Since the pilot project of government procurement to support green building materials and promote construction quality improvement was launched in October 2020, the first batch of six cities have identified more than 200 projects and purchased green building materials totaling 5.3 billion yuan, driving the coordinated development of the whole green building industry chain and creating a number of high-quality building products. This year, the pilot work will continue to strengthen, relying on the solid foundation laid by the preliminary pilot work, continue to give full play to the advantages of government procurement policy, and show new achievements in the construction of high-quality green buildings.
To this end, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently jointly held the "Government Procurement to Support Green Building Materials to promote the policy of Building Quality Improvement", to exchange and summarize pilot experience, and to study and plan related tasks for further policy implementation. This also marks the pilot work into the accelerated phase.
Try to be bold and bright
At the meeting, a series of figures released by pilot cities (municipal districts) such as Shaoxing and Huzhou in Zhejiang province outlined the "new highlights" in the process of coordinated development of the whole green building industry chain.
The growth of green building area is remarkable. "By the end of 2022, a total of 12 pilot projects have been carried out, involving a total investment of 2.772 billion yuan, an additional 30.019 million square meters of green building area, and 62 projects have been awarded two-star green building marks or above..." Wu Zhiyong, member of the Standing Committee of Huzhou Municipal Committee and Executive Vice Mayor of Huzhou, introduced that the Changdong District of South Taihu New Area will be planned and built as a demonstration zone for green building development, and the two-star standard of green building will be set as the pre-condition for land transfer to ensure the full coverage of high-star green buildings in the region. We will carry out trials of ultra-low energy consumption buildings, and speed up the construction of demonstration zones and pilot projects, with the Future City of South Taihu Lake as the model.
The supply and demand of green building materials are connected accurately. "More than 1200 green building materials suppliers have been introduced, 846 green building materials products have been put on the shelves, and the platform transaction volume has exceeded 3 billion yuan..." Tao Guanfeng, Standing Committee member and Executive Vice Mayor of Shaoxing Municipal Committee, said that Shaoxing City, relying on its own good green economic structure and construction industry foundation, innovatively develops a new mode of "green building materials procurement using cloud services" -- "building cloud" platform, links up the upstream and downstream of the supply chain, provides "one-stop service" for government procurement of green building materials, and continuously optimizes the business environment of the construction industry. Our core competitiveness has been strengthened.
The mismatching of the duration of green building accreditation and credit input has been resolved. "By the end of 2022, 14 green building pre-recognition projects in the New Area have been approved with bank credit of 196.4 billion yuan and loans of 29.6 billion yuan, helping enterprises save nearly 90 million yuan in financial costs every year." Yu Guoyi, member of the Party Working Committee and deputy director of the Management Committee of Hebei Xiongan New Area, said that Xiongan New Area has creatively solved the mismatching problem of credit input and green building accreditation period of banking and financial institutions supporting the development of green buildings and ensured that green building projects enjoy differentiated preferential policies of green credit in time. We will strengthen the internal driving force for construction units to develop green buildings.
Green construction needs standard whole process coverage. "Establish an integrated follow-up mechanism of green construction demand standards' early embedding, middle implementation and late evaluation ', and strive to achieve full coverage of government procurement engineering project policy implementation by 2025..." Song Zhenbo, Standing Committee and Executive Vice Mayor of Zibo Municipal Committee of Shandong Province, said that based on the traditional advantages of Zibo building materials industry, to explore the introduction or establishment of green certification institutions as a breakthrough, Zibo encourages relevant industry associations and third-party institutions to provide comprehensive services of the whole industry chain and cultivate industry breakthrough points.
We will seek progress while maintaining stability in our policies
In recent years, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, has carried out a "combination of policies" to speed up the construction of green buildings, actively promote green building materials, and promote the green development of urban and rural construction.
Since 2013, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments have jointly established an evaluation mechanism for green building materials to promote the evaluation, certification and production and application of green building materials products. Recently, China has jointly launched the 2023 Green Building Materials to rural areas with the theme of "Bringing Green Building Materials into Every Home and creating a better Life Together" to speed up the production, certification, promotion and application of green building materials and promote green consumption.
Starting from 2020, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Finance and other departments will guide the first batch of pilot cities to embark on a "four green model" of integrated development featuring green procurement plus green building materials, green construction and green buildings. The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, together with other government departments, held several forums to mobilize and deploy the pilot project of government procurement of green building materials to promote construction quality improvement, and guided pilot cities to explore effective modes of supporting the popularization and application of green buildings and green building materials, so as to form excellent experiences that can be replicated and promoted.
Building on the solid foundation laid by the first batch of pilot cities, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology expanded the implementation of the policy to 48 cities (municipal districts) in October 2022. To continue the policy implementation, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, together with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, recently issued the Guidelines for the Implementation of Government Procurement of Green Building Materials to Promote Construction Quality Improvement. The implementation guide includes 8 chapters and 49 articles including general provisions, feasibility study, design and review, government procurement, construction, testing, acceptance and supplementary provisions. To provide specific guidance for the activities related to the whole process of feasibility study, design and review, government procurement, construction, testing, acceptance and third-party institutions (pre-evaluation) of construction projects that are included in the scope of government procurement to support green building materials and promote construction quality improvement policy implementation.
Confidence is enough for the future
At the 20th National Congress of the CPC, it is necessary to plan development from the perspective of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, accelerate the green transformation of development modes, improve fiscal, taxation, financial, investment and pricing policies and standard systems that support green development, promote the clean, low-carbon and efficient use of energy, and promote the clean and low-carbon transformation of industry, construction, transportation and other sectors.
As pilot policies continue to take effect and follow-up policies and measures are implemented, green projects that benefit the present and focus on the future are being implemented at an accelerated pace, unleashing strong vitality for green and low-carbon development in urban and rural areas. "In the next step, Xiongan will further optimize and improve demand standards, expand the scope of centralized batch procurement, strengthen performance management, and optimize platform construction..." "Zibo will strive to take the lead in improving efficiency, expanding circumference and improving quality, guiding and supporting bottom, promoting supply-side structural reform of the construction industry, leading and driving the green and low-carbon development of the city's building materials and construction industry..." Facing the next pilot work, Xiongan, Zibo and other pilot cities full of confidence.
Li Rusheng, chief engineer of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, requires that the housing and urban-rural construction system thoroughly study and play the advantage of government procurement policy, take government procurement engineering as the starting point, follow the "Standard for Government Procurement Demand of Green Building and Green Building Materials" as the guide, establish a sound supervision and management mechanism, and ensure that all requirements are well implemented in design, procurement, construction, acceptance and other aspects. We will further improve the application, design and construction of green building materials. We will strengthen coordination with finance departments and industry and information technology departments to deliver a combination of policies. During the implementation of the project, supervision and management of the whole process will be strengthened in accordance with the requirements of the implementation guidelines, to ensure that the requirements of the "Green Building and Green Building Materials Government Procurement Requirements Standards" are fully implemented, so that people can live in better and "green" houses.
