Smog-Eating Tower Comes to Life, and May Be On It's Way to Beijing

(This doesn't relate to the company and designer mentioned in the article. )

I have a very good friend who works for one of the largest and proably most well-known green construction companies in Beijing. She told me yesterday that many of their current projects are completely fake. 

Typically when a building is under design, the design company needs to hire a green buliding company for consultation on energy saving plans and related designs. The green building company will help to generate Plan A, B and C, and then will use computer simulation to evaluate all three plans. For example, if plan A, B and C cost the same while plan A saves 10% of energy, B saves 15%, C, 20%, then they will decide to use plan C.  

But that's not how it works here in Beijing. Here, when the green building company is contacted by the design company, the design of the building is usually completely done, including the "energy saving plan". So the green building firm in fact doens't participate in any of the sustainability discussion during the design and construction of the building. The design company usually gets in touch with the green buliding firm and simply tells them that they are doing A, which saves 10% energy, and they want the green building company to fabricate plans B, C, and D, all of which save less then 10%.

This makes it appear as if the design company has incorporated the most optimal energy saving design in its work. Truth is: nope, it's all fake. The sole purpose of the fabricated plans B, C and D is to make A look good. In this way, the green building firms are simply hired guns to make the design company's Powerpoint look better so that they can get the offer from the developer. 

I asked my friend maybe the incorporated energy saving plans may turn out doing great. My friend said, "that's usually not the case because most design companies have zero expertise and they don't give it a shit. It's not impossible that some of the designs out to be okay, but no matter what, the way it works blatantly violates the protocal of how it should work." 

I was like "what the fuck?" Why do these firms even exist? What they are doing is a waste of time, a waste of money, a waste of resources and a waste of human labor. 

These "green building consultation" firms simply claim to "help the green initiative". What they do in real life---helping the design companies to fabricate fake reports---is exactly the opposite of what they claim to be doing.

Reducing emmission by saving energy from buildings in the long run is no less important than controlling automobile emmission. A buliding's life span is least 50, 60 years and if a building's energy supply can be reduced by 10% per year, it will be an enormous number when you add up for 50 years. Energy doens't come from nowhere, they are burned from coal. 

This makes me very cynical toward the situation. I used to believe that the enviornmental problem is by and large a development and policy issue, but it is in fact much worse than that. It's no less of a corporate issue, and a human character issue. People do whatever it takes to make money. That's it. 

This also makes me realize that sometimes the government might be the biggest scapegoat in China, but in fact it's all about the people, every single one of us. When people criticize the government and stuff, many of us need to reflect for a moment if we are justifiable to do so. I assure you that the managers of the design company and the green building firm post on their social network about their opinions of the enviornmental issue all the time. But they really need to shut the fuck up because it's not only bad policies, bad supervision, the evil coal mine developers in Shanxi and the "development problem".

It's them who live right here in the city. Dressing up like some worthy men in Sanlitun. 

Everything is so fake. Nobody cares. It's all about making money. End of story. 

ChTTay2 wrote:

Quote:

Children growing up in Beijing have never experienced a blue sky, it's like snow in Africa to them. They have to play indoors until they’re eight because it’s too dangerous for them to play outside.

What absolute dross! Had this guy even been to Beijing?  This summer has been mostly blue skies. As for children who can't play outside. I would agree on some days they definitely shouldn't and cringe at sports classes going on in 200+  days. However, they definitely do go outside and play regardless.

Agreed. The first part of his statement, about not being able to see across the street, ok, we've experienced that. But the rest is absolute nonsense. A real turn-off.