and so on. In Asian countries, for example, according to a survey, an investment of about $ 50 billion a year by Asian Countries to achieve the target that the clean energy accounting for 20% of total energy supply by 2020 [14]. At the same time, the investment about $ 10 billion each year needs to be input in order to achieve the 2015 target (80 gigawatts as the new energy generation capacity) in developing countries. Hence, the lack of funds becomes a major obstacle for developing countries in the development of new green building technologies. The R&D on low-carbon technologies requires a lot of financial support, and this is a huge amount of money for developing countries. Over the years, many developing countries, especially low-income developing countries, have invested the majority of its revenue in the infrastructure construction and labor-intensive industries, which leads to a relatively small investment in green technology R&D. Also, the education is relatively underdeveloped which further lead to the lack of R&D experts. In this context, the developing countries introduced many high cost low-carbon technologies from those developed countries. However, the introduced R&D could not be fully undertaken due to a serious lack of research capacity in most of the developing countries. China is one of the examples. Green real estate development, strongly advocated by government in China, is a new form of development combining ecology concept with real estate. Due to the double pressures of environmental protection and economic growth, green real estate development is now considered a necessary form of contemporary development, in particular, for real estate industry. Green building (GB) is the main product of the green property concept, but green property is not solely concerned with superimposed technologies and their associated costs [15,10]. While GB is mainly focused on building design and methods of construction, green real estate development also encompasses sustainable landscape design, innovative GB materials, building operation and maintenance [16]. Compared with GB, the concept of green real estate development covers a wider range of activities, involving land sites’ planning, project planning, materials and technology design, construction, operation, maintenance, demolition, etc. Although it is a relatively new concept, green real estate development has been well known as a thrilling new way to make property healthy and energyefficient, with better indoor air quality, lighting and temperature controls. It particularly emphasizes all the links between green processes in the whole building life cycle. Green real estate development involves complicated system engineering that aims to achieve a social, economic and environmental win–win situation. Important

X. Zhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 47 (2015) 1–13

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published papers in recent years. Reviewing these papers reveals four common focus questions with escalating implications for the green real estate development process and product (Fig. 1), concept (what is green property?), measure (how to create green property?), business (how to calculate the costs and benefits involved?) and result (how to evaluate the impact?). A comprehensive academic search was conducted under the title/ abstract/keyword field of the powerful Google Scholar search engine, with keywords including ‘green real estate development’, ‘green property development’, ‘eco-housing’, ‘green building’, ‘green project’, ‘green housing’, ‘sustainable property’, ‘sustainable building’, ‘sustainable project’ and ‘sustainable housing’. This generated a list of 73 papers from 12 journals. As shown in Table 2, Building and Environment, with a total of 980, is the most cited journal followed by Energy and Buildings (470) and Energy Policy (358). In reviewing these papers it became apparent that research into green property primarily involves (1) policy making and market guidance [29,30]. Top-down approach in promoting green building projects is widely used in Asian countries such as Singapore, Japan and China [16]. The central government initiated the green buildings standards first and then promotes the step by step implementation. Sometimes, coercive means from planning and design phase of the green buildings are conducted to make sure of the strict

new evidence from recent literatures implies that green building (GB) has been used as the ‘keyword’ in the search engine of ‘web of knowledge’, ‘science direct’ and ‘google scholar’ for more than 3156 times while the concept of ‘green real estate development’ has been used or cited as less than 436 times. Table 1 summarizes these differences between GB and green real estate development. However, despite extensive studies on various aspects of GBs in different contexts, there has been little substantive research to distinguish between the GB and green real estate development concepts, uniform ideas have not yet been formed, and the boundaries between them are often blurred. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to critically review the studies relating to green real estate development to chart and summarize the existing body of knowledge and future research needs. The paper therefore provides a useful reference for researchers and industry practitioners interested in the development of green real estate projects.

2. Common research themes The green real estate development concept is beginning to take hold in the construction industry due to environmental conditions becoming more and more serious. It has been the subject of extensive research, and with a rapid growth in the number of

Table 1 Comparison between green real estate development and green building.

Definition Stakeholder

Changing Propeller Scope

Focus Perspective Design

Green building

Green real estate development

Healthy facilities designed and built in a resource-efficient manner, using ecologically based principles [11] Government; universities and research institutes; real estate developer; energy-efficient equipment supplier; material supplier; design unit; construction unit; supervising unit; consumer

Commercial real estate development established based on the GB standards, with the purpose of profit Government; universities and research institute; real estate developer; financial institute; energy-efficient equipment supplier; material supplier; design unit; construction unit; supervising unit; property company; consumer Real estate developer Residential community, apartment and office building

Government GB is not only limited to the commodity house, also including the industrial building, hospital, government office building, campus building, etc. Construction, operation Partial Building design

Planning, design, construction, operation, demolition Integral Full life cycle design

Result ?

Product

Impact of green real estate development

Why ? Quantification of cost and benefit of green real estate development

How ? Measures to achieve green real estate development

What ? Coverage and definition of green real estate development Product Fig. 1. The four common questions on green real estate development.

