The power industry is the basic industry of the national economy, which can promote the economic development and enhance the living standard. Meanwhile, as the key energy consumption and energy-saving field, the power industry plays an important role in supporting the national economic and social sustainable development. In recent years, the power industry experienced rapid development in China. The report introduces the active efforts and contributions made by the Chinese power industry to the national economic and social sustainable development from multiple aspects and angles with data and examples: 1) With the optimization of power generation and grid structure, promotion of advanced energy-saving technology and enhancement of management level, the technical indicators such as net coal consumption rate, auxiliary power ratio, line loss rate, etc. have been continuously improved. For example, net coal consumption rate of supply reduces from 370tce/kWh in 2005 to 330tce/kWh in 2010, while line loss rate reduces from 7.21% to 6.53%, with a decrease of about 10% during a Five-year Period. The accumulatively 300 million tce of energy conservation has realized outstanding performance; 2) The cleanly energy generators have realized great development with increasing proportion from 23.3% in 2005 to 26.2% in 2010, in which the renewable energy generators gave the main contribution. There has been accumulatively 300 million tce of fossil energy conservation during the period; 3) Desulfurization equipment has developed with very high coverage rate. Fuel gas desulfurization unit was little in 2005, and accounts for 89% of the total coal installed capacity in 2010. The effect of emission reduction is obviously that the emission of sulfur dioxide per unit of thermal power output has decreased by over 60% compared with that in 2005; 4) The national cross-regional grid has come into being, the cross-regional electric energy transmission has been greatly increased and the power grid has played a more and more important role in the resource optimization and allocation, which satisfies the demand of the imbalance between the resource location and power demand focus; 5) The Energy Service Companies (ESCo) subject to power enterprises have been gradually established, that promotes the energy-saving and power Demand-side Management (DSM), brings notable effects from energy management and load management. With the higher influence of the developing concepts such as the low carbon and environmental-friendly in the social development, Chinese economy would realize the sustainable and great-leap-forward new industrialization in future. The power industry will make active contributions through the following measures: To keep on strengthening the power structure adjustment and increasing the proportion of the renewable energy in the power generation; To focus on the upgrade of energy-saving power generation technology, and the development of large-capacity, high-efficiency and high-parameter generators; To emphasize the upgrade of the power grid energy-saving technology and the development of the Ultra High-voltage (UHV) transmission technology, expand the trans-regional network establishment, and strengthen the power generation dispatching and the transaction of generation right; To carry out the renovation of the environmental protection technology, increase the coverage rate of the desulfurization equipment and denitration equipment, and research and apply the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology; To enhance the management level of energy conservation and emission reduction, and promote the power DSM. In 2020, the proportion of the installation capacity of the renewable-energy-source generators will increase very quickly, the proportion of the single capacity of 600 MW and above in the thermal power generation unit will be over 50%, the coverage rate of the desulfurization equipment will be over 95%, and the coverage rate of the denitration equipment will be about 80%. Calculated according to the Integrated Resource Strategy Planning (IRSP) model, the potential capacity of Efficiency Power Plant (EPP) would be 200 GW, accounting for about 10% of the conventional installed capacity. In the following decade, some indicators of power industry will be the international advanced level, which will promote the national economic and social sustainable development in the aspect of the technology and management, etc.

In the document "Arkitektur.nå. Norwegian architecture Politics ", published by the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs in 2009, it is emphasized the following main challenges for architecture in Norway: • Environmental and energy solutions to characterize the architecture • Cities and towns will have to be developed with architecture of good quality • The State shall safeguard the cultural and architectural heritage This project tries to develop knowledge in integrated solutions that link energy and design of existing buildings. Centrally important is the dissemination of information about energy and environmental-and climate-friendly solutions in housing and building and sustainable living and building / architecture. Three different ones buildings were examined: • Linesøya school building • Fire station in Surnadalsøra • Rotvoll barn at Camp Hill / Steiner school in Trondheim By "research by design" explores and highlights the architectural students the opportunities associated with energy and environmental transformation of existing buildings, focusing on materials and energy, features, local communities and culture. The project includes largely cooperation with the local building industry and population, such as to contribute to the mutual knowledge and - dissemination. Continuously stricter building regulations make it necessary for architects to gain expertise in environmental design and careful resource use in architecture. There is great need for projects that show that more stringent requirements do not mean a reduction of architectural quality but also helps to produce good architecture. Students can, through their projects, help to explore and highlight the good opportunities, and question the established practice. Three challenges mentioned above are very much present in all three projects. The projects are well suited to explore how the ecological, economic, social and cultural perspective of the sustainability challenge can be integrated and operationalized to show a path to better architecture for the future.

