Policy recommendations for the zero energy building promotion towards carbon neutral in Asia-Pacific Region

Abstract

The present global trend towards decarbonization under the Paris Agreement encourages regions and economies to explore possible ways to reduce energy intensity and minimize emissions into the environment. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which accounts for 60% of world energy demand, aims to reduce energy intensity by 45% from 2005 levels by 2035 and double the share of renewable energy in the energy mix between 2010 and 2030. The promotion of Zero Energy Building (ZEB) was considered the most efficient way to respond to these goals in the building sector. A comprehensive review of progress over the past decade and a comparison of the definitions, standards and goals of ZEB in the five biggest economies of APEC (Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States) was carried out. In 2020, these five economies announced a carbon neutral goal towards 2050/2060, which will significantly affect the building sector in the foreseeable future. According to the progress review of ZEB over the last decade, this paper analyzes gaps in the building sector towards zero emissions by 2050 and proposes 10 policy recommendations covering multi-aspect and multi-factor in the APEC. The research will help steer more efficient and effective ZEB policies towards zero energy/emissions in the building sector in the Asia-Pacific region.

Full text

Energy Policy 159 (2021) 112661
Available online 15 October 2021
0301-4215/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Policy recommendations for the zero energy building promotion towards
carbon neutral in Asia-Pacic Region
Shicong Zhang
a
, Ke Wang
a
,
*
, Wei Xu
a
, Usha Iyer-Raniga
b
, Andreas Athienitis
c
, Hua Ge
c
,
Dong woo Cho
d
, Wei Feng
e
, Masaya Okumiya
f
, Gyuyoung Yoon
g
, Edward Mazria
h
, Yanjie Lyu
a
a
China Academy of Building Research, Beijing, 100013, China
b
RMIT University, Australia and Co-lead UN Sustainable Buildings and Construction Programme, One Planet Network, France
c
Concordia University, Canada
d
Korea Institute of Civil Engineering & Building Technology, South Korea
e
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA
f
Nagoya University, Japan
g
Nagoya City University, Japan
h
Architecture 2030, USA
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
Carbon neutral
Zero energy building
Gaps analysis
Policy recommendations
ABSTRACT:
The present global trend towards decarbonization under the Paris Agreement encourages regions and economies
to explore possible ways to reduce energy intensity and minimize emissions into the environment. The Asia-
Pacic Economic Cooperation (APEC), which accounts for 60% of world energy demand, aims to reduce en-
ergy intensity by 45% from 2005 levels by 2035 and double the share of renewable energy in the energy mix
between 2010 and 2030. The promotion of Zero Energy Building (ZEB) was considered the most efcient way to
respond to these goals in the building sector. A comprehensive review of progress over the past decade and a
comparison of the denitions, standards and goals of ZEB in the ve biggest economies of APEC (Canada, China,
Japan, South Korea, and the United States) was carried out. In 2020, these ve economies announced a carbon
neutral goal towards 2050/2060, which will signicantly affect the building sector in the foreseeable future.
According to the progress review of ZEB over the last decade, this paper analyzes gaps in the building sector
towards zero emissions by 2050 and proposes 10 policy recommendations covering multi-aspect and multi-factor
in the APEC. The research will help steer more efcient and effective ZEB policies towards zero energy/emissions
in the building sector in the Asia-Pacic region.
1. Introduction
The global building sector and the construction industry account for
almost 40% of total carbon emissions and 36% of the end-use energy
(Ma et al., 2020). This percentage of total emissions is expected to in-
crease to 50% if energy consumption in buildings continues to grow at
current rates (J.Rhodes, 2016). There is a general upward trend in en-
ergy consumption in buildings and an inevitable declining trend of
available fossil fuel for the operation of our society (Luo et al., 2020).
The Paris Agreement (2015) contains a pledge of 195 economies to
keep global temperatures at a maximum increase of 1.5 ◦C above pre-
industrial levels (Moran et al., 2017). The Asia-Pacic Economic
Cooperation (APEC) accounts for about 60% of world energy demand
(Taniguchi et al., 2017); as such, they could lead the rapid changes
already underway in the global energy system. All APEC members have
approved two goals for reducing energy intensity by 45% from 2005
levels by 2035 and doubling the share of renewable energy in the energy
mix between 2010 and 2030(APEC, 2011; APERC, 2019). It is important
to improve energy and resource efciency, and the building sector plays
a pivotal role in such efforts. However, with the rise in living standards,
especially in developing economies, energy consumption in the building
sector is expected to continue to grow (Cabeza and Ch`
afe, 2020).