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X. Zhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 47 (2015) 1–13

construction management at different stages. While bottom-up approach is mostly used in Western countries such as USA, UK or European countries. In USA, the green building standards (e.g., LEED) are designed and developed by the non-governmental organizations, and through market-led economic incentives to promote green buildings’ implementation [31,32]. (2) The application of green technologies and materials. Green technology and materials are considered as the future new trend of choice, as its application in the construction can help optimize the architecture design, so that land, energy, water and materials could be saved to a large extent [33,34]. In this context, artificial harmony with the nature accompanied by the organic unity and space environment could be created [36]; (3) Performance analysis and evaluation [37,38]; A variety of building performance evaluation models for green buildings have been developed internationally and domestically. Green building assessment tool GBTool, BREEAM, and LEED are the most representative environmental performance assessment tools [36,32,39– 41]. In China, Green Star system has gradually gained attentions from different stakeholders with highly rated green buildings playing significant demonstration roles [42]. The previous performance evaluation tools have provided a complete framework for evaluating building environmental performance and thus provide authorities’ standards for achieving green mission in the construction and real estate sector. (4) Green property building projects: costs, benefits and barriers [43]. Other than performance evaluation, the costs, benefits and barriers for green property projects have also been evaluated. For example, Ala-Juusela et al. and Zhang et al. [7] claim that using real cost data for a broad range of technologies and design solutions, contradict the assumption of high costs of energyefficient and demonstrate that significant improvements in energy performance can be achieved at very little additional cost [44,16]. This is echoed with Bartlett and Howard, which opined that the capital costs of energy-efficient measures have been overestimated and the potential cost savings may be underestimated at the same time [45]. In this regard, more recent studies by Lam et al. and Zhang et al. [7] thus suggest that one of the most significant barriers for the wide implementation of green property projects is the fear of additional construction cost [46,16]. On the other hand, in terms of the benefits for green property projects, different stakeholders hold different expectations on green property projects, for example, Waddel claims that improved energy Table 2 Number of papers and times cited. Journal

Total number of papers

Total cited times

Building and Environment Energy and Buildings Energy Policy Journal of Construction Engineering and Management Journal of Cleaner Production International Journal of Project Management Construction Management and Economics Automation in Construction Project Management Journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management Journal of Management in Engineering

20 12 7 11

980 470 358 323

44.82 39.17 51.14 29.36

5 2

261 144

52.20 72.00

5

129

25.80

3 1 3

84 41 19

28.00 41.00 6.33

2

16

8.00

2

15

7.50

Total

73

2840

Times per paper

38.38

efficiency and corresponding lower operational costs of green property projects have attracted potential buyers to invest in green [47]. This also bring along a potential increase in market value as it is considered as ‘healthy’ and ‘environment friendly’ residence in the long run. (5) Driving factors, steering strategies for green property projects [48,49]. In line with the 73 papers selected in this study, there are many types of regulatory instruments such as green building codes, informative regulatory instruments such as mandatory labelling, economic and market-based instruments such as certificate schemes, fiscal instruments and incentives such as taxation and support, and voluntary action such as public leadership programmes (Köppel and Ürge-Vorsatz; Zhang et al., [50,7]). In the meantime, government, consumers and developers become three of the most significant stakeholders in promoting green property projects. In line with Zhang et al. [7], green property market needs to be steered by consumers’ demand [16]. Given the demand from the market become strong, the supply from real estate developers will be increased to a very large extent [7,51] and (7) reviewing research [31,52]. Each of the 73 papers was classified into one of these seven categories within a specific period, as shown in Table 3 ranked according to the total numbers involved. This was carried out by the same research group in order to minimize any variation in views. The best fit was chosen if the paper covered more than one research topic.

3. What is green real estate development? Creating green real estate development involves greening in the whole process of development and management, including every component or aspect in the real estate development life cycle. Green marketing and brand and design commence at the earliest stage of the real estate project, with green development being fully integrated into the whole process [53]. Appropriate technologies and strategies are chosen in each stage according to the specific circumstances of green property positioning, while project cost is controlled to be within a reasonable range. 3.1. Land transfer and green real estate development In China, a variety of government policies has been introduced to support the spread of green real estate development [54]. On 1 January 2013, a GB action plan was announced by the General Office of the State Council, raising GB to the national strategic level. At the same time, the Beijing government started to use green ecological indicators (such as the intensity of renewable energy use, utilization of reclaimed water and reuse rate of building materials) as

Table 3 Number of papers by topic. 0405

0607

0809

1011

2

4

4

8

5

23

1 2

4 2

5 4

8 2

3 3

21 13

1

2

2 1

5 4

3

1 2

4 3

23

17

73

Development strategies and management Performance analysis and evaluation Technological approaches and green materials Policy and market Costs, benefits, and barriers to implementation Analysis of success factors Review of development and application

