Critical factors of low-carbon building development in China's urban area

Abstract

The energy consumption and carbon emissions of the urban building sector have been growing so rapidly in recent decades that developing low-carbon buildings has become a common trend in the world. However, the current developing situation of low-carbon buildings in China's urban area is still dissatisfactory though some measures have been taken. Thus, it is valuable to explore the critical factors responsible for the imperfect low-carbon development. Based on the extant researches, this paper firstly concluded 18 possible factors affecting the development of low-carbon buildings in China's urban area Then, with the data collected from a questionnaire survey, 6 critical factors are identified through factor analysis. The research also employed structural equation modeling to further indicate the influence priorities of the 6 critical factors over corporate low-carbon willingness. The results show that all of these critical factors have significant impacts on low-carbon constructionand return on investment has the first priority over low-carbon willingness. Correspondingly, six proposals are proposed at the end of the paper with the aim to provide a reference for the effective development of urban low-carbon buildings. It is worthy to mention that the results are also valuable for the construction of resource saving and environmental-friendly society in China.