Housing assets to the elderly in urban China: to fund or to hedge?

Housing has become the most important asset held by a large proportion of China’s older citizens. Therefore, the role of housing wealth in the consumption decisions of the elderly is a central topic of research and gains insights into the saving, investment and consumption decisions made throughout household life to meet later pension needs. In this paper, using data drawn from a household survey conducted between 2002 and 2009, we estimate the influence of housing wealth on the non-housing consumption of the elderly, and identify the mechanisms underlying this relationship. We find that on average, changes in housing wealth have limited effects on elderly consumption. However, we also find that the role of housing in consumption differs according to the income, health status, and living arrangements of the elderly. The paper draws attention to the influence of housing and its links with social and health-care systems on the lives of older people, with important policy implications.     

Is intrinsic energy efficiency reflected in the pricing of office leases?

This paper investigates whether the intrinsic energy efficiency rating of an office building has a significant impact on its rental value. A sample of 817 transactions for offices with Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) in the UK is used to assess whether a pricing differential can be identified, depending on the energy rating. While previous analyses of this topic have typically relied on appraisal-based and/or asking rent data, the dataset used in this research contains actual contract rents as well as information on lease terms. The results indicate a significant rental premium for energy-efficient buildings. However, it is found that this premium appears to be mainly driven by the youngest cohort of state-of-the-art energy-efficient buildings. The results also show that tenants of more energy-efficient buildings tend to pay a lower service charge, but this link appears to be rather weak and limited to newer buildings. Hence, it is argued that the information contained in the EPC is still not fully taken into account in the UK commercial property market with the possible exception of both the highest and the lowest EPC ratings.

Il est présenté une enquête visant à savoir si le classement d'efficacité énergétique intrinsèque d'un immeuble de bureaux a un impact significatif sur sa valeur locative. Un échantillon de 817 transactions relatives à des bureaux disposant de Certificats de Performance Energétique (CPE) au Royaume-Uni est utilisé pour examiner si un écart de prix peut être identifié, en fonction du classement énergétique. Alors que les analyses précédentes sur ce sujet se sont généralement appuyées sur des données basées sur des évaluations et/ou sur les loyers demandées, l'ensemble de données utilisé dans cette étude contient les loyers contractuels réels, ainsi que des informations sur la durée des baux. Les résultats indiquent une prime locative significative pour les immeubles à haut rendement énergétique. Il est cependant constaté que cette prime apparaît être essentiellement induite par la cohorte la plus jeune des immeubles de pointe à faible consommation énergétique. Les résultats montrent également que les locataires des immeubles ayant la plus grande efficacité énergétique ont tendance à payer moins de charges locatives, mais ce lien apparaît être plutôt faible et limité aux immeubles les plus récents. Il est par conséquent soutenu que les informations contenues dans le CPE ne sont pas encore pleinement prises en compte dans le marché britannique de l'immobilier commercial, à l'exception possible des classements CPE à la fois les plus élevés et les plus faibles.

Mots clés: bureaux commerciaux, éco-labellisation, efficacité énergétique, Certificat de Performance Energétique, modélisation hédoniste, prime locative, valeurs locatives     

Thirty years of action for energy efficiency in buildings: what are the results?

In the autumn of 1973 a first energy crisis swept over the industrialized world. In 1979 a second followed. The first reactions in the West reflected panic, but soon a correcting policy emerged with rational use of energy as one of the corner stones. From the beginning, buildings got special attention. Their share in the annual national end energy consumption, in fact, was unexpectedly high, while less consumption of highly valued energy sources looked affordable without jeopardizing building usability. On the contrary, better was possible with less. One may expect that three decennia later, the results of such policy should be visible in terms of less energy consumed in buildings. This is not the case, at least not in Flanders, Belgium. Many reasons explain that anomaly. The average principal, designer, builder and contractor is not interested in energy efficiency. Investment costs and not future annual costs are the main concern. Legislation has been introduced reflecting a far too optimistic view on citizenship and thus, without any enforcement policy. The housing and tertiary building stock still expands, with a clear prosperity‐linked trend towards detached dwellings with low compactness and large floor area. Urban planning remains business as usual. And finally, policy makers forgot to consider rebound effects and the impact of lazy workmanship when predicting the efficiency of fabric and building services related measures, resulting in an overestimation of future avoided energy use, while at the same time they underestimated the inertia of such large system as the existing building stock, given the low retrofit and substitution rate.     

Achieving sustainable development goal 7 in Africa: Does globalization matter for electricity access,renewable energy consumption,and energy efficiency?