In response to climate change and the growing lack of resources,
major APEC economies are developing policies to transition to zero
energy building (ZEB) (Abeydeera et al., 2019; Li and Wang, 2019). To
improve buildings towards nearly zero and net zero energy efciency
levels, APEC has launched three phases of international research on ZEB
(2013–2014, 2015–2016, and 2017–2018) (Xu and Zhang, 2014, 2017,
2018); the outcome of this research could strongly support ZEB
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wangke07@126.com (K. Wang).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Energy Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112661
Received 9 March 2021; Received in revised form 21 July 2021; Accepted 9 October 2021

Energy Policy 159 (2021) 112661
2
advocacy and demonstrations. Simultaneously with the APEC ZEB
project, several economies have achieved and published successful best
practices and fruitful research outcomes, including Australia, Canada,
Chile, China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore, and the United
States (Besser and U.Vogdt, 2017; Fong and Lee, 2012; Li et al., 2020;
Siwei et al., 2017; Sudhakar et al., 2019; Suh and Kim, 2019b; Wells
et al., 2018; Zhang and Lau, 2019; Zhang et al., 2020a). Among them are
Canada, China, South Korea, Japan and the United States with a
relatively advanced technological system. Although some economies
have established a relatively complete system of ZEB technology, there
is still no single and unied denition for strengthening international
cooperation (Ürge-Vorsatz et al., 2020).
Previous research has shown that mid-to long-term energy saving
potential is promoted from successful demonstrations to the mass-
market adoption of ZEB. Approximately 897.8–1945.3 Mtoe could be
saved in the Asia-Pacic region under different ZEB scenarios. (Shicong
Nomenclature
APEC Asia-Pacic Energy Cooperation
ASHRAE American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-
Conditioning Engineers
BDCES Building Design Criteria for Energy Saving
BEGCS Building Energy Grade Certication Standards
CHBA Canadian Home Builders’ Association
CPBA China Passive Building Alliance
CABEE China Association of Building Energy Efciency
CCREUB Criteria for Clients on the Rationalization of Energy Use for
Buildings
CCREUH Criteria for Clients on the Rationalization of Energy Use for
Houses
DOE Department of Energy
EEDSRB Energy Efciency Design Standards for Residential
Buildings
EEDSPB Energy Efciency Design Standards for Public Buildings
HSCW Hot Summer and Cold Winter
HSWW Hot Summer and Warm Winter
IECC International Energy Conservation Code
ICC International Code Council
ILFI International Living Future Institute
LBC Living Building Challenge
Mtoe million tons of oil equivalent
METI Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry
MOLIT Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport
MoHURD Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development
MNECB Model National Energy Code for Buildings
NECB National Energy Code for Buildings
NGO Non-Governmental Organization
NREL National Renewable Energy Laboratory
NZEH Net-Zero Energy Home
NZER Net-Zero Energy Ready
NZEV Net-Zero Energy Veried
NSERC Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of
Canada
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
SNEBRN Smart Net-ZEB Strategic Research Network
SHASE The Society of Heating, Air-Conditioning and Sanitary
Engineers
SCC Severe Cold and Cold
SII Sustainable open innovation initiative
ZEB Zero Energy Building
ZERH Zero-Energy Ready Home
Fig. 1. ZEB framework towards carbon neutrality in APEC.
S. Zhang et al.

Energy Policy 159 (2021) 112661
3
Zhang et al., 2020). Therefore, it is of great importance for the devel-
opment of ZEB to integrate different technologies and promote them
throughout the Asia-Pacic region. Despite the importance of ZEB, their
share remains low among the existing buildings (Nan Zhou et al., 2018).
In the past decade, the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) has promoted global emission reduction
goals through the Copenhagen Agreement and the Paris Agreement, and
APEC has also formulated regional plans. Fig. 1 presents the carbon
neutral commitments made by major APEC members (such as Canada,
China, Japan, South Korea and the United States) and the building
sector’s response plans derived from global and APEC goals. At the core
of these climate policies is a commitment to increase the use of renew-
able energy and reduce the use of fossil fuel, which has proven effective
in creating synergistic environmental, social, and economic co-benets.
The long-term development of the Zero Energy Building is regarded by
APEC members as the core pillar in the building sector for achieving this
goal. The government and NGOs worked together to promote the
development of ZEB technology, and the technological advances
contributed to the long-term promotion of ZEB.
There are some studies that have reviewed the development of ZEB
(Delia and Livio, 2019; Zhang et al., 2013) and policy recommendations
(Pan and Mi, 2019; Zhang et al., 2019a). However, given that carbon
neutral goals have been established in various economies, it is necessary
for the building sector to revise the path and develop new energy pol-
icies based on an analysis of the current situation and future gaps. This
paper analyzes the upgrading of global, regional and national energy
saving and emission reduction goals and outlines the inevitability of the
building sector moving towards ZEB in line with the climate policy.
Section 1 presents the background to this paper. Section 2 analyzes and
compares denitions, standards, and certication of advanced ZEB
systems. Section 3 provides a review of the major economies carbon
reduction policies/upgrades from reduced emission intensity to carbon
neutrality. Section 4 identies gaps towards net zero emissions in the
building sector under the carbon neutral goal and proposes corre-
sponding recommendations.
2. Evolution of the building sector towards zero energy in APEC
As part of the 45% reduction in energy intensity from 2005 levels by
2035 and the doubling of the share of renewable energy in the energy
mix between 2010 and 2030 in the APEC region, ZEB is considered as
one of the most important pillars supporting this goal.
