Editor's note: To make China's rural communities greener, we have collected comments and feedback from green minds and industry insiders at home and abroad. Designer Li Qian from London-based Inbuilt LTD, Su Jing, director of China Program at the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) and Chen Dong, director of Business Leadership, China of London-based The Climate Group, have joined the debate. Here are some of their thoughts.

Li Qian

Developing countryside green dwellings will be a positive contribution towards China's pursuit of sustainable development. Providing comfortable living environments in rural China will reduce the pressure of land shortages in cities and shrink unnecessary traffic commutes.

Traditional buildings in China contain features that respond perfectly to local climates and will provide better thermal comfort with less energy demands. The construction of self-built green buildings will encourage the use of local materials that can maintain the local architecture feature and landscape context and also revive the traditional construction methods. Moreover, it will maintain the existence of local communities in rural villages and maintain the lifestyles that people have been enjoying for hundreds of years. Economically, this development will create local job opportunities. Furthermore, the price of the self-built homes is much cheaper and people can adhere to their own budgets; the economic crisis in Europe and America caused by the subprime real estate market showed the danger of too much dependence on mortgage market.

However, in order to achieve energy efficient and high-quality indoor thermal comfort, technical requirements merit great attention. Design strategies like using PV panels and geo-thermal heating will require careful installation and methods like improved thermal insulation and reduced infiltration also require high standard construction technologies. Such factors will require more effort from both research and practice to develop the most efficient and easily adaptive designs for rural development.

The government also needs to offer support such as building demonstration projects that can introduce required technologies to the builders, by providing funding for adequate research and tax benefits to stimulate the progress of sustainable building development in rural areas in China.

Su Jing

In order to focus inward and maintain a solid, if diminished, growth rate, China must turn its attention to its 730 million farmers, who compose the lion's share of consumers.

Many Chinese farmers want to access to better health care and education systems of the metropolitan areas. Driven by this dream, hundreds of thousands of people from rural areas have flocked to cities to improve their quality of life over the past two decades. As the economy slows down, many migrant workers are being laid off from their manufacturing jobs in the coastal cities. They cannot simply move back to the countryside, because the traditional jobs in the rural areas are not attractive to them anymore. Green building and renewable energy might have the potential to provide decent rural jobs and strengthen the economy. Migrant workers have experience in construction and manufacturing. If they can receive training, they can be more than qualified to build green buildings and install solar panels and other renewable energy technology systems. Most importantly, for most of them it would be the first time they built houses they can occupy. The prospect of home ownership can lead to innovation and creativity.

The end-users of renewable energy equipment and services in the rural areas will create a domestic market for China's renewable energy industry. This will be a breakthrough. China will reposition itself from an exporter to a domestic supplier of renewable energy equipment. Additionally, with increased domestic implementation of clean technologies, Chinese consumers will benefit from reduced prices through economies of scale. To meet this end, China will protect itself from the fluctuating international oil prices and a diminished export market. National security, energy security, and economic security can be realized simultaneously.

Chen Dong

In China, the building related emissions accounted for around 30 percent of the total energy consumption in 2007 and the absolute figure is rising fast, as construction booms. China is constructing almost half of the world's new buildings. The existing building area in China is now around 40 billion square meters, and around 24 billion (60 percent) in rural areas. This number is projected to grow to 27 billion square meters by 2010.

In rural areas, with rapid increasing demands for better living conditions, energy consumption will be increased dramatically in the near future. But so far, there is no energy-saving standard for rural areas. The national building energy-saving standard in China requires all new buildings in urban areas to reduce 50 percent (in some developed areas it is 65 percent) of their energy consumption compared to traditional buildings during the 11th Five-Year-Plan period (2006-2010). But, only 5-10 percent of new buildings are currently being developed to meet this target.

So developing a reasonable energy saving standard for rural areas should be the highest priority for government. Considering the different conditions in rural areas, special building energy-saving solutions should be developed, such as the use of biomass and renewable energy (solar energy, wind power, small hydropower). The government should provide incentive policies and develop reasonable standards for rural areas.

(China Daily January 12, 2009)