ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Low-Carbon Development of the Construction
Industry in China’s Pilot Provinces
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1
School of Economics and Management, Chang’an University; Center for Green Engineering and Sustainable
Development, Middle Section of South Second Ring Road, Xi’an 710064, China
2
School of Civil Engineering, Chang’an University, Middle Section of South Second Ring Road,
Xi’an 710064, China
Submission date: 2019-05-17
Final revision date: 2019-08-19
Acceptance date: 2019-08-26
Online publication date: 2020-04-15
Publication date: 2020-04-21
Corresponding author
Xinran Lu
School of Civil Engineering, Chang’an University, China
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2020;29(4):2617-2629
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ABSTRACT
The construction industry in China has developed rapidly. However, the development has been
accompanied by a large amount of energy consumption and carbon emissions. Thus, the formulation
of policies is complex, and research on the impact of emission reduction policies on carbon reduction
in the construction industry, especially in China, has become necessary as it has massive regions with
uneven development. Combined with the coefficient in the 2012 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories and China’s calorific value, this
study took the first batch of low-carbon pilot provinces (Guangdong, Hubei, Liaoning, Shaanxi, and
Yunnan) announced by China’s State Commission for Reform and Development in 2010 as the research
object and separated the construction carbon emissions into direct and indirect categories to improve
the accuracy of calculations at the provincial level. The EKC (environmental Kuznets curve) and
Tapio model were employed to study the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions
of the construction industry, then the decoupling of major influencing factors of carbon emissions in
the low-carbon pilot province in China from 2005 to 2014 based on the features of different regions
and the economic policy planning in China were comparatively analyzed. The results showed that the
construction industry carbon emissions and economic growth had a non-significant decoupling state in
underdeveloped regions such as Shaanxi, Liaoning, and Yunnan, which would be better with low carbon
development in potential, whereas they were significant decoupling states in well-developed regions
such as Guangdong and Hubei. Then, this study revealed that the evolving trends of the decoupling of
major influencing factors varied in different provinces; therefore, the results and insights support the
policy and decisions to minimize construction carbon emissions.