ZEB requirements vary by nations, regions and groups (Panagiotidou
and Fuller Robert, 2013). For example, the United States refers to ZEB
(DOE, 2015), Canada refers to Net-ZEB (SNEBRN, 2014), and some
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) refer to Zero carbon emissions
buildings (IPEEC, 2018; Kurnitski et al., 2011). The term ZEB is used in
this paper to focus on energy consumption, and also serves as an um-
brella concept that encompasses many other terms, such as net/nearly
zero/low energy/carbon building terms. At the technical level, ZEB is
equipped with renewable energy systems and generates as much energy
as it consumes over a specic period (Huang et al., 2018) or more often it
involves the concept of primary energy factor where a ZEB status is
achieved when the primary energy displaced is equal to the renewable
energy produced onsite(Voss and Musall, 2013). The difference between
nal energy and primary energy is whether the energy consumed during
conversion, processing and transmission is taken into account.
2.1. ZEB denition and comparison of key parameters
The history of the development of the denition of ZEB in several
major economies indicates that the denition has been constantly
changing and adapting to reect new energy situations in building
sector. It is common practice to rst develop and study zero-energy
residential buildings, including Zero Energy Ready Home (ZERH)
(Wang et al., 2021b), Net-Zero Energy Home (NZEH) (Robert and
Kummert, 2012) and Ultra low energy residential building (Zhang et al.,
2020a) proposed by the United States, Canada and China in 2000, 2012
and 2015, respectively. As technology matured, the denition of ZEB
extended to both residential and public buildings. The U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE) gave the ofcial denition in 2006 (Liu et al., 2019a)
and in 2015, and after two revisions, ZEB was dened as: an energy
efcient building where, on a source energy basis, the actual annual
energy delivered is less than or equal to the on-site renewable energy
exported (DOE, 2015). The Canada Smart Net-ZEBs Strategic Research
Network (SNEBRN) has dened the net-ZEB as one that, in an average
year, produces as much energy from renewable energy sources as it
consumes(NSERC, 2012; Pan and Pan, 2020). Japan proposed the terms
of ZEB Ready, Nearly ZEB, and ZEB based on energy saving levels in
2015 (METI, 2015; YOON et al., 2018), after that ZEB Oriented was
added for buildings with a total area of 10,000 m
2
or more in 2019
(METI, 2019b). The process of achieving zero residential energy con-
sumption is divided into two levels, which are Zero energy house(ZEH),
Nearly ZEH and ZEH Oriented (METI, 2019a).China’s national deni-
tion is also based on energy savings and the proportion of renewable,
ultra low energy building, nearly ZEB and ZEB in different climate zones.
The denition of ZEB in Korea is a green building that minimizes energy
loads and minimizes the required amount of energy by utilizing new and
renewable energy in accordance with the Green Building Construction
Creation Support Act, which was amended in 2017 (Kim and Yu, 2020).
Table 1 summarizes the requirements for some of the key interna-
tional ZEB parameters, including selected metrics, system boundaries,
and minimum specied requirements. Key parameters can lead to sig-
nicant differences in the challenges associated with the environmental
impacts of policies. Some of the differences and a comparison of the pros
and cons are listed as follows: 1) The measurement index has two types
of primary energy and nal energy. The difference lies in whether the
energy consumed in the conversion, processing and transmission process
is calculated, so the use of primary energy can reect the energy con-
sumption caused by building operation more comprehensively.2) Plug
loads are not included in the denitions of some Asian economies, but
are considered in the denitions of the North American economies. This
is mainly because the denitions in Asian mostly apply to new con-
struction, most denitions use calculated energy performance, not
actual/measured performance. In contrast, the energy consumption in-
dicator in the North American denitions usually refers to the actual/
measured performance (Delia and Livio, 2019); Therefore, the calcula-
tion energy consumption is adopted to measure the new construction,
while the operation energy consumption is adopted to measure the
completed building to meet the requirements of different building
stages.3) There are minimum qualitative and quantitative minimum
requirements of energy consumption itself and usually the quantitative
requirements can have a better limiting effect; 4) Although all deni-
tions give priority to the use of on-site renewable energy, there are
differences in whether or not to purchase off-site renewable energy.
With the development of distributed energy in the future, off-site
renewable energy is a potential choice to supplement the energy de-
mand of buildings; and 5) Some economies also use other units ac-
cording to their national energy statistics, including standard coal in
China, Joule in Japan, and Btu in the United States.
Although these definitions are not the same, they are consistent in
their intended goals to reduce fossil energy consumption as much as
possible, making full use of renewable energy, displaying the potential
for building energy-savings, and achieving zero energy. EE is the pri-
mary measure of the ZEB, representing the percentage of energy con-
sumption that the ZEB can reduce relative to the benchmark building.
The EE of the building itself does not include the reduction in fossil
energy contribution from renewable energy substitution, relying only on
active and passive technologies. Fig. 2 shows the EE associated with the
ZEB denition in different economies. The Canadian R-2000 standard is
also included in the comparison as a preparatory stage for ZEB (Parekh
et al., 2014). The similarities between the denitions are reected in the
S. Zhang et al.

Energy Policy 159 (2021) 112661
4
step-by-step plan for achieving ZEBs. These steps include achieving
50%, 60–75%, and 100% energy efciency improvements in a sequence.
In general, a building is dened as zero energy building when renewable
energy production exceeds the building’s energy requirements, which is
the green part in Fig. 2.
