Global Sustainability Perspective magazine - Jones Lang LaSalle

Global Sustainability Perspective
The Growth of
Eco Cities
A Chinese perspective
June 2012
Interview with Parker White, Greater
China Head of Energy and Sustainability
Services, Jones Lang LaSalle
How would you define an Eco City?
It is very difficult to define what an Eco City is, because you have so
many different variables at play with a city. It becomes very regional in
terms of defining specific parameters. I think you would end up falling
back on the general definition for sustainable development, which is
to leverage your existing resources today without sacrificing future
resources for generations tomorrow.
Are there any overall standards for these Eco Cities?
There are emerging standards, and specifically within China the
framework for that has really been the 12th Five-Year Plan, which
has refined further what government has already been doing with
Eco Cities. It’s very much like a building process, what was an Eco City
yesterday is not an Eco City today.
Who actually comes up with the idea for an Eco
City? Is it pitched? Or do the governments go to
someone to do it?
There’s no one size fits all in China, and there very rarely is for any
major economic policy. China is famous for the approach of letting the
different districts and regions work for themselves and seeing which
system works out the best. In some cases the mayor of a city may have
a development in place and chooses to set environmental parameters
around that development.
What about the financing here for these cities?
Just like any other real estate development project, it’s entirely contingent
on the type of development. If you were to look at the Langfang Eco City,
south of Beijing, this was a private developer, so he was driving that.
Compare it to the Hongqiao transportation hub – that’s the Shanghai
Airport Authority. That’s very much a government entity, and they were
driving this project at a district level.
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So investors vary, as well, depending on the project?
In Tianjin, for example, you have the Chinese government, the Tianjin
government and the Singapore government coming together as a
partnership. They did all the master planning work. Then they sold
off the plots of land within the community to individual developers. So
that means you have a lot of stakeholders involved. You have got the
initial investment in the form of land coming from the government, the
subsequent investment coming from developers buying the land and
constructing the buildings, and you have the integrated master plan that
comes from the front end with the government as the primary driver.
What opportunities are there for foreign developers
and contractors?
We spend most of our time connecting the right solution providers
to the right consumers, and with what we’ve seen, there’s no shortage
of demand in this market for best practice. If anything, there’s a
shortage of suppliers. It’s an ever-growing market because it needs
to be. As long as the need for development continues, there will
continue to be a need for solution providers.
As far as these Eco Cities go, are governments
addressing that after these Eco Cities are built,
people may not want to live there?
The first test of development is to go through a financial feasibility
assessment. If it is financially feasible, it means that there is a natural
demand; and that’s always a first consideration: Is there a natural
demand for this? A lot of times it’s years and years of pent up demand.
As people migrate to jobs, there’s new demand.