When using the integrated approach, the solar systems become part of the general building design, In fact they are also often become regular building elements. This is due to the fact that integrating the solar systems in the building envelope often is a necessity if the systems are to be economically feasible. The solar elements cannot be separate elements that are added after the building, or at least the architectural design of it, is completed. They must rather replace other building elements, thereby serving dual functions and reducing total costs. Case studies represents a coming of age of building-integrated photovoltaics. The PV elements are specially designed for glass shading devices. The photovoltaics will serve as shading elements and use an area protected by the new system. The overhanging shading roof provides adequate shade in the summer and allows for useful solar heat gain in the winter. These factors combined should help to keep the building\'s running costs to a minimum. In conclusion, the simulations and testing at the design stage show that the overall environmental strategy will reduce the building\'s running costs while optimizing visual and thermal comfort. The PV integration into architectural design offers more than cost benefits, it allows to create environmentally design and energy efficient buildings. The systems will be realised with crystalline photovoltaic modules integrated with a semitransparent module and there is also an example with PV modules in thin films. The Pv integrated case studies described in this work are: Atrium of the Pediatric Meyer hospital in Florence (1), University Library and classrooms building (2) and Physics laboratory building in Sesto Fiorentino (3), Virtual Competence Centre ITC in Lucca (4) and University residential student building in Florence (5).

The transition from a fossil-fuel based system to a sustainable energy based system is required in order to counteract environmental problems and achieve a more sustainable future. The multi-level perspective (MLP) and the technological innovation systems (TIS) framework are used as analytical frameworks to describe, understand and analyze the changes associated with technological transitions. In both frameworks the heterogeneity of users is ill-considered. User requirements will differ among users in ways that are unknown to the provider of the innovation, at least initially. Users have functional needs and aspirations as humans. It is important to inquire into the needs, ways of thinking and cultural meaning of products, as they are an integral part of transition processes. Especially in the domain of adoption of sustainable energy technologies there is little scientific research from a user perspective. The adoption of sustainable energy technology is determined from the number of individuals or households that decide to adopt or reject that technology under a specific set of conditions. Instead of looking at what technology can do for people, this research puts user behavior into a daily context as a starting point in order to find out which kinds of people use the technology? Can groups of technology users be recognized that are for example 'green buyers' or \'materialists\'? And what kind of people are they. The preference of individuals for example on climate change gives insight in factors that are likely to determine groups of users. In this research, we use a lifestyle perspective to analyze whether users of PV have similar personal values and lifestyles. We focus on PV as it is one of the most promising low carbon energy sources. While the worldwide application of PV is growing fast the Netherlands is lacking behind. So, the objective of this study is to identify a small number of relatively homogeneous groups of technological users, based on their adoption or rejection of a specific technological innovation. By taken into account different segmentation models of the Dutch population which are used in the building market in the Netherlands, we introduce a segmentation model which can be used for analyzing the diffusion of technological innovations, in particular PV. The introduced model allows us to answer the question whether adopters and non adopters consider the same or different attributes.

There exist two ordinary ways to obtain global energy efficiency. One way is to make improvements on the energy production and supply side, and the other way is, in general, to reduce the consume of energy in the society. This paper has focus on the latter and especially the consume of energy for heating up, and cooling down our houses. There is a huge energy saving potential on this area reducing both the World climate problems and economy challenges as well. Heating of buildings in Denmark counts for approximately 40% of the entire national energy consume. Of this reason a reduction of heat losses from building envelopes are of great impor­tance in order to reach the Bologna CO₂-emission reduction goals. Energy renovation of buildings is a topic of huge focus around the world these years. Not only expenses for heating in the tempered and arctic regions are of importance, but also expenses to ACMV in the "warm countries" contribute to an enormous energy consumption and corresponding CO₂ emission. In order to establish the best basis for energy renovation, it is important to have measures of the heat losses on a building façade, for optimizing the energy renovation. This paper will present a new method for measuring the heat loss by utilizing a so called U-value Meter [Sørensen 2010]. The U-value Meter is a heat loss measuring device and has been used in several energy renovation projects in tempered regions and is now planned to be utilized in the tropics for measuring the heat penetration through facades with the aim to reduce the costs to AC. The paper will introduce a common project between NUS (National University of Singapore), AAU (Aalborg University) and HT-Meter, the latter as the U-value Meter developer company. In the project we will measure the heat transfer in the unit W/Km² through different facade elements, such as outer walls, entrance doors, windows and roofs on selected buildings. The results will be analysed as basic for improvements of the envelope. A developing of new energy renovation systems and energy renovation principles is expected to be the outcome of the project. Furthermore this paper present results from already conducted heat loss measurements in the tempered regions and discusses the U-value Meter device aiming for improvements.

Greywater (GW) recycling for non-potable uses such as toilet flushing is a management strategy to meet urban water demand with substantial water saving. This paper proposes a system that collects GW from residential buildings and recycles it for toilet flushing in both residential and office buildings. The total cost and water saving of standard sanitation technology were compared with 5 other options requiring less or no potable water use in toilets. Scenarios compare: no GW, individual GW, and shared GW systems with and without low-flush appliances. Typical residential and office buildings in urban mixed-use regeneration areas in the UK were used for these analyses. The results implied that constructed wetland treatment technology with standard appliances is more economically and environmentally viable than other scenarios. By increasing the water and wastewater price, shared GW systems with and without low-flush appliances were viable options within highly water efficient domestic and office buildings.