2.2. Upgrade of building standards towards ZEB
Fig. 3 shows the development of major building efciency standards
in several economies since the 1970s. It can be seen that the energy
efciency standards of buildings are constantly being updated and
improved at all levels of economy. Japan and the United States are the
two earliest economies to begin the research of building energy ef-
ciency, of which the ASHRAE standard of the United States has a far-
reaching impact on the international building energy efciency, and is
updated every three years (Wang et al., 2021a). Under the Energy
Conservation Law, rst adopted in 1979, the Japanese government
introduced energy efciency standards for residential and public
buildings, which were served as the foundation of Japan’s energy ef-
ciency policies and was updated numerous times so far (Huang et al.,
2016). And the building sector is subject to the following Act on the
improvement of energy consumption performance of buildings (ECPB)
laws established in July 2015. This Act provides for regulatory measures
for mandatory compliance with energy efciency standards for
large-scale non-residential buildings, and incentive measures(IBEC,
2016). Canada (Abdeen et al., 2020), China(Guo et al., 2016), and South
Korea(Quan et al., 2016) have also established strict systems of building
efciency standards. After 30 years of building energy standard devel-
opment (from 1986 to 2016), China’s building energy efciency have
generally increased by 65% covering all climate zones (Ma et al., 2019).
From the 1970s until today, building energy codes have already
achieved 50–70% energy savings (Xu and Zhang, 2014), and according
to scientic research, it still has the energy saving potential of 70–90%
in the future. Continuous improvements in energy efciency in buildings
Table 1
Key parameters in ZEB denitions.
Terms Measure of evaluation Energy
use
RE
boundary
Minimum requirements Year Cite
Public Residential Metric Energy
units
A
or
R
R
Value
of EE
C or M On-
site
Off-
site
A
or
R
EE of building RE
share
Canada Net ZEB Primary/
Final
kwh A 0 M ✓ ✓ 2013 (NSERC, 2012; Pan
and Pan, 2020)
ZEH A 0 C ✓ R 80% ✓ 2012 (Net-Zero Energy
Home Coalition,
2012; Net Zero
Council, 2020;
Robert and
Kummert, 2012)
ZEH Ready R 80% C R
ZEH
verication
A 0 M ✓ R ✓
China ZEB Primary kWh
or kgce
A 0 C ✓ ✓ R 20%–30% ✓ 2019 Kim and Yu (2020)
Nearly
ZEB
R 60% C ✓ ✓ R ✓
Ultra low R 50% C R 20%–25%
ZEB A 0 C ✓ ✓ A Heating≤5–18 ✓
Nearly ZEB A 55 C ✓ ✓ A ✓
Ultra low
energy
A 65 C A Heating≤5–30
Japan ZEB Primary J A 0 C ✓ R 50% 2015 (METI, 2015,
2019b) Nearly
ZEB
R 75% C ✓ R 50%
ZEB
Ready
R 50% C ✓ R 50%
ZEB
Oriented
R 30%–
40%
C ✓ R 30%–40%
ZEH A 0 C ✓ R 20% METI, (2019b)
Nearly ZEH R 75% C ✓ R 20%
ZEB
Oriented
R 20% C ✓ R 20%
South
Korea
ZEB 1-5 Primary kWh R 20%–
100%
C ✓ ✓ A ≤140 ✓ 2014 Kim and Yu (2020)
ZEB 1-5 R 20%–
100%
C ✓ ✓ A ≤90 ✓
United
States
ZEB Primary kWh or
kBtu
A 0 M ✓ ✓ 2015 Liu et al., (2019a)
ZERH R 40% M R 45% 2000 Wang et al., (2021b)
EE-energy efciency; RE-renewable energy; A- Absolute; R- Relative to baseline; C- Calculated; M-Measure; China’s ZEB cooling minimum requirements≤3 +1.5 ×
Wet-bulb degree hours 20 +2.0 ×Dry-bulb degree hours 28.
Fig. 2. Steps to promote building towards ZEB in the main economy of Asia-
Pacic Region.
S. Zhang et al.

Energy Policy 159 (2021) 112661
5
have led all economies to the ultimate goal of approaching nearly zero
and zero energy. Over the past decade, economies have simultaneously
sought to conserve energy in buildings and develop zero-energy stan-
dards. Table 2 summarizes the voluntary ZEB standards/guidelines for
several economies. Denitions are usually related to standards, which
serve as technical support for the implementation of the denition. The
voluntary standards could lead to the upgrading of future building codes
and certication systems to drive the market.
2.3. Market-driven certication of ZEB
Certication systems in each economy are consistently linked to
national denitions and grading buildings on energy efciency. As ZEBs
have evolved rapidly, technology appraisal systems have been linked to
their own technology brands, including the U.S. “Living Building Chal-
lenge” (LBC)(New Building Institute, 2020), Canada’s “Net Zero Home
Labelling Program”, Japan’s Building Energy Labelling System (BELS)
(SII, 2020),China’s “Nearly ZEB” (Energy Foundation, 2020) and
Korea’s “ZEB Certication Scheme” (MOLIT, 2018).