1

Total

6

3

13

14

1213

Total

X. Zhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 47 (2015) 1–13

a condition for land transfer approvals. By the end of 2013, similar policies had been implemented in approximately 20 China provinces. For example, it is stipulated that all the buildings in a list of ecocommunity including Zhongxin Ecological Science and Technology City, Taihu New City, Nanjing gulou outsourcing industrial park, Huaqiao International Service business park and many others should be green buildings. In these eco-communities, green real estate development was considered as precondition for land transfer. Furthermore, in order to strengthen the former real estate construction and construction supervision and inspection, a more stringent implementation of green construction standards and building energy-saving inspection is implemented. Those who fail to meet the mandatory requirements of the green standard construction will not be put into construction and commissioning. These policies have had a substantial influence on green property development and conversion, with property developers being forced to pay serious attention to green issues right from the planning stage of their real estate developments. 3.2. Design and consultation The design philosophy of green real estate development requires the consideration of resource consumption and waste generation during its whole property life cycle [55]. This involves a series of elements to be taken into account in design strategies, such as in saving resources, reducing waste, minimizing life cycle costs and creating a healthy environment in which people live and work [53]. In order to ensure the success of green real estate development design, special attention is needed during the conceptual stage, when many potential design alternatives are generated and evaluated in searching for the most promising solutions. The decisions made during the conceptual stage invariably have a substantial effect on the whole green real estate development adoption process. For instance, the suitable and sustainable choice of building shape and orientation can save 30–40% of energy in some circumstances without any additional costs being involved [56]. This is due to the fact that different building shape and orientation, height-to-floor and window-to-wall area ratios will largely determine the heating, cooling and lighting needs. In this context, an adequate orientation of the building will reduce energy used during the cooling and heating process [57]. The design of green real estate development needs to be systemic and integrated. Each aspect needs to be considered carefully to ensure the green concept is realized. In China, this mainly involves the use of consultants for property design [58], equipment [59], development [60], operation [61], and third party consultation [62]. In general, the capital cost of green real estate development is higher than that of traditional development because of the various green technologies [63] that need to be provided [64], and careful planning and design is necessary to achieve project success. To carry out green real estate development while still making an adequate profit, therefore, real estate developers need to carry out detailed planning from the beginning to the end of their projects in terms of project feasibility analysis, preparatory work for project initiation, project planning and design, construction, project completion and transfer, and property operation. 3.3. Green technologies in real estate development Environmental sustainability is one of the key goals of the green real estate development concept, as is well evidenced in current publications on topics such as resource efficiency, energy efficiency, water efficiency and greenhouse gas emission reduction [65–69]. Green technologies are crucial for green property during its construction [70,71]. Various technologies identified in extensive studies [72–74] provide the opportunity for stakeholders to reduce

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the negative environmental effects of property development. These technologies, such as solar energy systems [75] and waste management technologies [76] aim to reduce operation costs, protect the health of building users and contribute to energy conservation GB technology, one of the most important technical supports, can be divided into two categories: passive technology and active technology [68]. Passive technology is green technology without using mechanical or electrical equipment during the building’s post occupancy operation. Underground space development technology [77], for instance, is useful in promoting the sustainable development. Active technology, on the other hand, does involve the use of mechanical or electrical equipment. Waste management technology [78] during the construction process provides an example. Some hybrid green technologies are both active and passive. Zhang et al. mention 2 of these in addition to 11 passive technologies and 16 active technologies in explaining how all green technologies can increase the competitiveness of real estate enterprises in China [7]. For example, a solar energy system including heating, cooling, natural ventilation and hot water supply was built in Shanghai Research Institute of Building Science. It is generally used for heating in winter, cooling in summer, natural ventilation in spring and autumn and hot water supply throughout the year for 460 m2 building area. After 1-year’s operation, it is found that the solar system contributes 70% of the total energy in the above-mentioned building space at Shanghai [79]. In terms of the waste management technologies, it can be echoed with a case study in Hong Kong, where it was found that there are savings of about HK$1104, HK$3217 and HK$5330 from replacing in situ concrete with reusing precast slabs once, twice and three times, respectively, which represents the cost reduction of about 43.93%, 64.01% and 70.70%, respectively [80].

3.4. Marketing strategy Green real estate development entails high quality products for energy conservation, environmental protection and low carbon dioxide emissions. This involves incremental costs in increasing environmental protection functions, improving public service facilities, using GB materials, etc., which can lead to fluctuations and change in the property market itself [81]. At present, these incremental costs are one of the main obstacles to large-scale green property development. Because of this, until relatively recently, government intervention in the form of regulation or incentives has been assumed to be the only effective mean of advancing green real estate development, and has undoubtedly played an important role to date [82]. An alternative is for government to promote green property by market-based instruments, as market-based incentive policies can be an efficient and effective means of inducing private sector investment, particularly where savings in building energy consumption are involved [83,84]. However, as is well known in economic theory, market structure and performance is dependent on the ease of entry and exit to the market [85] and, due to a series of conditions, entry is not so easy with green real estate development resulting in only large developers with sufficient financial resources being active in the sector. Recent research indicates that there is scope for green real estate development consumers to absorb some of the incremental costs involved, with 78% of interviewees in one study intimating they would pay up to 5% of the cost themselves and 56% would to pay up to 10% [86]. Consumers choose GB because it can provide better living conditions, thereby improving the quality of daily life and work efficiency. In China, however, property is expensive— making price usually the main priority in property sales. Hence, consumer acceptance needs to be considered carefully by Chinese green real estate development companies in setting sale prices.

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At present, consumers need guidance to clearly and fully understand the value of GB before they will consider paying the corresponding incremental costs involved. In the planning stage of development projects, therefore, relevant schemes need to be formulated based on potential residents’ willingness to accept the extra expense of greening. For example, China has initiated the Green Building Evaluation Standard ‘GB/T50378’ in 2006, which has classified the green buildings into three levels: one star, two stars and three stars. By 2010, a total of 112 projects had been awarded with ‘green building’ label with a total over 13 million m2 areas. In line with Zhang et al. [7] and Sun and Shao [87], the premium cost per unit area (green technologies cost) in the three stars residential buildings is RMB 435/m2 while the premium cost per unit area in the two stars office buildings is RMB 280/m2 [16,87]. According to Pivo, ENERGY STAR properties had a rental premium of 4.8%, or $1.26 per square foot. This is also echoed with Miller, building sale price increases by 10% with LEED certification and 5.8% with ENERGY STAR certification in an analysis of building sales from 2003 to 2007 [88,89].

