Greening Urban Housing: The Impact of Green Infrastructure on Household Energy-Use Reductions for Cooling

Abstract

Housing energy efficiency is currently a minor part of energy efficiency debates, but is recognised as a major opportunity for energy-use and CO2 reductions, optimised development patterns, technological advances, integrated solutions and behavioural changes in many countries, regions and municipalities. With a focus on the context of China, this study focuses on the impact of green infrastructure (GI) on potential household energy-use reductions. The primary technique for energy reduction in buildings or households to be considered is GI. As such an important task vis-a-vis buildings is the reduction of high energy use, thereby reducing its environmental impact. Moreover, an important issue, especially for households, is the economic viability and health implications related to such high energy use. This study proposes a comparative analysis of cases of housing development and GI in the contexts of China, using models from both the European Union (EU) and China.