Fig. 4 provides an overview of the major certication systems in each
country, including certication organizations, start year, and number of
recent projects. The number of certied programs in the United States
(New Building Institute, 2020), Canada (Net Zero Council, 2020), Japan
(SII, 2020), China (CABEE, 2020), and South Korea (Kim and Yu, 2020)
is 649, 350, 259,30, and 83, respectively. Due to the early development
of ZEB in the United States and Canada, the number of certication
programs is relatively large. Because subsidies for the ZEB project in
Japan are administered by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
(METI), METI is responsible for verifying that building meets ZEB re-
quirements. Numerous best practices have conrmed the rationality and
technical feasibility of the parameters set by the denitions and
standards.
2.4. Setting a mid-to-long term goal
To respond to climate change and the growing lack of resources,
APEC’s major economies have developed policies to move towards ZEB.
Table 3 summarizes the mid-to long-term plans developed by gov-
ernments and NGOs in several economies. From a global perspective, the
United States, Japan, South Korea, and other developed economies have
actively developed mid-to long-term (2020, 2030, 2050) national plans
to upgrade building energy efciency goals to respond to climate change
and extreme weather. Several international building energy alliances
and organizations have proposed higher building energy efciency
targets to achieve zero energy buildings.
3. New carbon neutral mission towards 2050/2060
Since 2010, APEC economies have continuously updated their
climate goals of reducing emissions intensity to accommodate new
global and regional emission reduction goals. In response to the chal-
lenges posed by increasing energy consumption, governments around
the world have set various energy-efcient policies. For example, in
2015, the Japanese government has submitted Intended Nationally
Fig. 3. Upgrading of energy codes/standards in buildings since the 1970s.
S. Zhang et al.

Energy Policy 159 (2021) 112661
6
Determined Contribution towards post-2020 GHG emission reductions
at the level of a reduction of 26% by scal year 2030 compared to 2013
(Taniguchi-Matsuoka et al., 2020). Canada committed in 2018 to reduce
its emissions to 80% below 2005 levels by 2050 or earlier (Fragkos et al.,
2021). The Korean government in 2015 plans to reduce CO2 emissions
by 37% by 2030 in compliance with the Paris Agreement (Lee et al.,
2020). China and the US issued a joint statement on climate change in
2014 (Claire et al., 2016). The US announced target is to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions from 26% to 28% below the 2005 level by
2025. For China, the plan is to achieve the peak carbon dioxide emis-
sions around 2030 or as soon as possible. In 2015, China announced that
the goal for 2030 would be to reduce carbon intensity from 60% to 65%
below 2005 level (Wei et al., 2017).
Table 4 presents the latest climate policies of the economies in APEC
region. Since 2019, many economies have announced their carbon
neutrality goals for different years, for example by 2045 (e.g., Califor-
nia), 2050 (e.g., Canada, Japan, Korea and U.S.) or 2060 (e.g., China).
Compared to previous emission reduction targets, which are measured
by reducing carbon intensity, carbon neutrality goal has been substan-
tially upgraded in both difculty and scope.
4. Policy recommendations in building sector towards carbon
neutrality
The transition to low- and net-zero energy buildings brings a
reduction in carbon emissions, in addition to reducing energy con-
sumption in the built environment. Despite the many benets of ZEB,
there are signicant gaps that hinder its promotion, such as uncertain
development goals, lack of consensus on denitions and calculations,
and an incomplete policy support system. Therefore, in this paper, gaps
have been identied in three aspects, which include: development goal,
technology system and policy instrument. Based on a review of the
progress, denition and certication of ZBE in the ve APEC economies
from 2005 to 2020, this paper provides 10 policies recommendations for
the future deployment of ZEB in the Asia-Pacic region in respond of the
carbon neutrality goals in each economy (Fig. 5).
4.1. The Asia-Pacic region needs to upgrade its energy and emission
goals at all levels under the global climate policy
4.1.1. Current APEC climate goals do not meet global climate policy
APEC’s dual goals of reducing energy intensity by 45% and doubling
the share of renewable energy does not link to the carbon neutrality goal
yet. Existing studies have concluded that CO
2
emissions must be reduced
from 50% to 65% of today’s level by 2030, and CO
2
emissions from fossil
fuels must be completely phased out by 2040, in order to have a 67%
chance of achieving the 1.5 ◦C target (Architecture 2030 A2030, 2019).
However, Under current policies, energy intensity will remain more
than 20% above what is required to meet the Paris Agreement by 2035,
according to data released by the Asia Pacic Energy Research Center
(APERC). And renewable energy will account for only 25% of APEC’s
total energy demand in 2030(APERC, 2019a).
APEC should steer economies towards a zero-carbon transition by
setting new positive goals agreed to by the leaders of all its members. For
example, a carbon neutral goal by 2050/2060 and a carbon peak by
2030/2040, agreed by all member leaders. And short-term targets for
reducing energy intensity by at least 65% and increasing the use of
renewable energy, which should double from current policies to more
than 50% by 2035.
4.1.2. Carbon neutral goals proposed by a few members will not contribute
to achieving zero emissions in the whole APEC
Only six of APEC’s 21 economies mentioned in Table 4 have so far
proposed carbon neutrality. Developing economies are still in the stage
of increasing carbon emissions, while the carbon emissions of some
developed economies have already peaked. Therefore, given the inevi-
table upward trend in carbon emissions caused by GDP growth in
developing economies, developed economies should set the target date
of carbon neutrality as early as possible, while developing economies
can postpone it appropriately.
