Zero carbon points toward sunnier future

Changing attitudes in China offer reason for optimism says designer

The fact that the COP26 summit in Glasgow is a common topic of conversation all around the world can be viewed in two ways.

One is that it demonstrates how desperate the climate change situation is, that it has become a globally inescapable subject. Another, more optimistic view, is that it demonstrates how so many people who until recently would not have shown any interest or awareness of the topic now understand and appreciate its importance.

That second, more positive interpretation, is one supported by Chinese sustainable development expert, Chen Xiaohong, who over the course of the last 15 years has worked on developments across the country, from the Shanghai Disney neighborhood to the Shenzhen Zero Carbon Botanic Garden, completed a PhD thesis on encouraging low-carbon building projects in China, and thrown herself into the task of convincing the country of the importance of prioritizing low carbon and sustainability.

After studying industrial and civil engineering at Harbin Engineering University, she worked as a structural engineer before embracing the One Planet Living philosophy of British sustainable development organization Bioregional, which began working on a development known as Jinshan or The Hill at Guangzhou in 2005. With her eyes opened to the potential of sustainable development, she has made it her mission to spread the word in China ever since, and as she told China Daily, it is a campaign that has led her to feel optimistic about the place of sustainability in the China of tomorrow.

"The outlook is sunny," she said. "Since I started, I've seen such massive changes of attitude, and having seen those changes allows me to see the changes we can make in the future too, because now China is making this a priority.

"The first five years were very hard — I would talk to people about the importance of carbon emissions, and people would say that I was wrong, and I was talking nonsense. They used to argue and wouldn't accept that climate change is a fact, but now opinions have changed. We had a hard time getting where we are, but now we're here, we can do better."

One Planet Living's 10-point sustainable living program underpinned the development of Jinshan, a project built in partnership with property company China Merchants, which saw Chen on site for five years, convincing everyone of the feasibility of a project that seemed hard for many people to understand.

"We were trying to build a zero fossil fuels community but China didn't have the capability for it at the time, so I had to communicate that they needed to make the effort to achieve it, then I set targets and we had to negotiate," she said. "They had to make a commitment to what they would achieve, and although not all of the targets were achieved, what we did manage was to get a lot of experience, and China Merchants taking the ideas away and applying them to other developments."

Another thing that has made pushing the sustainability message a lot easier is a change of attitude at the top.

"When I first tried to tell people about the principle of being zero carbon, it was difficult to promote because not many people appreciated the concept, so it felt like everything we were doing was from the bottom-up, trying to find partners who would agree with it, then selling that idea to stakeholders. Now, however, the government is setting targets and it's a top-down policy. That's exactly what China needs."

Although she was committed to the Hill project for five years, Chen was also spreading the word of sustainability to anyone who would listen, and 15 years later, her investment of effort is being rewarded.

"I was being invited to give training to industry professionals and gradually they've started to build these things into their thinking — it's not something that happens overnight, but from 2006 to now we've contributed a lot to the industry. Developers have taken the values of the Hill and they're already putting some of the ideas into practice, and thinking how they can fit them to the Chinese situation. It's gradual, but it's coming."

Her professional experience in China and the United Kingdom enables her to incorporate the best aspects of both countries' approach to work.

"Their backgrounds and systems are so different; I'm borrowing ideas from both," she explained. "China's good at making things cheaper, and the UK is good for frameworks for thinking about long-term targets, so taking the best of both can really help on the journey toward affordable zero-carbon developments."

She is currently involved in getting the UK housing construction industry toward zero-carbon by 2030, whereas her work in China is more about developments such as urban communities, but whether the project is big or small, Chen's commitment to the cause is always absolute.

"Once I discovered sustainability, I had such a strong passion for it, I wanted to show it to people in China, so they could see it too," she said. "The thing I learnt is that you have to believe it to achieve it — and I do believe it. For years, I've given so many talks and attended so many conferences, spreading the word, and now I know of so many small projects in China, other people who really believe it and try to put it into practice. I'm probably not the first person in China to talk about zero-carbon, but I'm one of the first. For 16 years, I've never stopped."