The implementation of the Green Building Development Regulations in Hainan Province will have one, two, and three star standard levels for green buildings

Source: Rule of Law Daily

In recent years, Hainan Province has actively explored new paths for sustainable development of green buildings. Reducing building energy consumption and building "breathing" green buildings through the use of green building materials and green construction methods are gradually becoming the main way of building construction to achieve energy conservation and emission reduction.

The "Regulations on the Development of Green Buildings in Hainan Province" (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") passed at the 38th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 6th People's Congress of Hainan Province has been officially implemented since January 1st. The Regulations consist of seven chapters and 45 articles, aiming to establish a comprehensive development management system for green buildings that adapts to the characteristics of Hainan, promote the comprehensive development of green buildings in Hainan, and assist in the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port and National Ecological Civilization Pilot Zone.

Green buildings have laws to follow

Green buildings are high-quality buildings that save resources, protect the environment, reduce pollution, provide people with healthy, applicable, and efficient use space, and maximize the harmonious coexistence between humans and nature throughout their entire lifespan, including civil buildings, industrial buildings, and municipal infrastructure. "Liu Lianwei, Deputy Director of the Housing and Urban Rural Development Department of Hainan Province, stated that the formulation of the Regulations mainly focuses on the national requirements for green development in urban and rural construction Consider guiding the future development direction of the construction industry and solving practical problems.

According to the strategic positioning of the "three zones and one center" of Hainan Free Trade Port and the deployment of relevant documents of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on green development in urban and rural construction, vigorously developing green buildings is an important practice for Hainan Free Trade Port to build a national ecological civilization experimental zone, an inevitable choice for Hainan to implement sustainable development strategy, and an important measure to achieve green development in urban and rural construction.

After investigation, it was found that the supervision and management system for green building construction and operation procedures in Hainan Province is not yet perfect, lacking legal and regulatory support for the entire process control. Effective control measures for green building design, construction, completion acceptance, and operation are difficult to implement, and legal responsibilities are not clear.

Since 2019, Hainan Province has fully promoted green buildings in residential and large public buildings, but the volume of star rated green buildings in the province still lags behind the national average. Moreover, there is insufficient collaboration between the entire process of green building and the entire industry chain, making it difficult to integrate architectural design and the entire process of construction. In the early design stage, material performance, specialized design, and construction are less considered, and there is a lack of overall consideration for low-carbon operation, making it difficult to achieve full process collaborative optimization guided by low-carbon.

In terms of management, project implementation, and the entire green building industry chain, the development of green buildings in Hainan has encountered varying degrees of bottlenecks. Liu Lianwei believes that it is urgent to pass legislation to comprehensively promote the high-quality development of green buildings in accordance with the law.

In 2022, the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress and the Provincial Government included the "Regulations" in the legislative plan for that year. The Provincial Department of Housing and Urban Rural Development, in close cooperation and in-depth research with the Legal Working Committee of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress, the Provincial Department of Justice, and others, extensively solicited opinions, referred to the basic principles of drawing on the experience of advanced regions, reflecting Hainan's characteristics, highlighting reform and innovation, and adhering to green development, jointly completed the legislative task. It was approved by the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress on September 29 of the same year.

Highlight the characteristics of tropical islands

As the only tropical island province in China, Hainan has unique natural and cultural scenery, as well as tropical island climate characteristics such as high temperature, high humidity, and heavy rainfall, posing new challenges for the high-quality development of green buildings.

"Green building legislation is an important measure to promote the green development of urban and rural construction in Hainan Province and the construction of a national ecological civilization pilot zone." Xu Zhongmin, director of the Second Legislative Division of the Department of Justice of Hainan Province, said that the Regulations set up institutional norms in line with the actual conditions of Hainan in terms of promoting prefabricated building, strengthening the application of green building materials, and encouraging the adoption of technologies and schemes suitable for Hainan's climate characteristics.

The Regulations propose that the development of green buildings should highlight the characteristics of tropical islands in Hainan Province, following the principles of adapting to local conditions, overall planning, government guidance, market promotion, standard guidance, and technological innovation. The scope of application of green buildings includes civil buildings, industrial buildings, and municipal infrastructure.

The high-quality development of green buildings requires high standards of support. The Regulations stipulate that the competent departments for housing and urban-rural development shall, in conjunction with relevant departments, establish and improve a green building standard system with tropical island characteristics in Hainan Province, improve the basis for engineering pricing, and establish a credit evaluation system for the construction market that is suitable for the development of green buildings.

