Sustainability, Vol. 9, Pages 1583: A Decomposition Analysis of Embodied Energy Consumption in China`s Construction Industry (Sustainability)

With the fast-paced urbanization process, there will be a rapid development of China`s construction industry. However, it could also drive for considerable energy consumption, resulting in immense pressure on the environment. Based on non-competitive (import) input-output tables, we employed the SRIO (Single Region Input-Output) model to analyze energy use embodied in China`s construction industry from 1995 to 2009 and made projections for 2020. Our results show that about 4.84 billion tons of coal equivalent energy would be consumed by China`s construction industry in 2020. It implies that urbanization not only promotes the flow of embodied energy, but also provides development opportunities for a green and energy-saving construction industry.