This paper examines the effect of globalization on progress toward SDG 7, with a particular focus on electricity access, renewable energy consumption, and energy intensity. Data are on 42 African countries over the 2000 – 2015 period. Findings from the fixed-effects model with the Driscoll-Kraay estimator show that overall globalization improves electricity access, while its effect on renewable energy consumption and energy intensity is insignificant. Additional findings show that economic globalization improves electricity access and energy efficiency; social globalization undermines renewable energy consumption while improving energy efficiency; political globalization increases electricity access and renewable energy consumption. Some recommendations are provided.     

Smart Grid in China: a promising solution to China’s energy and environmental issues

Smart Grid presages an advanced power grid that revolutionizes the century-old traditional power grid and the way mankind uses energy. In China, the pressure on the current grid exerted by growing demand, environmental issues and the unbalanced energy use structure makes the transition to a ‘smarter’ and ‘cleaner’ grid inevitable. This paper firstly contrasts the concepts and research priorities of Smart Grid of China and other developed countries; then turns to the situation of Chinese energy and power use. China has the largest generating capacity, 79% of which is coal-fired plants. And China is also the largest carbon emitter in the world. Despite the challenges, China is also the most promising market for Smart Grid. The components of Smart Grid, especially the development of renewable energy, electric vehicles and smart substation are reinforced in the Chinese 12th Five-Year Plan (2011–2015). The paper examines also efforts by government, power utilities and research institutes. The paper concludes that developing Smart Grid will be beneficial both to China and the world.     

Homelessness in the UK: who is most at risk?

Is the common pressure group and media refrain that ‘we are all two pay cheques away from homelessness’ justified by the evidence? Drawing on multivariate analysis of two cross-sectional datasets (the ‘Scottish Household Survey’ and the UK-wide ‘Poverty and Social Exclusion’) Survey and one longitudinal data-set (the ‘British Cohort Study 1970’), this paper provides a systematic account of the social distribution of homelessness in the UK. Informed by a critical realist explanatory framework, our analysis underlines the centrality of poverty, especially childhood poverty, to the generation of homelessness, while also demonstrating the impact of broader labour and housing market contexts, and certain demographic, personal and social support characteristics. These findings reinforce the moral imperative for policy action on homelessness, while at the same time signalling opportunities to target preventative interventions on high risk groups.     

ICT, growth and productivity in the German energy sector - On the way to a smart grid?

This paper examines how the German energy industry has invested in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capital during the years 1992-2005. Using the method of growth accounting I find that the contribution of ICT investment to the growth of value-added and average labour productivity (ALP) within the German energy industry has decreased in the years 2001-2005. The reasons for this can be many. However, policy and regulation are called to remove existing barriers to ICT investment to overcome this investment reticence and to exploit productivity potentials in all stages of the energy value chain as a necessary pre-condition for building Smart Grids.     

Urban land expansion and the floating population in China: For production or for living?

There is a large amount of population moved from countryside to cities in China during its urbanization in the past two decades. The majority of these people have no formal qualifications for city residency, and they are so-called ‘floating population’. The increase of this group of people has induced the pressure of land use in cities, and the contradiction between the demand and the supply of urban land has been intensifying particularly in those developed regions in China. This paper examines the impacts of floating population on urban land by presenting the interrelations between floating population and urban land expansion from the perspective of production land and living land. Structural equation model (SEM) is employed in conducting the analysis. The result shows that the floating population alone does not have direct effect on urban land expansion, but have indirect impacts through engaging in the production or living process. It is particularly interesting that floating people's living conditions have no direct positive effect on the increase of construction land. Based on the research results, suggestions are offered for improvements in government policy towards a more sustainable and integrated urbanization, including the provision of housing support, the formation of more urbanized society and sustainable development.     

Coordination between clean energy generation and thermal power generation under the policy of “direct power-purchase for large users” in China

The inefficient utilization of clean energy and distorted pricing mechanism are the most critical problems that have hampered the reform of China's electric power industry for many years. A large number of clean energy generators have recently been constructed, but water spillage at hydroelectric facilities and wind curtailment persist due to integration challenges. The adjustment of electricity price has relied on executive orders of the Chinese government and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). Distorted prices that are not derived from a market economy have seriously hampered the development of China's electricity market. Therefore, in recent years, the Chinese government has issued a number of reform measures concerning “direct power-purchase for large users”. The main idea of this pricing mechanism is to form direct negotiations between large users and generators to determine the electricity price. To a certain extent, this pricing mechanism is conducive to the electricity market reform in China. However, the coordination between clean energy generation and thermal power generation under the policy of “direct power-purchase for large users” has become the key issue in China's electric power industry. This paper summarizes the policies of “direct power-purchase for large users” in different provinces in China. The electricity market in Yunnan, for which the contradiction between thermal power generation and hydropower generation is increasingly severe, is the focus of the research. At last, a feasible electricity market scheme has been derived to coordinate thermal power generation and hydropower generation. This scheme has considerable theoretical and practical significance to the future of China's electricity market reform.     

