Globally, 75 skyscrapers are LEED rated.īosco verticale in Milan, with more than 1,000 different species of tree. London’s tallest building, the Shard, also has a raft of sustainability features which enable it to use 30% less energy than a conventionally designed skyscraper of the same height. The world’s first Passivhaus-certified office tower – a certification rating that considers ongoing annual energy use, considered more stringent than other energy codes – was opened in Vienna two years ago, using 80% less heating and cooling energy than an equivalent tower through efficient power systems. Shanghai Tower might be the only supertall tower to achieve LEED Platinum, but it is part of an increasing movement for towers to market green credentials as the demand for more sustainable urban development is felt. People assumed that a building of this size can’t achieve such a high sustainability rating.” “But nobody yet has achieved LEED Platinum for a supertall building. “At the moment, everyone is trying to achieve top green certification criteria,” says Xiaomei Lee, managing director of Gensler Shanghai, the building’s architect. The building is wrapped in two layers of glass for natural cooling and ventilation, and in total developers say a third of the site is “green space”, including 24 sky gardens sitting between the two skins. The building collects rainwater and re-uses waste water, has a combined cooling and heating power system and uses 40 other energy-saving measures that developers claim cut 34,000 metric tonnes from its annual carbon footprint. “But only one part of bringing down the energy use.” “These are one of the most obvious green technologies,” he says, gesturing upwards into the clouds. In Shanghai, engineer Shunfu Cha points to 200 wind turbines spinning at the top of the tower – the world’s tallest turbines, naturally – which generate around 10% of the building’s electricity. The Shanghai Tower (right) has been awarded the highest sustainability rating. Estimates put the number of green buildings on the mainland at less than 1%, though a 2014 target by the State Council wants 30% of new construction projects to be green by 2020.
Green buildings, however, make up a woefully small part of the green industry, with most work focused on quick construction and quicker sales. China is now the biggest renewables market in the world, more than double than in the US, and home to almost one of every three wind turbines globally. Nervous of the impact that smog-filled days and clogged roads could have on social stability, the government has begun tree planting programmes, ordered thousands of cars off the roads in cities such as Beijing, and is investing in green technology in a big way. With some of the most polluted air on the planet, killing as many as 4,000 people a day, an increasingly restive population is demanding more government action. The country burns 47% of the world’s coal, according to the US Energy Information Administration, and is facing the impact of decades of rapid deforestation and water pollution. China’s sustainability record in the past has been abysmal.
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