3.5. Green real estate development operation and assessment GB operation management is a complex system including input, transformation and output in order to provide control of the service quality, operation costs and ecological protection [61]. GB systems comprise various components, equipment and intelligent software that have to undergo research and development, debugging, testing, operation, maintenance, downtime, dismantling and disposal over the full life cycle [90]. Many evaluation standards have also been established to promote GB and Table 4 itemizes the most important of these worldwide. All were developed by green building councils in different countries or regions, with certification being implemented on a voluntary rather than mandatory basis. LEED is the most widely disseminated and adopted in the world today [91]. All current GB assessment standards have three features in common in that they are consistently targeted, open and professional, and continuously updated and improved. Sustainable development is the fundamental basis of GB assessment systems in different countries, and modifications and improvements are carried out under the principle of sustainability. The assessment methods and data used are open to public scrutiny and an assessment handbook is available on the internet. The openness of the assessment systems helps to promote their application. As GB is complex and

still evolving, the associated assessment systems are frequently updated with technical improvements. While these evaluation systems promote green real estate development, they also have resulted in some problems. In China, for example, 14 national standards and 54 local standards have been developed and implemented for GB [61]. Although these have been standardized and progress has been made in recent years, many problems still exist. For instance, users can be confused by the different evaluation standards; the contents of many standards largely overlap; and the linkages between evaluation and other standards are unclear. To further improve the evaluation system, we need to streamline different evaluation systems of the project, provide the detailed evaluation criteria in order to enhance the operability standards while strengthening the fairness, transparency and openness. Remedial actions to improve the buildings’ environmental planning, early design, material selection, construction management, green facility management and post-operational energy saving plans need to be considered to make sure that evaluation systems should be equipped with practical construction activities. Finally, the enforcement of building regulations and standards of supervision and management should be guaranteed. It is also necessary to initiate appropriate regulatory and supervisory regime to make sure that green building evaluation systems can be well implemented. Meanwhile, in the planning and design stage, the regional differences incorporating local climatic conditions and people’s lifestyles should be fully reflected in the building evaluation criteria [92].

4. Green real estate developed for whom? There are various stakeholders involved in the green real estate development process [93–95]. Although these stakeholders, and their interrelationships vary over the project life cycle [96], their leadership, acceptance of responsibility and coordination of the various interests involved play a crucial role [97]. Stakeholder analysis provides a useful tool in helping accommodate specific user, regulatory, or community needs to mitigate the risks involved, in what is regarded as the most significant challenge in delivering successful green real estate development projects [9]. 4.1. Government The government is the major driver for the advancement of green real estate development, and industry practitioners are motivated by

Table 4 Leading GB assessment tools. Name

Origin and Country

Key references

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)

US Green Building Council, United States, 2000

Evaluation standard for GB BRE Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) LEGEPs (previously known as Legoe) Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency

The Science & Technology Development Promoting Centre & Ministry of Construction, China The Building Research Establishment, United Kingdom, 1990 University of Karlsruhe, Germany Japan

Green Building Council of Australia Green Star Australia (GBCA) Green Mark Scheme Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method

Department of Commence, NSW, 2005, Australia the Building Construction Authority, Singapore, 2005 HK BEAM

ATHENA™ Environmental Impact estimator

ATHENA Sustainable Material Institute, Canada

Crawley and Aho [17] Larsson [18] Yau et al. [19] Liu et al. [20] Yau et al. [19] Yates and Baldwin [21] Kohler et al. [22] Cole [23] Yau et al. [19] Seo et al. [24] Seo et al. [24] Seo et al. [24] Davies [25] Todd et al. [26] Lee et al. [27] ATHENA Institute [28]

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government policies to take relevant voluntary actions for GB [98– 100]. Being responsible for social management, the government plays a crucial role in guiding the spread of green property through the use of mandatory legal and incentive economic policies. For example, in order to create the economic incentive for green building, the Chinese government grants subsidies to buildings with two-star and threestar with 45 RMB per sqm. and 80 RMB per sqm., respectively [16].

4.7. Construction unit

4.2. Developers

4.8. Supervising unit

Developers have full discretion to choose suitable green construction techniques and materials based on cost, quality and schedule [101]. The development cost and related economic benefits form the core basis of developer decision-making, together with environmental protection awareness and a sense of social responsibility due to green real estate development being closely associated with social and economic development and environmental concerns.

The supervising unit’s duty is to supervise and inspect the construction process, control project quality and provides quality assurance for GB in an objective and fair manner on behalf of the project owners.

4.3. Financial institutions Financial institutions provide economic support for large-scale green real estate development. Their credit policies, such as level of interest and loan conditions, greatly influence the funding for green projects. In addition, housing credit affects GB supply and demand by determining the purchasing power of consumers. 4.4. Material and equipment suppliers Material and equipment suppliers are responsible for effectively transferring green technology into practice and can improve green performance by providing technical feasibility for largescale projects [102]. 4.5. Consultants Professional consultants play an essential role in all major construction projects and provide an important link between developers, design units and construction units. The design consultant is an important stakeholder, having a significant impact in the process of green development design [103]. 4.6. Design unit The designer’s responsibility is to provide a suitable design based on the characteristics of the project and requirements of developer [104]. A good design can save resources, reduce energy consumption and protect the environment. The designer’s sense of social responsibility and value orientation are the internal driving forces for creating a desirable green design.

Construction units are responsible for translating green design into GB, with guaranteed quality and safety, while minimizing consumption to protect the environment in the process of construction [105]. The extent to which this is achieved directly affects the quality of the GB product.

