Green housing transition in the Chinese housing market : a behavioural analysis of real estate enterprises

The concept of green housing has been introduced in China to deal with climate issues in the housing sector. Green housing development requires a complex socio-technical transition based not just on green materials or technologies, but also, and most importantly, on the behavioural transition of housing market actors. Little is known about how Chinese real estate enterprises are responding to the green housing transition within a Chinese context. Addressing this gap, our research aims to determine whether, and to what, extent Chinese real estate enterprises are transitioning toward greener housing practices and what constraints may exist. This research gap is particularly pressing given the Chinese government’s ambitions to promote energy efficiency in the new urban building sector by requiring 50% of urban new buildings to be green buildings by 2020 (NDRC, 2016). Our research reveals Chinese real estate enterprises face a dilemma of ‘going green’ and a range of institutional constraints that currently frustrate their uptake of green housing practices. Our research furthers knowledge on environmental and housing market governance within non-western and non-liberal contexts.