According to the national and Hainan Province green building evaluation standards, the Regulations divide green civil buildings into four standard levels from low to high: basic level, one star, two star, and three star. Green industrial buildings are divided into three standard levels from low to high: one star, two star, and three star. Encourage the exploration of establishing green evaluation standards and clarifying level requirements in the construction of municipal infrastructure such as roads and bridges.

In response to the current situation where there are not many star rated green buildings in Hainan, the "Regulations" point out that the construction of new urban civil buildings should not be lower than the basic level requirements of green building standards, and specific requirements for green building standards of one star or more should be put forward for government office buildings and public buildings invested by government and state-owned capital. Large public buildings with a single building area exceeding 20000 square meters that encourage social investment, as well as public buildings in key parks of Hainan Free Trade Port, shall be constructed in accordance with the 2-star standard for green buildings.

The Regulations require that the construction of green buildings should be based on the characteristics of tropical islands in the province, and suitable technologies such as thermal insulation, shading, natural ventilation, and natural lighting should be applied according to local conditions. Encourage enterprises, universities, research institutions, industry associations, etc. to research and promote green and low-carbon new technologies, new processes, new materials, and new equipment suitable for areas with high temperature, high humidity, high salt content, high seismic fortification intensity, and strong typhoons.

In the energy-saving reconstruction of new buildings and existing buildings, the Regulations require the promotion of the use of solar energy, wind energy, hydrogen energy, biomass energy, geothermal energy and other renewable energy. At the same time, encourage the installation of solar photovoltaic and solar thermal systems in new urban buildings, and synchronize the design, construction, and acceptance with the main building project according to requirements. Encourage existing buildings to install solar systems on the basis of meeting safety conditions.

The Regulations specify that green buildings should combine the characteristics of the local natural environment, scientifically layout the site and landscape, reasonably select local plants, protect the original natural water bodies, wetlands, vegetation and other ecological resources within the site, and maintain the ecosystem and biodiversity to the greatest extent possible.

Green buildings beautify life

Green buildings not only beautify the city's appearance, but also allow the general public to truly feel the healthy, applicable, and efficient living space of green buildings, enhancing the happiness of living and living.

The Regulations stipulate that the development of green buildings should be included in the national economic and social development plan; Clearly, it is necessary to carry out green building publicity and popularize green building knowledge through green building project demonstrations, product demonstrations, technical exchanges, and other forms; It is also required to prepare green technical guidelines or design drawings for rural self built residential construction, and provide them free of charge to farmers for reference in building houses.

At the same time, in terms of purchasing and residential quality warranty, it is required that real estate development enterprises should clearly indicate the green building level and main technical measures of the project at the sales site of the commercial housing, and truthfully state the quality warranty responsibility in the commercial housing sales contract, residential quality guarantee letter, and residential user manual, ensuring the legitimate rights and interests of the buyer.

In Liu Lianwei's view, the introduction and implementation of the Regulations have promoted the vigorous development of green buildings. For the people, they can enjoy higher quality buildings, improve living comfort and satisfaction. For the whole society, energy conservation and carbon reduction throughout the entire life cycle of green buildings will help achieve carbon peak in the urban and rural construction field of Hainan Province, and is an important guarantee for promoting the high-quality development of green buildings in Hainan and creating a national ecological civilization pilot zone.

In response to the current issues of emphasizing "design" over "operation" in green buildings, and the difficulty of green transformation of existing buildings, the "Regulations" clarify the requirements for the operation, transformation, and demolition of green buildings, strengthen supervision and management of green buildings, establish a system related to energy consumption in green building operation, and clarify the main responsibility. Standardize the green building operation requirements of owners or users of green buildings, entrusted property service providers or professional service units, and encourage construction units to adopt market-oriented methods such as contract energy management for green building renovation.

The development of green buildings cannot be separated from effective supervision of green building activities. Lin Chongqin, Deputy Director of the Survey, Design and Technology Department of the Housing and Urban Rural Development Department of Hainan Province, stated that in addition to industry supervision by the housing and construction department, the Regulations also emphasize systematic management and joint management. Control the entire process from obtaining land for construction projects, project approval, design, construction to completion acceptance.

In order to promote the comprehensive development of green building industry, the Regulations clearly promote the new construction organization mode, prefabricated building production capacity layout and base construction, green building materials product promotion catalog library, low energy consumption (near zero energy consumption, low carbon, zero carbon) buildings, zero carbon demonstration areas, farmers' housing construction, talent training, etc; At the same time, incentives will be given in tax incentives, awards, green finance, awards, financial support, etc.