4.9. Property management companies Property management companies are responsible for post-occupancy GB control and management. GB performance depends on the property companies’ energy-saving consciousness and management skill. 4.10. Universities and research institutions Universities and research institutions perform a useful role in the rigorous acquisition and dissemination of knowledge relating to green property [106]. They promote the advancement of green property by their timely involvement in current problems, active involvement in GB construction systems, technology innovation, management systems and other research directions. 4.11. Consumers Consumers, as the final users of GB, are most crucially affected by GB quality and performance [107]. Market price, operation cost and living comfort are the main factors affecting the basis consumers’ decision to buy GB. The relationships between the stakeholders in the whole development process are shown in Fig. 2. A green real estate development case: Landsea Company (L) Founded in 2001, Company L is currently one of the top 100 PRC enterprises in real estate industry, and a leading enterprise engaged in property development with green technology in China. The top management team of L company recognized that the prevailing real estate development mode of over-reliance on extensive expansion and land value may lose competitiveness in the market. The increasing demand for healthy and environment friendly housing posed large market potentials which encouraged L company to choose ‘green real estate development’ as the longterm business strategy. L is a real estate enterprise with distinctive strategies of (1) product differentiation, (2) high turnover of assets

Fig. 2. Relationships between stakeholders.

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and (3) healthy corporate culture. Since 2005, L has been implementing a differentiation strategy in green technology property and established several professional institutes including Shanghai Green Construction Technology Company, Europe R&D GmbH, research center and Grade A design company [108]. It is famous for the fast project operation with very high project turnover. They usually start the sales progress 8 to 10 months after the land auction. Government support for L: The Ministry of Finance, Department of Construction of Jiangsu Province have allocated special funds to L in order to support their R&D of green building technologies, materials and products. When the Ministry of Construction formulate the appropriate green building codes, they always refer to the comments from L company. There are many provincial/local companies that invited L company to enter their real estate market to demonstrate the green building or energy saving construction projects locally. With these financial support, L company spend 2% of the total sales on R&D. Collaboration with Universities and research institutions: L Company recently established a post-doctoral research station, and they also collaborated with many domestic and foreign experts, organizations, institutions to set up long-term cooperation activities. L therefore intends to explore a mode that not only to meet the development of enterprises, but also to win customers, and environment-friendly green development mode, with greener way to meet the increasing housing demands. Financial channel and investment strategies: L pays great attention to the security of funds and has such risk control systems as stress testing, cash flow alert and emergency response mechanism in place. Landsea Group adopts a stable and prudent strategy for land investment and adheres to value-for-money investment. Besides, L has a full set of project investment forecast and estimation model and a due mechanism for land investment decisions [108]. Consumers: Riding on the green concept, L saw property sales rise 35% in the first five months of 2013 from a year earlier, although that was still 10% short of its target due to cooling demand. Contracted property sales grew 30% to 11.5 billion yuan (HK$14.5 billion) last year. As it is indicated in the annual report of L: “L pays particular attention to quality realisation of customers’ experience and sets strict standards for customer reception. Furthermore, through its “secret clients”, L comprehensively reviews the overall service quality on sale sites and compiles reports. In the meantime, L even provides trial stay for customers in some cities to get first-hand experience of charm of green technology system.” [108]

5. Benefits and costs of green real estate development Although the green real estate development concept has not spread as quickly as expected, it is nevertheless attracting increasing attention worldwide. This is particularly the case with GB benefit-cost analysis, which provides an important means of promoting building energy conservation and emission reduction in reflecting GB efficiency in either policies or project investment levels and providing important economic information to the market. The main financial benefits of GB are in significant energy reduction – heating in cold climates and cooling in hot climates – topics that have attracted much research attention to date. For example, in the United States, a study of the energy consumption of 121 buildings certified by the LEED scheme concluded that 25– 30% energy was saved by GBs [109], while in another LEED study in the United States, a typical certified building was found to save 32% of electricity and reduce the average yearly CO2 emissions by 350 metric tonnes [110]. Similarly, the energy performance of another 16 GBs in the United States involved a 60% decrease in

electricity consumption together with a 34% decrease in water consumption, and a 30% decrease in gas consumption [111]. In terms of capital costs, US Green Building Council (USGB) [112] published a research report of GB in New York, which indicated that the construction cost of LEED-certified projects to be not significantly different to those not LEED certified projects. In general, however, the capital cost of green property is higher. Sun and Shao [87], for example, analyzed the technological cost of different types of buildings provided by the China Academy of Building Research (CABR) from 2006 to 2008, comprising, according to their evaluation standard of GB, three 1 star projects, nine 2 star projects, and six 3 star projects in total, equally divided between residential and public buildings. This showed the average incremental costs to be 100, 207 and 360 RMB per square meter for 1, 2 and 3 star buildings, respectively. Whether the benefits exceed the costs is, of course, a muchdebated issue. In theory, if the cost of GB does not increase too much, then the payback period is not too long and the return on investment will be greatly increased [113]. Of the studies that investigate benefits and costs simultaneously in this way, one compares 150 recent conventional and GBs in several countries, finding the average capital cost of GB being 4% higher and average energy saving of 33% over a 20 year period [114]. Similarly, in an analysis of a series of GB roofing experimental data by the theory of life cycle cost, the net present value (NPV) of roofing cost increased 10–14% while the NPV of energy consumption reduced by 20% [115]. Other studies investigate different aspects, with a cost comparison of 138 UK green projects, for example, indicating that the extra cost of construction is reduced if an integrated design method is introduced at the commencement of a green project [116]. The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), on the other hand, reports that commercial building has obvious economic added value [117], with Fuerst and McAllister’s analysis of bidding and transaction data for 24,479 office projects in 10 years (from 1999 to 2008) in 81 cities in the U.S. finding that GB attracts higher rents and low vacancy rates [118]. China introduced the concept of green building since the 1990s, and began the exploratory R&D and application, especially in the “Eleventh Five-Year” period, China’s green building policy, evaluation standards system, and technical R&D demonstrations have made rapid progress, and laid the foundation for large-scale promotion. In 2006, a green building (three star) rating standards is introduced by the Chinese government agency, Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development (MOHURD) in order to regulate evaluation on green building and promote the construction of green building. This is followed by the ‘100 green building demonstration project & 100 low-energy building demonstration projects’ that is launched to carry out the green building rating logo work. By the early 2012, a total of 353 green building rated with green stars projects with a total construction area of nearly 35 million m2 have been completed, as shown in a geographical green building map by Zhou [121] in Fig. 3. It is clearly shown that tier 1 or tier 2 cities such as Shanghai, Suzhou (Jiangsu), Shenzhen (Guangdong) and Beijing together account for 50% of the total number of green building certifications in China [119–121]. In 2012, MOHURD set a targeted, stating that 30% of new construct buildings in China will be green building by 2020 [120,121]. This is partly due to the worsening air pollution that has spurred demand from city upgraders or consumers for homes with energy-saving features, encouraging mainstream developers such as China Vanke and China Merchants Property Development to become more eco-friendly in their products [122]. The MOHURD and the Technology Promotion Center of Peking University started the green building projects in China. They mainly focused on the green building technologies, cost and inp-

