SusBuild-Up-Scaling and Mainstreaming Sustainable Building Practices in Western China

On 12 to 13 April, "SusBuild-Up-Scaling and Mainstreaming Sustainable Building Practices in Western China" was kicked off with a two-day conference in Chongqing, China, bringing together more than 250 participants, including decision-makers from national and local governments, Chinese enterprises and provincial associations from all provinces in Western China as well as German organisations. The project, funded by EU Switch Asia II programme, aims to foster sustainable building practices among MSMEs in Chongqing City and Yunnan province in Western China.

Besides the opening ceremony, in which Wuppertal Institut's Dr. Chun Xia-Bauer and Felix Suerkemper introduced the SusBuild project and both Chen Yiming (Chief Engineer and vice Minister of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of PR China) and Wu Bo (Director of Chongqing Municipal Commission of Urban-Rural Development) emphasised its importance, the conference consisted of three thematic sessions: sustainable building materials and components, sustainable building design and construction, and energy management in buildings. In those sessions, presentations were given; Lena Tholen and Christopher Moore from the Wuppertal Institut spoke about "European experiences of energy management in sustainable buildings", giving a policy perspective, and "Design and construction of sustainable buildings".

On the second day of the conference, about 80 participants visited pilot project buildings and an industry park aiming at developing modern building industry clusters in Chongqin Quijiang District.

You find more information on the project in the project description.