Government's roles and measures needed in China for promoting Building Energy Efficiency (BEE)

This paper develops a framework to study the Chinese government's roles in promoting Building Energy Efficiency (BEE). These roles are categorised into five aspects: strategic planner (SP), law & policy maker (PM), economic motivator (EM), fiscal hub (FH) and advocator (A). In terms of these five roles, an international comparative study on specific government BEE measures is performed between China and her developed counterparts; including the UK, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the US. The comparative results are buttressed with statistical analysis from a questionnaire survey undertaken with active building designers in China. To develop overall recommendations, triangulating strategy is used so that the questionnaire's quantitative method adds to the primarily qualitative comparative study. The overall result shows economic incentives are important but currently lacking for BEE promotion in China. It also highlights that government active interventions, such as setting BEE as legal requirements, are necessary to create an economically viable and efficient situation for BEE promotion in China.