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uts, energy and resources consumption, premium cost etc. The results indicated as below: the total areas of green building projects is highly relevant with the local city’s macroeconomic conditions and real estate market conditions; the construction of green buildings is mainly a market behavior; whether or not real estate developers opt for green building projects is determined by the overall local economies of scale, and the level of proactive activity in the local real estate market; The higher level that green building projects are rated, the higher incremental cost it would be; the more average energy will be saved with more green stars rated by the green buildings [19,123].

6. How to realize the green real estate development concept? There are many barriers to realizing the green real estate development concept, such as the limited knowledge and expertise in GB methods, poor quality designs, inadequate GB regulations and noncompliance with existing regulations, failure to recognize the need for social regeneration and limited resources, and lack of a shared vision of sustainable development [124]. These factors can generally be divided into three interdependent technological, managerial and behavioral/cultural categories as described in the following sections. 6.1. Technology The common green technologies used in buildings include wall insulation, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, ground-source heat

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pumps, air-source heat pumps and energy-saving windows and doors) [125,126]. These help reduce energy consumption and GHG emissions in GB and, as conventional energy resources have caused many environmental problems over the years, many policies have been pursued in support of their research and development. Waste control in construction and demolition also plays an important role in sustainable development. This is reflected in GB design, which tries to reduce resource consumption and enhance utilization efficiency [127,128]. The most common approach is to reduce, recycle and reuse construction and demolition waste [129,130]. The utilization of these and further green technological innovations is pivotal in reaching GB objectives and accreditation. Similarly, integrating green technologies into green property has become a key component of green planning and design [60,131], with a critical influence on operational performance. However, the costs of construction, operation and maintenance present significant challenges in implementing these technological innovations in GBs [132,133]. It is further echoed with the British Quantity Surveyors who generally believe that the initial cost 5 to 10% higher than those traditional buildings [134]. Whilst Greg Kats’ findings were based on 33 LEED green building projects in USA, which indicates that the initial cost difference is 2% to 4% than traditional buildings and the higher level of LEED certified, the more incremental cost it would be [114]. Li et al. investigated 20 green star certified building projects and found that the incremental cost for star one, two and three buildings only accounts for 3.05%, 7.93%, and 10.84% (respectively) of the overall cost [135,136]. The results are also echoed with Sun and Shao [87] and Zhang et al. ’s [7] research findings [16,87].

Fig. 3. Green building map in China [121].

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6.2. Management Green real estate development is a complicated organized system and involves many stakeholders, where related organizational and procedural issues can be more important than technological or evaluation standards [136]. GB can affect management activities due to key characteristics such as high initial cost, high environmental requirements and complex processes. The company is the main organization in the green real estate development market, and is monitored and controlled by government regulations. Hence, managerial aspects can be divided into the company level and the market level. At the company level, management is mainly concerned with planning and design management, financial management, construction management and operation management [137]. Various management skills and methods are required in different stages, for instance, collaborating with stakeholders, adopting suitable assessment tools and providing related education to employees. Li et al. summarize five kinds of management factors in green property in signapore, i.e., human resources, technological and innovation, support from senior management, manager competence and coordinating with related stakeholders [138]. Zhang summarized 24 factors that affects the promotion of green building which are listed below: cost, green certification, policy and mechanism for green buildings, environmental and social needs of green building and the organizations and management system of green buildings [139]. At the market level, managerial issues mainly focus on the healthy and sustainable aspects of green real estate development. As Ortiz et al. indicate, the construction industry must consider the environmental consequences at the same time as pursuing economic objectives [140]. In order to remain competitive and sustainable, the construction industry is attempting to seek innovative materials and solutions to build GBs [97]. In addition, green real estate development relies on the support of government policies [141]. The majority of studies carried out have explored the efficient approaches of government in raising the market share of green real estate development [142,143]1.

the property price of green projects is 1% to 3% higher than traditional buildings with similar locations and conditions. Therefore, it could be concluded that the development of green building has great market opportunities ahead. Some studies have been carried out to explore the willingness to pay for various aspects of GB development. Chau et al.’s discrete choice experiments in Hong Kong, for example, reveal strong preferences of both green and conventional residents and a willingness to pay more for improving environmental performance [150]. The majority of end users in Japan and U.S. state that they would accept paying more for using renewable energy and energy efficient refrigeration [151,152]. The attitude and behavior of consumers exerts a great influence in promoting green real estate development. Hence, further strengthening of publicity and education might be an efficient means of enhancing societal awareness of sustainability and residents’ willingness to pay for GBs.

