Ten years have passed since the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) awarded its first certificates at the BAU, the world's leading trade fair for architecture, materials and systems in Munich.
The German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB for “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen”) has developed a certification system for urban districts and published a first market version in 2012.
Cities are very sensitive to shifts in the climate, while their transformation cycles are usually very slow. In order to design new cities fit for the future or to adapt existing cities to the expected consequences of climate change, planners and decision makers need to consider effective measures already today.
Although several German companies are already involved in carbon markets and decarbonization in China, the vibrant market offers promising further business opportunities and potential for cooperation with Chinese enterprises and institutions.
To accelerate the global clean energy transition and achieve climate neutrality by mid-century, the world must drastically curb fossil fuel consumption. Although hydrogen has been indispensable in the energy and chemical industries for decades, the environmental footprint of the existing hydrogen value chain is unsustainable.
Mineral raw materials form the basis of industrial value creation and are indispensable key ingredients for green and digital future technologies. China is considered one of the most resource-rich countries in the world, but at the same time – like Germany – is highly dependent on the import of mineral raw materials from abroad. Circular economy and the recovery of critical mineral raw materials are therefore an essential building block for achieving a sustainable supply of raw materials.
Carbon market players are watching closely to see how China’s version of carbon credits, the China Certified Emission Reductions (CCER) scheme, will be rebooted.
China is urbanizing at a rapid pace. In 2000, only one in three Chinese lived in urban areas. By 2015, this number had grown to more than 56 percent and is estimated to reach 60 percent and 70 percent by 2020 and 2030, respectively. This trend has been accompanied by vast urban construction, as the building sector is trying to keep up with the 300 million new urban residents expected to arrive in the next 15 years.
One important requirement for the development of a CO2 neutral energy system that forms a base for achieving the climate protection goals is the integration of the electricity, heat and mobility sectors on an urban level.
China’s economic growth, industrial development as well as its rapid urbanization process during the past years has led to a surge in energy demand.
Germany’s building sector produces a third of the country’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and contributes 40 percent to the total national energy consumption.