Mexico is constantly suffering the effects of natural events that turn into disasters, affecting people\'s livelihood and wellbeing. Just in 2011 and 2012 we have had floods in the South, drought in the North and Central parts of the country and earthquakes in the Pacific coast that have claimed lives, caused displacement of people and generated significant losses to the local economies. We look at four different types of disasters, i.e. floods, drought, frost and earthquakes. The frequency and intensity of the first three may be related to climate variability (and therefore associated to climate change). Using data on damages, frequency of natural events, geographical characteristics and meteorological data, as well as land use change and soil degradation, socioeconomic data, institutional capacity, and expected sensitivity to climate change, we estimate a State-level vulnerability index that allows us to (a) rank states depending on their vulnerability to a specific nature-related disaster, and (b) identify the main causes of relative vulnerability of a particular State to a specific disaster. This is certainly useful for policy making and can be reproduced at different scales of the subnational level, be it municipalities or communities or for more aggregated areas such as regions within a country. Our sensitivity analysis supports the robustness of the index we construct. Results show interesting patterns across disasters and help identify the type of policies that each State needs to reduce its vulnerability to different disasters. This type of analysis may lead to adaptation policies that help curb vulnerability of the most vulnerable communities.

Strategic Environmental Assessment has been introduced by EU legislation recognizing that spatial planning processes need to be supported by the evaluation of medium and long term effects of policies, plans or programs under investigation. The last two decades of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) practices highlighted some lack in comprehensiveness, especially in assessing drivers of different nature (infrastructure, industrial development, household consumption) and related impacts. In fact, household consumption plays a relevant role in the total share of local impacts in a given region or city. This requires to enlarge the perspective of the assessment in order to make it really useful for decision making and resolving possible conflicts between environmental protection and social and economic development objectives in a proficient way. The methodology presented in this paper is an attempt to enlarge the traditional perspective of SEA, centred on the environmental assessment as a picture of current and future situation: the assessment made by a set of single environmental indicators is combined with the evaluation made through the composite indicators Ecological Footprint & Biocapacity and Carbon balance. This evaluation methodology can help: i) to understand if the level of consumption of the local community exceeds the limits of natural resources of the area (in a perspective of self-sustainment at the local scale) or if there is an overshoot between the footprint and the biocapacity, i.e. if the local consumption the cause of excessive land use in other areas; ii) to identify the role of spatial planning choices in determining the sustainability of the entire system. The case study presented in this paper is the implementation of this approach in the Strategic Environmental Assessment of a spatial planning plan of four municipalities in Northern Italy.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has done research on different aspects of sustainable building since decades. There\'s a continuous stream of international research projects related with sustainability metrics and building performance, indoor climate and energy efficiency, product development, sustainability assessment and decision support tools. The focus is nowadays increasingly stretched towards sustainable neighbourhoods covering also infrastructure and economic and social assessment. VTT has 50 to 100 experts doing research on sustainable built environment. The number is bigger if the areas of water and waste management, transport, energy systems, etc. are also counted. Based on the wide expertise described, and building on recent experiences carried out in different parts of the world (China, Russia, Finland, Kenya) which can be somehow considered the origin of the new formulation of the concept developed by VTT in line with its Research and Innovation Vision 2020, EcoCities provides a framework for sustainable community and neighbourhood regeneration and development focusing mainly on developing countries and emerging economies. EcoCity Miaoufeng (China), EcoGrad in St. Petersburg (Russia), EcoDrive (Finland) or UN Gigiri in Nairobi (Kenya) are the main references prior to the launch of the EcoCities concept presented in this paper. Among the main challenges addressed by EcoCities are: climate mitigation and adaptation, sustainable urbanization and affordable housing, integrated planning and funding availability, capacity building for local solutions and services, citizen empowerment and participation, crucial cross-cutting themes like gender issues and poverty. To respond to these challenges, EcoCities is built around a strong collaboration with local partners in order to answer to local needs previously identified and discussed with them. The flexibility of EcoCities\' approach allows the implementation of expert solutions depending on local conditions and customized to varying socio-economic realities worldwide. Ongoing projects in Egypt and Zambia, and planned activities in Libya, South Africa or Colombia will illustrate the main components of the concept. Both ongoing New Borg El-Arab EcoCity (Egypt) and EcoLusaka (Zambia) projects have a clear focus on capacity building. Another project currently under negotiation also in Zambia would include the construction of two sustainable demo houses. In South Africa and Colombia, VTT\'s local partners would be the municipalities. All projects within EcoCities framework cover the different aspects of sustainability (environmental, economic and socio-cultural).

During the 20th century, with the advent of the industrial society and globalization, the language of planning changed according to the shifts in perception and use of physical space. By borrowing terms and spatial forms from biology and cybernetics, it increased their original semantic connotations. This paper outlines when the definition of architecture as connective-collective intelligence moved from cognitive sciences to urban design, where spontaneous and collective initiatives that redefined communication forms of urban life multiplied and intensified, both in developments and public space until it even affected the procedure of transmission of traditional knowledge.