7. Current weaknesses in green real estate development Current green technologies have yet to be perfected and various problems have arisen to date in their adoption. Some notable examples are shown below:

 Although the overwhelming benefits of green property are asso-



6.3. Behavior/culture Behavioral and cultural factors also play a critical role in the advancement of green real estate development [145–147]. These are particularly important in raising the awareness of green real estate and sustainable development for all stakeholders. Hoffman and Henn indicate that various social and psychological barriers may impede the creation of green property, for instance, over discounting the future and egocentrism [148]. Hence, raising consumer environmental awareness offers an alternative pathway for sustainable development. For instance, households that contain people that are more educated are more likely to be environmentalists [149]. This can be echoed with the survey result from China real estate business (green real estate research Centre): they obtained a total of 1044 questionnaires. 82% of the consumers said that they would give priority to purchase real estate properties with green certification, and 67% of them recognized that it is appropriate if 1 Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority initiated to take the “baby steps up” in promoting green building strategies, namely gradual progress. They introduced green building flag award in 2005 as a policy basis, then enacted formal Planning Act, and gradually expand the green market. This can be identified by John Keung, CEO of Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority, “(green building) standards upgrading every year to change an industry, only by gradually introducing new things to adapt to the industry adjustment, in particular, for a relatively conservative & traditional construction industry. Once the incentives and legislation are in place, the professionals’ strength would be greatly enhanced to produce more practitioners, which will therefore form a virtuous circle.” [144].



ciated with thermal comfort [153], one analysis of the energy consumption of 100 LEED certified buildings found that approximately 30% consume more energy than conventional buildings [154]. On one hand, possible solutions for addressing the problems may lie in the improved green building technologies. On the other hand, the problems might arise from the occupants’ behaviour in energy conservation in the LEED buildings. Possible solutions such as by means of raising education awareness (through distribution of guidelines, posters, pamphlets and e-mails) on energy efficiency among the occupants [155]. While the most sustainable green real estate development designs are made in the early decision-making stages, design software such as CAD does not support sustainable design very well in energy and performance analysis for instance. This lack of integrated design capability results in an inefficient process to satisfy green performance criteria [156]. Building information modeling (BIM) offers a potential solution as it contains comprehensive knowledge such as form, materials, context, and technological systems in one mode [157] and research to date highlights its potential for sustainability assessment and performance analysis in the planning and design stage [158,159]. Most GBs are certificated in the design stage and little is known about how to achieve GB standard in the operational (postoccupancy) stage. For example, a study of GB labelling in China found a total number of 331 GB design stage labels but only 22 operation stage labels [160]. Similarly, another study revealed the ratios between the number of GB design stage and operation stage labels to be 9.0, 9.5 and 19.0 respectively in 2009, 2010 and 2011 [60]. This is partly due to due to the lack of mature technology and skilled worker in Chinese building and real estate industry. In this regard, existing green building technologies need to be prioritized on the R&D of construction technology. Moreover, existing codes and standards in the construction process do not account and adjust for green features. It is therefore also necessary to change the systematic construction codes and standards. On the skilled worker of green construction and maintenance, AEC companies including contractors, developers need to educate the market and stakeholders to be readily prepared for future job market. Given the fact of all the stakeholders expect to see emerging new jobs and skilled workers to be focused in green projects, the emp-

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loyees and workers will be fully aware that skills and experience in green building system (construction, maintenance, etc.) is of utmost importance. In this sense, the situation will be changed one day. Little is known of GB development and management from the developers’ perspective although developers take part in the whole process of green property development, from planning to operation and organize and coordinate most of the stakeholders involved. In China, real estate developers are hesitant to incorporte green features that may increase costs as the initial real estate development cost is high. This is a great challenge for real estate enterprises in converting green development intentions into actions. Turning green into gold is one of the most important tasks for developers to achieve. Energy contract management is one of solutions that can get real estate developers involved in the early stages. Zhang et al. has proposed a framework by collaborating developer, property management company and energy service company to achieve a win–win–win situation [161]. Under the EPC contract, a negotiated benefits, risks and cost sharing will be born by the three stakeholders. In this regard, the incentives between multiple stakeholders including real estate developers can be greatly encouraged.

8. Conclusion This paper provides a critical review of existing studies worldwide relating to green real estate development in terms of definition and scope; stakeholders; costs and benefits; and the means by which it can be advanced. This highlights that the most green real estate development studies focus on policy, technologies, materials, costs and benefits, and implementation strategies. The main benefits are seen as in helping to create a sustainable society and environment, with related green technologies contributing significantly to reduced energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and increased water efficiency. The various evaluation systems, such as LEED and BREEAM, have also greatly contributed to its advancement. Future research is needed to address the main current weaknesses of uneven energy consumption levels, the slow growth of GB BIM and post-occupancy accreditations and an improved knowledge of the developers’ perspective. In particular, more studies are required to support the innovation of evaluation systems for assisting decision-making process and advanced information technology is seen as playing a key role. The use of BIM is considered a valuable tool in helping meet the sustainability objectives in green property, and is being increasingly applied in the planning and design stages of projects [162,163] but further studies are needed to facilitate the application of BIM into other stages of the green property life cycle. An additional consideration is that most of the leading GB evaluation systems (e.g., LEED, BREEAM) have been developed to suit regional climatic and geographical conditions and no one system is best suited worldwide. Research is therefore needed into the modifications needed for their use in different countries and regions to take into account local conditions. Finally, the need for greater integration of planning and design frameworks, management mechanisms and financing modes is to be emphasized. Current studies mainly focus on sustainability performance in different stages of green property development, while integration management capability of developers has a crucial impact on the effective implementation of green project and is worthy of further research in the future.