4.1.3. Unclear path of the building sector under the carbon neutral goal
Whether the building sector itself could be climate-neutral (i.e.,
without offsets or imported zero-carbon energy) is an open question.
The international community now considers the ZEB concept as a viable
solution for the zero emission building sector (Alirezaei et al., 2016).
However, all existing efforts, whether for developed or developing
economies, are still far from the requirements for reducing carbon
emissions in building sector (Liu et al., 2019b). As can be seen from the
mid-to-long term goals proposed by the governments and NGOs listed in
Table 3, the following problems remain in ZEB development plans in the
Asia-Pacic region: 1) NGOs usually propose stricter development goals,
but planning documents are needed at the government level to ensure
implementation and operability (Shen et al., 2016); 2) The existing
targets are mainly for new buildings. Relying on new construction to
substantially reduce building energy consumption and carbon emissions
is unrealistic for short- and mid-term plans; and 3) It is effective to make
Table 2
Voluntary standards and design guidelines for ZEB.
Economy Year Organization Title Reference
Canada 2017 CHBA Net Zero Home
Labelling Program
Technical
Requirements
CHBA (2017)
China 2015 MoHURD Passive Ultra-low
Energy Green
Building Technical
Guidance
(residential)
MoHURD
(2015)
2019 MoHURD Nearly Zero Energy
Building Technical
Standard GB/
T51350-2019
MoHURD
(2019)
2019 CABEE Nearly Zero Energy
Building Evaluation
Standard TB/
CABEE 003-2019
CABEE,
(2019)
Japan 2015 SHASE Denitions and
Evaluation Method
of ZEB
SHARE,
(2016)
2017–2019 METI/SII ZEB design
guideline
METI (2017)
South
Korea
2017 MOLIT Regulation on
Certication of
Building Energy
Rating and
Certication of
ZEBs
MOLIT,
(2018)
2020 Mandatary
standard for more
than 1,000m2
public building
(2020)
MOLIT,
(2019)
USA 2018 ASHRAE Advanced Energy
Design Guide for K-
12 School Buildings
Wang et al.,
(2021b)
2019 ASHRAE Advanced Energy
Design Guide Small
to Medium Ofce
Buildings
2019 Architecture
2030
The ZERO Code – A
zero-net-carbon
International
Building Code
Standard
Architecture
2030, (2018)
S. Zhang et al.

Energy Policy 159 (2021) 112661
7
short-term plans that support the achievement of long-term goals and to
update them regularly. For example, China and Canada have proposed
ve-year plans(Government of Canada, 2019).
Thus, the ZEB development goal should be revised in line with the
current status of climate policy. For developed economies, the priority of
converting the building stock into a net zero energy/emission sector
requires a deep retrot of existing stock, such as improving the insu-
lation of the envelope and the use of energy efcient equipment (Xu and
Wang, 2020). For North American economies with higher energy in-
tensity of buildings, more than 3% of the building stock should be ret-
rotted to ZEB per year, compared with 2% in traditional developed
economies, where energy consumption is between relatively efcient
and comfortable. For developing economies, the focus is on the rapid
pace of new construction. Therefore, developing economies must
develop policies early to ensure that new buildings are construct ac-
cording to ZEB standards.
4.2. Successful adoption of ZEB technology requires consensus on
denitions and calculations
4.2.1. Discordant ZEB denitions hamper adoption in the Asia-Pacic
The concept of ZEB was introduced in the early 2000s (Zhang et al.,
2013) and its popularity increased rapidly worldwide, but there is still a
lack of consensus on the denition of ZEB. According to the analysis in
Section 2.1, APEC also did not develop a uniform terminology. This
variation makes it difcult to understand and evaluate global progress
toward ZEB (Zhang et al., 2016). Incompatible ZEB terms, boundaries,
index and energy and units can represent barriers to promoting
advanced technology to other economies in the Asia-Pacic region.
An International Standardization Organization (ISO) standard
covering all climate zones in the Asia-Pacic region could be established
to describe the key parameters for the denition of ZEB in more detail.
Since ZEB’s comprehensive mandate inevitably depends on the
description of the building’s energy production limit and use, ISO
standards may include not only energy efciency requirements, units
and metrics, but also energy calculation boundaries. At present, ISO has
started the development of this standard(ISO, 2020), under the APEC
Zero Energy Building Project members discussion, the denition is
divided into three stages: ZEB Ready, Nearly ZEB,and ZEB. ZEB refers to
a building with zero or negative net annual primary energy consump-
tion. Nearly ZEB refers to a building’s annual primary energy con-
sumption that is 60%–75% lower than the baseline building, while ZEB
Ready reduces energy consumption by only about 50%.
4.2.2. Different calculation methodology that extends from zero energy to
zero emissions
When considering the "zero" target for buildings, there is a signicant
difference between zero energy and zero carbon, which can signicantly
affect emissions (Joseph Williams et al., 2016). The goals of most
economies are to achieve zero energy instead of zero carbon (Iyer-Ra-
niga, 2019). It is necessary to clarify the boundary for evaluating the
emission of zero-carbon buildings, including the life cycle boundary and
the emission boundary.