Double skin facades in the hot summer and cold winter zone in China: Cavity open or closed?

Double skin facades (DSFs) have gained increasing popularity worldwide for potential building energy savings. Such energy advantages are widely thought to be attributed to the ventilation feature of the DSF cavity. Keeping the cavity open to the outside, however, practically causes noise problems, dust pollution, and safety issues and thereby raising the maintenance cost of DSFs. This paper attempted to bring up this issue for more attention. We first numerically examined the thermal performance of DSF windows based on the climate of Hangzhou City featured by hot summer (>30°C) and cold winter (∼4°C). Then we discussed the potential energy benefits of DSFs and the ventilation design of the cavity. Results from our simulations showed that the DSF window was more energy efficient than a double glazing window in summer regardless of the cavity open or closed. Such energy advantages were more due to the additional pane of the DSF window to reduce the solar transmittance than due to ventilation of the cavity. Although ventilation is beneficial in summer, the annual energy gain may be limited. Our simulations showed that ventilation can save annual energy by no more than 8% under Hangzhou climatic conditions. Therefore, to justify the use of ventilation in a DSF, we recommend a comprehensive evaluation to be performed by balancing the annual energy gains and investment increase associated with the open cavity.     

Renewable energy industries in Europe: are they successful in the Chinese market?

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the number, type and presence of European companies – Italian, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Rumanian, Bulgarian and English – operating in the renewable energies industry in international markets. Enterprises supplying energy from various sources and at different points of the supply chain have long faced the challenges that international and geographically distant markets such as China pose. Specifically, European enterprises appear to encounter difficulties in approaching the Chinese market, which is rapidly developing as a result of the latest five-year plan setting energy and climate change targets and policies. Indeed, the number of European firms investing in China is low due to their small size, high cultural distance and inadequate management strategies. Through the analysis of two business cases (Asja and Caleffi) that have established partnerships and a WFOE in China, the article identifies the main elements of their management strategies that led to successfully operating in China.     

Sectoral linkages and industrial efficiency: a dilemma or a requisition in identifying development priorities?

This paper attempts to provide an empirical evaluation of the potential relationship between sectoral linkages (backward and forward) and technical efficiency using the 1995 input–output tables for 14 EU countries. Sectoral technical efficiency is obtained by the econometric estimation of a “multilateral” stochastic input distance function, while sectoral backward and forward linkage coefficients were computed using the noncomplete hypothetical extraction method suggested by Dietzenbacher and Van der Linden (J Reg Sci 37:235–257, 1997). The empirical results suggest that the relationship between industrial technical efficiency and sectoral interdependence is ambiguous. Although the majority of the countries, in the sample exhibit a negative relationship, for some countries, the opposite is revealed. This implies that policy makers should not be blindly based on sectoral interdependence in forming development plans, and they should take into consideration the efficiency of resource utilization of individual sectors. The combination of the information provided by both indices will assist in devising effective policy plans in stimulating internal economic growth.     

Which offers more scope to suppress river phytoplankton blooms: Reducing nutrient pollution or riparian shading?

River flow and quality data, including chlorophyll-a as a surrogate for river phytoplankton biomass, were collated for the River Ouse catchment in NE England, which according to established criteria is a largely unpolluted network. Against these data, a daily river quality model (QUESTOR) was setup and successfully tested. Following a review, a river quality classification scheme based on phytoplankton biomass was proposed. Based on climate change predictions the model indicated that a shift from present day oligotrophic/mesotrophic conditions to a mesotrophic/eutrophic system could occur by 2080. Management options were evaluated to mitigate against this predicted decline in quality. Reducing nutrient pollution was found to be less effective at suppressing phytoplankton growth than the less costly option of establishing riparian shading. In the Swale tributary, ongoing efforts to reduce phosphorus loads in sewage treatment works will only reduce peak (95th percentile) phytoplankton by 11%, whereas a reduction of 44% is possible if riparian tree cover is also implemented. Likewise, in the Ure, whilst reducing nitrate loads by curtailing agriculture in the headwaters may bring about a 10% reduction, riparian shading would instead reduce levels by 47%. Such modelling studies are somewhat limited by insufficient field data but offer a potentially very valuable tool to assess the most cost-effective methods of tackling effects of eutrophication.     

Housing the elderly: segregated in senior cities or integrated in urban society?

Ageing is driving the demand for housing for seniors in the Netherlands. The current urban planning ??cluster policy?? is mainly conducive to the construction of luxury inner-city apartments for seniors. Much less attention is given to the demand for dwellings for seniors outside the cities and for low- and middle-income households. Should the government accommodate this demand by constructing accessible dwellings? And would a ??senior city?? be a suitable framework for this purpose? The issue is whether senior citizens actually want to live together in a district, village or city. Would they want to move there if these senior cities were some distance away from other (age) groups, family, friends and services such as shops and care? We question whether the demand for senior cities is sufficiently strong to warrant abandoning the European planning principle of clustering. Doing so would lead to fragmentation of the landscape and less support for services in urbanized areas. The impetus for this study came from the major shortage of accessible housing in the Netherlands and a recent initiative to build a senior city of 1,500 dwellings in the province of Flevoland.     