Acknowledgements This research is funded by the National Natural Science Fund (Project no: 71303203) and is also partly supported by the Matching

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fund for Mainland NSFC project by City University of Hong Kong (Project no. 9680114). The work described in this paper was substantially supported by the grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong (Project no. 9610282); the teaching start-up grant from City University of Hong Kong (Project no. 6000504), the start-up grant from City University of Hong Kong (Project no. 7200376) and the Strategic Research Grant by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong (Project no: 7004309). References [1] Zhu Y, Lin B. Sustainable housing and urban construction in China. Energy Build 2004;36(12):1287–97. [2] Zuo J, Zhao Z. Green building research—current status and future agenda: a review. Renewable Sustainable Energy Rev 2014;30:271–81. [3] Crosthwaite D. The global construction market: a cross-sectional analysis. Constr Manage Econ 2000;18(5):619–27. [4] Zhao HZ, Chen F, Jin L, Wang CW. Statistics analysis on development of the construction industry of 2013 in China. Constr Archit 2014:11–31. [5] Evins R. A review of computational optimisation methods applied to sustainable building design. Renewable Sustainable Energy Rev 2013;22: 230–45. [6] Arena AP, de Rosa C. Life cycle assessment of energy and environmental implications of the implementation of conservation technologies in school buildings in Mendoza–Argentina. Build Environ 2003;38:359–68. [7] Zhang X, Shen L, Wu Y. Green strategy for gaining competitive advantage in housing development: a China study. J Cleaner Prod 2011;19(2):157–67. [8] U.S. Energy Information Administration (USEIA) International energy outlook; 2010. [9] Robichaud LB, Anantatmula VS. Greening project management practices for sustainable construction. J Manage Eng 2010;27(1):48–57. [10] Soleri P. Arcology: the city in the image of man. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press; 1969. [11] Koo C, Hong T, Lee M, Seon Park H. Development of a new energy efficiency rating system for existing residential buildings. Energy Policy 2014;68: 218–31. [12] Banerjee A, Solomon BD. Eco-labeling for energy efficiency and sustainability: a meta-evaluation of US programs. Energy Policy 2003;31(2):109–23. [13] European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ECEEE). European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ECEEE) nearly zero energy buildings: achieving the EU 2020 target, ECEEE, Stockholm; 2011. [14] McKinsey report. Energy efficiency: a compelling global resource. Available at website: 〈https://www.mckinsey.com/ /…/A_Compelling_Global_Resource.ashx〉. [15] Pilkington B, Roach R, Perkins J. Relative benefits of technology and occupant behavior in moving towards a more energy efficient, sustainable housing paradigm. Energy Policy 2011;39(9):4962–70. [16] Zhang X, Platten A, Shen L. Green property development practice in China: costs and barriers. Build Environ 2011;46(11):2153–60. [17] Crawley D, Aho I. Building environmental assessment methods: applications and development trends. Build Res Inf 1999;27(4):300–8. [18] Larsson NK. Development of a building performance rating and labelling system in Canada. Build Res Inf 1999;27(4/5):332–41. [19] Yau, R, Cheng, V, Yin, R.. Building performance assessment in China. In: Proceedings of the second international conference on intelligent green and energy efficient building & technologies and products expo, Beijing; 28–30 March 2006. [20] Liu, Y, Prasad, D, Li, J, Fu, Y, Liu, J.. A holistic approach to developing regionally specific framework for green building assessment tools in China. In: Proceedings of the 2005 world sustainable building conference, Tokyo, 27–29 September 2005. p. 1634–41. [21] Yates, R, Baldwin, R. Assessing the environmental impact of buildings in the UK. In: Proceedings of the CIB congress, Watford, UK; 1994. [22] Kohler N. The relevance of Green Building Challenge: an observer’s perspective. Build Res Inf 1999;27(4/5):309–20. [23] Cole RJ. Building environmental assessment methods: redefining intentions and roles. Build Res Inf 2005;35(5):455–67. [24] Seo, S, Tucker, S, Ambrose, M, Mitchell, P, Wang, CH. Technical evaluation of environmental assessment rating tools, Research & development corporation, project no. PN05.1019; 2006. [25] Davies H. Environmental benchmarking of Hong Kong buildings. Struct Surv 2001;19(1):38–45. [26] Todd JA, Crawley D, Geissler S, Lindsey G. Comparative assessment of environmental performance tools and the role of the Green Building Challenge. Build Res Inf 2001;29(5):324–35. [27] Lee WL, Chau CK, Yik FWH, Burnett J, Tse MS. On the study of the creditweighting scale in a building environmental assessment scheme. Build Environ 2002;37:1385–96. [28] Athena Institute. ATHENA environmental impact estimator, version 3.0.2, 〈http://www.athenasmi.ca/tools/software/index.html〉; 2006 [Feb. 24, 2007]. [29] Melchert L. The Dutch sustainable building policy: a model for developing countries? Build Environ 2007;42(2):893–901.

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