For the life cycle boundary, building life cycle analysis (LCA) can be
used to assess the impact of building production, construction, operation
and end of life on carbon emission (Moran et al., 2020). Numerous
studies have found that the use stage (operational energy) accounts for
80%–85% of the life cycle energy consumption in buildings (Mehdi
et al., 2017; Richman et al., 2009; Robati et al., 2016). For zero energy
buildings, carbon emission in production, construction stage may exceed
operational stage. As for the emission boundary, emissions in the
building sector are categorized as direct or indirect based on their
discharge location (F.H.Abanda et al., 2013). On-site combustion pro-
duces direct emissions, while regional electricity generation and heating
produce indirect emissions (Fallahi and Smith, 2016). Direct carbon
emissions can be calculated based on energy consumption using emis-
sion factors and energy structure (Zhang et al., 2019b). Average indirect
emission factors are calculated based on the share of different resources
in electricity production (Fallahi et al., 2018).
Standards for calculating carbon emissions from buildings should
also be incorporated into ISO standards. As for the life cycle boundary,
the study of zero emission of buildings can initially be mainly carried out
in the operation phase. Furthermore, guidelines for the selection of
building materials should be prepared by professionals. Efforts to in-
crease the electrication of end uses are increasing to better synchronize
loads with renewable electricity generation, and the building sector is
increasingly electried(Tarroja et al., 2018), so the indirect share of
emissions from the building sector will continue to grow. For the
Fig. 4. ZEB certications in different economies.
S. Zhang et al.

Energy Policy 159 (2021) 112661
8
evaluation of buildings with zero carbon emissions, considering direct
and indirect emissions as evaluation indices can improve quantitative
assessment of building electricity demand and carbon emissions, which
can inform policies and pathways to meet the carbon neutral goals.
4.2.3. Lack of technical staff for building design and construction
Currently, the vast majority of designs worldwide follow the tradi-
tional design method according to current architectural design codes
and design methods. Associated with complex integration is that
traditional building codes cannot address all the elements necessary to
achieve ZEB (Zhang et al., 2016). One of the keys to the large-scale
promotion of ZEB is the transformation from a traditional architec-
tural design method to an integrated design method based on perfor-
mance based on energy consumption index (Li and Wang, 2020). In
addition, ZEB have strict regulations on air tightness and thermal bridge
of the envelope, so the construction of ZEB must differ from traditional
buildings (Yang et al., 2019). There is currently a lack of qualied
building design professionals and a lack of education and training for
professionals (Liu et al., 2020). In addition, there is a need to train
contractors and craftsmen on the building construction process and to
improve their technical skills and communication. The latest U.S. federal
government’s climate policy (issued in January 2021) identied the
needs for millions of construction, manufacturing, engineering, and
skilled trades workers to build a new U.S. infrastructure and a clean
energy economy (The White House, 2021).
Therefore, APEC members can formulate national standards in
accordance with their national conditions by following the ISO standard.
At the same time, they should formulate design and construction
guidelines and organize professional technical personnel to learn and
train. Qualied building contractors and professionals should be ob-
tained through education and training.
4.2.4. Users must be trained to ensure the operation
The development of ZEB faces challenges such as insufcient edu-
cation, training, and low awareness and consumer acceptance. ZEB
building systems can be more advanced in that they often include an
electronic Building Management System that allows integrated control
of heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and refrigeration systems as
well as lighting, re control, alarm, and security systems (Coyner and
Kramer, 2017). Commissioning of a building ensures that building sys-
tems are installed, tested, and are operated as designed (Kim et al.,
2019). Furthermore, the inuence of users behavior on energy demand
for heating and cooling is at least as important as building physics
(Kirsten, 2012), and electricity consumption for lighting and appliances
depends more on user behavior than on energy efciency (Schweiger
et al., 2020). Therefore, providing guidance to users can ensure efcient
operation of the energy system (Cappelletti et al., 2015). These ndings
clearly emphasize the importance of users, so the key element of any
smart energy system is the consumer, and smart energy systems rely on
the active participation of users.
4.3. A policy package is required to move towards the zero energy/
emission building sector
4.3.1. Incremental cost is a main barrier in the early stage of ZEB
promotion
Developers, users, and design teams often point to initial capital
expenditures as the primary barrier preventing the adoption of ZEB (Hu,
2019). As with the most sustainable energy-related options, constructing
a ZEB involves signicant upfront investment and will benet
throughout its lifetime (Ürge-Vorsatz et al., 2020). Given the history of
green building development, policy incentives that can demonstrate
government support while covering part of the incremental costs of
demonstration buildings are the best way to quickly implement ZEB in
Table 3
Summary of mid-to-long term development goals.