Contesting green technology in the city: techno-apartheid or equitable modernisation?

In recent decades, heated debate around green technology and its equitable access has aroused the concern of international scholars. This paper provides a review on the exclusion of green technology referred to as ‘green techno-apartheid’ and examines selected key eco-cities (i.e. Masdar, Songdo IBD and Bangalore) considered in the 2013 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Report on ‘City-Level Decoupling’ (2013). Metropolitan planning is a crucial instrument in addressing the challenges of urban social sustainability and is thus considered an important mechanism for developing a platform to approach issues of equitable access to green technology. The study reviews five metropolitan plans: the ‘London Plan’ (London, England), the ‘Municipal Plan 2011 for Greater Copenhagen’ (Copenhagen, Denmark), the ‘Economically Strong and Sustainable Structural Vision: Amsterdam 2040’ (Amsterdam, Netherlands), the ‘Hong Kong 2030: Planning Vision and Strategy’ (Hong Kong, China) and the ‘Metropolitan Plan for Sydney 2036’ (Sydney, Australia). The results of the study suggest that while all these plans focus on promoting green technology within a framework of ecological modernisation, they lack appropriate tools for achieving equitable modernisation and enhancing social equity. Consequently, it is essential that researchers and planners take further steps and develop effective instruments to improve equitable access to green technologies and achieve long-term urban social sustainability.     

Ecological anomalies in the East China Sea: impacts of the Three Gorges Dam?

In this study, we examined possible impacts of the Yangtze River Three Gorges Dam (TGD), the world largest hydroelectric construction, on the adjacent marine ecosystem of the East China Sea (ECS) during its initial water storage period. The TGD filled the first one-third of its storage capacity of 39 billion m3 in 10 days in June 2003, causing an abrupt reduction in the river flow into the ECS. Noticeable changes in the microbial community structure including pico-sized autotrophs, heterotrophic bacteria and microbial diversity in the estuary and the ECS were observed 2 months later. Although causes for these changes could be multiple, the sudden decrease of river runoff and an ensuing intrusion of ECS ocean currents were postulated to be among the major ones.     

Placing Livestock in Landscape Studies: Pastures New or Out to Graze?

Abstract

This paper reviews research on livestock and landscape. It argues that farm animals have started to occupy a central position in landscape studies, opening up many new pastures for research. Using the example of cattle in the UK, we consider how livestock have been understood as text, as social constructions and as beings with their own lives. In each case, we note how the position of farm animals is contested and there is a need for a diversity of theoretical approaches to understand these differences. The article calls for academics, practitioners and policy-makers to pay greater attention to the myriad ways in which livestock and landscape are intertwined.     

The low TN:TP ratio,a cause or a result of Microcystis blooms?

An enclosure experiment in the shallow, subtropical Lake Donghu, China, was performed in the summer of 2001 to examine the effect of TN:TP (total phosphorus) ratios and P-reduction on the occurrence of Microcysitis blooms. The treatments were performed with enough amounts of N but with different amounts of P in the water column and sediment. Microcystis blooms occurred in the enclosures either with an initial TN:TP <29 or TN:TP>29 where the nutrients (N, P) were high enough. Microcysitis blooms never occurred in the treatments with low P concentration in spite of the presence of sufficient N. The P-rich sediments served as an important source for the P supply in the water column, and such a process was activated greatly by the outburst of Microcystis blooms which pumped up selectively P from the sediments and thus decreased the TN:TP ratios. Therefore, the low TN:TP ratio is not a cause but rather a result of Microcystis blooms.     

Developmental Urbanism,City Image Branding and the “Right to the City” in Transitional China

From the 1980s, urban-led economic pursuits, city image building, and residency control of rural migrants have been three key elements which are complementary yet conflicting in China’s development path. Whilst the two former are pro-growth oriented, the “low-image” and “potential risk to slum formation” of rural migrants are found by the state to be incompatible with the modernist urbanism sought after. Under the state’s ambitious city branding and intensive-cum-high value operations, the paper revisits Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey’s notions on the “right to the city”. It highlights the social injustice issue of differentiated citizenship in terms of inequity of access to services and inequality between urban and rural origins. City-branding efforts have indeed contributed towards economic efficiency and land use rationalization but are characterized by an asymmetrical power and spatial redistribution process filled with inequalities against migrant workers and deprivation of rights. Recent developments have shown that the state has compromised and become more people-oriented and inclusive in its approach towards rural migrants.