Make up for the shortcomings of green building materials industry

Source: Economic Daily

Author: Hong Qunlian (Researcher, Institute of Industrial and Technological Economics, China Academy of Macroeconomic Economics)

Building materials industry is an important basic industry and pillar industry of the national economy, which is related to economic growth, improvement of people's livelihood and urban and rural construction. In recent years, with the transformation of the development mode and the upgrading of the demand structure, the building materials industry has entered a stage of development with green and low-carbon as the main characteristics. At present, the growth of traditional building materials products is weak, and the rise of green building materials products is accelerating, which promotes the optimization of the development structure of the building materials industry, the transformation of kinetic energy, and the improvement of quality and efficiency. Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other 10 departments jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for the High-quality Development of Green Building Materials Industry", which clarified the direction, goals and measures for the high-quality development of green building materials industry, and enhanced the endogenous force, influence, growth and support of the whole industrial chain.

China is the world's largest producer and consumer of building materials, and has established a building materials industry system with complete categories, extensive services and rich varieties, with an output value of nearly 7 trillion yuan and more than 70,000 kinds of products. The output of major products such as cement, flat glass, building sanitary ceramics, stone and wall materials has ranked first in the world for many years. At present, affected by factors such as changes in the domestic and international situation and continued weak market demand, many traditional building materials products have overcapacity, and the industry's operating income and economic efficiency have declined. High-quality green building materials products maintain a good growth momentum, and it is expected that the business income of green building materials will exceed 200 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of about 10%. The green building materials industry has become a new growth point of the building materials industry and is the main direction to promote the transformation and upgrading of the industry.

The development of green building materials industry is an important measure for the green and low-carbon transformation of economy and society. Building materials industry is a typical high energy consumption, high emission industry, energy consumption level and carbon emission intensity has been high. According to the "China Building Energy Consumption and Carbon Emission Research Report (2022)", the energy consumption of building materials in the production stage accounts for 22.3% of the total energy consumption in the country, and the carbon emission accounts for 28.2% of the national carbon emission. Green building materials have significant carbon reduction effect. According to the sampling survey of the Green building Materials product Certification Technical Committee, the carbon reduction amount of the energy-saving link in the production of certified green building materials products in 2021 is 16.536 million tons, and the application of green building materials can bring 46,000 tons/year of application carbon reduction. Promoting the production and application of green building materials is directly related to the realization of the "double carbon" strategic goal, and it is necessary and urgent.

At the same time, with the continuous improvement of residents' income in recent years, the continuous upgrading of consumption structure, and the increasing awareness of health and environmental protection, the people's requirements for building materials continue to increase. Green building materials have the characteristics of health, energy saving, emission reduction, safety, convenience and recyclability, and are more and more favored by consumers. In the first half of 2023, the operating income of green building materials products sold by e-commerce platforms increased by 27% year-on-year. The development of green building materials industry is conducive to improving living conditions such as air, noise and humidity, creating a healthy living environment, and better meeting the people's growing needs for a better life.

With the strong support of national policies, the scale of China's green building materials industry continues to expand, product types continue to be rich, technological innovation is gradually enhanced, and the scope of application continues to expand. By the end of 2023, the pilot provinces of green building materials to the countryside have reached 12, and the total number of green building materials certification certificates has exceeded 9,500. However, the green building materials industry still has problems such as weak innovation ability, insufficient consumption power, imperfect standard system, non-standard market management, and some links of the industrial chain and supply chain are still short boards and weak points to be filled, and comprehensive measures are needed.

Promote two-way interaction between supply and demand. On the supply side, we will develop functional green building materials suitable for different application scenarios such as urban renewal and transformation, prefabricated buildings, sponge city ecological environment restoration, and rural rural housing construction to meet market demand, and enrich the supply of green building materials. On the demand side, actively innovate consumption patterns, develop new models of integrated decoration services, and new formats of retail for home experience museum and life museum, expand the scale of green consumption through the application of demonstration projects, green building materials to the countryside, government procurement policies and other measures, and let green building materials into thousands of households.

We will accelerate the replacement of old growth drivers with new ones. We will vigorously support traditional building materials industries such as cement, flat glass, and building hygiene ceramics to carry out integrated applications of energy saving, carbon reduction and pollution reduction technologies, accelerate the greening of the production process, and realize the transformation from high carbon to low carbon and from traditional building materials to new building materials. Accelerate the deep integration of the whole industrial chain of green building materials with the new generation of information technology, promote the intelligent production, large-scale customization, and service extension of green building materials, cultivate comprehensive green building materials enterprises with strong core competitiveness and leading role, and enhance the market competitiveness of green building materials.

We will promote coordinated development of software and hardware. In terms of soft environment, guide the whole society to establish a green consumption concept, widely publicize the good experience and good practices of high-quality development of green building materials, improve industrial support policies, and create a good market environment. In terms of hard constraints, improve the green building materials standard system, strengthen the publicity of mandatory standards, establish a product traceability standard system, carry out green building materials product certification, strengthen market supervision, and ensure the sustainable development of the industry.

[Editor: Liu Mengtian]