A systematic approach for analyzing building energy conservation and emission reduction policies based on the principle of WSR

Abstract

The building industry is a key sector that needs priority attention to achieve ‘carbon peak 2030 and carbon neutrality 2060′. Building energy conservation and emission reduction (BECER) primarily relies on policy implementation. However, current policy studies are limited to specific perspectives of policy instruments, lacking a comprehensive approach. This study proposes an analytical framework based on the theory of ‘Wuli-Shili-Renli’ (WSR) to answer the question ‘how to analyze BECER policies systematically’. Latent dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic analysis method was utilized to identify topics in the wuli dimension, while content analysis was employed to analyze policy instruments in the ‘shili’ dimension, and participants were investigated through Social Network Analysis in the renli dimension. Finally, Henan province was selected as a case study to apply the proposed WSR framework. The findings reveal that: 1) From a wuli perspective, BECER policy topics rely solely on government involvement and lack of topics that require societal or familial participation. 2) From a ‘shili’ perspective, administrative policies are dominated while voluntary and fixed policies are insufficiently represented. 3) From a ‘renli’ perspective, implementers of BECER policies are predominantly single entities with limited cooperation among different sectors. The proposed WSR framework offers an innovative approach to comprehensively researching BECER policies and can be a useful tool for formulating scientific BECER policies in specific regions.