The rapid development of urbanization in China creates huge energy saving potentials for public buildings. The energy consumption rates of large public buildings (LPB) are significantly higher than other types of buildings. The floor areas of LPBs, with a value of more than 20000m2, may account for only 4% of the total floor area in urban, while the energy consumed can reach 20% of that for all the urban buildings, and the energy intensity can be about ten to fifteen times of ordinary buildings. Meanwhile, government invested welfare buildings (GIWB) present substantial demonstration effects in green building construction. It is therefore urgent to promote green building construction from LPB and GIWB, which will play an important exemplary and leading role in the construction of green buildings nationwide.

To fulfill the requirements of the Action Plan of Green Building from Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People’s Republic of China (MOHURD) transmitted by the General Office of the State Council and the Implementation Opinions for the Rapid Development of Green Building in China, this project conducted extensive investigations on the implementation status of green LPBs and GIWBs, and then proposed the general objectives for the development of green building in the next several years. To achieve these goals, detailed developing paths were formulated in order to effectively promote the compulsory execution of green building construction, with supplementary measures for process supervision and security management. In the end, the entire research results were presented in the form of a legislative draft for the enforcement of green LPB and GIWB construction.

At the beginning, the research team conducted extensive and thorough investigations in several cities about the energy consumption, building status, implementation of green building, and the difficulties encountered in green building promotion. It is found that because of the specific structures and applications of LCBs, the energy intensity of LPBs is about 2 to 3 times of ordinary public buildings and about five times of residential buildings, and the energy consumption per unit area is 10 to 15 times of residential buildings. With the rapid development of economy and improvement of people’s living quality, the scale of LPBs and GIWBs will be increasingly larger, which may result in significant augmentation in building related energy consumption and energy intensity. It is therefore of paramount urgency to promote the construction of green LPBs and GIWBs.