The National Urbanization Work Conference is about to convene, with smart, green and low-carbon development becoming the consensus for new-type urbanization. Shanghai Securities News Information first reported on November 26 that new-type urbanization will unlock a trillion-yuan green building market, with promising orders expected for new building materials, smart building solutions and other industries. Notably, at the recently held "First Steel Structure Green Building Academician Summit Forum," Shen Zuyan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that steel structures, due to their "light, fast, good and economical" characteristics, will become the best structural form for green buildings, and building lightweighting is expected to enter an accelerated phase.

Since November, local governments have launched a wave of green building policies. Four local green building action implementation plans, including the Guangdong Province Green Building Action Implementation Plan and the Guizhou Province Green Building Action Implementation Plan, have been introduced successively, marking that the promotion and implementation of green buildings across China is about to enter a substantive stage and driving the development of the building lightweighting market. Among them, Guangdong's green building plan explicitly proposes that starting from January 1, 2014, new affordable housing and other projects in Guangzhou and Shenzhen shall fully implement green building standards; projects not planned, designed and constructed according to the standards shall not be approved for project initiation or energy-saving assessment documents, nor shall planning permits or completion acceptance filings be processed. By the end of 2020, the share of green buildings in the province's new construction is targeted to reach more than 30%. Guizhou's plan also explicitly proposes raising the implementation rate of green building standards for new buildings, with 20% of new urban buildings meeting green building standards in 2015 and striving to achieve 60% by 2020.

It is worth noting that the green building plans issued by the above provinces all emphasize actively promoting building systems such as steel structures suitable for industrialized production. In essence, steel structures have obvious advantages in the green building field. Steel structure products can be entirely fabricated in factories, offering energy savings, water savings, environmental protection and emission reduction; they are also easy to dismantle, with some products reusable and materials recyclable.

At present, steel structures are already widespread in developed countries, accounting for 71% of buildings in Japan, 70% in the UK and more than 50% in the US, while China's share is only about 5%. According to the 12th Five-Year Plan for the building industry, energy consumption per unit of added value during the construction process is to fall by 10%, and the proportion of steel structure projects will increase significantly. As an emerging building sector, steel structures are expected to see faster promotion due to their environmental and energy-saving benefits, good seismic performance and ability to increase usable floor area.

Overall, the essence of green buildings is energy conservation and environmental protection. In addition to building insulation materials and smart solutions that the market has already focused on, building lightweighting represented by steel structures, as the best structural form for green buildings, will undoubtedly gain greater market opportunities.

Driven by the market opportunities brought by building lightweighting, listed steel structure companies are also stepping up investment in green buildings. In early December, Jinggong Steel Building released a private placement plan to raise 1 billion yuan for green integrated buildings. The company said green integrated buildings will be a key development direction. Currently, Jinggong Steel Building has an annual production capacity of 500,000 tons of various steel components. In addition, Guangzheng Group and Honglu Steel Structure also have strong market advantages in the steel structure field. Guangzheng Group has planned capacity of nearly 500,000 tons, of which 200,000 tons have been put into production; Honglu Steel Structure has an annual steel structure production capacity of 410,000 tons with a complete product range, and its orders in the first half of the year totaled 3.254 billion yuan, up 70% year on year.