Economy Organization Year
Initiated
ZEB goal Target
Year
Reference
Canada Federal
government
2017 NZER
buildings
2030 Abdeen
et al., (2020)
Canada GBC 2019 Reduce
carbon
emissions by
50%
2030
Reduce
carbon
emissions by
100%
2050
China MOHURD 2017 10 million m
2
Nearly ZEB
will be built
2020 Wang et al.,
(2021b)
CPBA 2017 30% of the
new building
and existing
building will
be ZEB, and
30% of new
building
energy
consumption
will be
renewable
2030 Luo et al.,
(2020)
Japan Government
of Japan
2018 Achieve ZEB
on average
with regards
to newly
constructed
buildings
Achieve ZEH
for all newly
constructed
houses
2030 GOJ (2018)
Korea MOLIT 2014 All new
buildings will
achieve zero
energy goal
2030 Suh and Kim,
(2019a)
USA Federal
government
2009 All new
buildings to
be net ZEB
2030 Chai et al.,
(2019)
All
commercial
buildings to
be zero
energy
2050
Architecture
(2030)
2012 All new
buildings to
be ZNC
2030 Architecture
2030, (2012)
Table 4
Carbon neutral commitments of APEC members.
Commitment ways Economies Year Initiated Target Year
Policy commitments Canada 2019 2050 Government of Canada (2019)
China 2020 2060 Ministry of Ecology and Environment (2020)
Japan 2020 2050 Climate Home News, (2020a)
Korea 2020 2050 Climate Home News, (2020b)
Chile 2019 2050 D.Kairies-Alvarado et al., (2021)
Executive order USA 2021 2050 (The White House, 2021)
S. Zhang et al.

Energy Policy 159 (2021) 112661
9
the early stages (Shen et al., 2016). The main obstacle for users is
increased initial investment, while obstacles for developers also include
land supply, approval process, etc. In addition, since developers and
building owners are different stakeholders, ZEB incentive policies
should be established in two aspects(Zhang et al., 2019a): 1) Developers
can be stimulated by measures such as nancial subsidy, oor area ratio
award, commercial housing price uctuation, tax preferential treat-
ment, land use guarantee, price oating for commercial housing, etc.;
and 2) For users, housing subsidies, tax preference, refund of related
building and construction funds once collected are more operable
incentive measures.
4.3.2. Comprehensive popularization faces the challenges of technical
feasibility and market nancing
The goals of reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions
towards sustainable development require a systematic transition in the
current society and systems (W.Geels, 2012). ZEBs are also considered as
technically challenging, leading to technical feasibility issues for sup-
pliers (Pan, 2014). Establishing a market-oriented nancial system is a
long-term solution to nancial barriers (Hou et al., 2016). In this way,
different sources of capital from the private and public sector can be
used to increase nancial support (Annunziata et al., 2014) to help
create a new industrial chain for technologies related to zero energy
buildings.
Theoretically, several technologies have been identied that facili-
tate the achievement of the ZEB goal, namely, passive design technol-
ogies (e.g., building envelope, orientation), active design technologies
(e.g., HVAC, lighting), renewable energy technologies (e.g., photovol-
taic panel, wind turbine) (Lu et al., 2019) In all denitions and
classications of ZEB, one basic design rule remains constant: address
demand rst, and then supply (Alirezaei et al., 2016). Thus, contem-
porary high-performance buildings are optimized by various strategies
and techniques for building envelopes and renewable energy systems to
reach the expected level of suitable performance (Liu et al., 2019b).
Advanced building envelopes are integrated envelope systems and
technologies that provide high performance in multiple physical do-
mains to efciently balance competing aspects through advanced
design, material properties and components, and advanced control
strategies, where appropriate (Taveres-Cachat et al., 2021). Among the
methods of using renewable energy in ZEB, the solar photovoltaic sys-
tem is one of the most promising (DHW et al., 2013). Integrating
photovoltaic modules into building surfaces and windows can be an
ideal route towards ZEB (Li et al., 2018). However, with insuf-
cient/surplus renewable energy generation and intermittent and un-
stable renewable energy characteristics (Zhang et al., 2020b), ZEB has to
frequently exchange energy with the power grid. Regarding the power
balance, frequent energy exports can result in increased renewable
penetration of the grid, which substantially increases technical dif-
culties and costs of maintaining the grid power balance (JordanHol-
weger et al., 2020). Energy storage is often a hidden, but nonetheless
important, energy technology (Rosen, 2015). And smart control tech-
nologies to control energy storage, indoor environment and energy
ows with smart grids(Athienitis and O’Brien, 2015).
A roadmap for the building sector would be the rst signal from
governments to the market for achieving ZEB. The government should
rst set a goal for carbon emission peak and net zero, establish a road-
map for reducing emission in the construction industry and estimate the
need for green and low-carbon investment. A green nancial system
Fig. 5. Gaps analysis and policy recommendations.
S. Zhang et al.

Energy Policy 159 (2021) 112661
10
should be established and include green credit, bonds, funds, stock
market nancing and other channels and measures such as dening
standards, incentive policies, disclosure requirements, institution
establishment, capacity building and organizational guarantee, which is
needed to support the development of green nancial products and
instruments.
4.3.3. Lack of mandatory administrations to ensure enforcement
The mandatory administration instrument includes specic policy
measures related to laws, regulations, standards and codes (Shen et al.,
2016). Building codes are the most widely used, and are also identied
by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) among the
most direct and powerful climate policies related to the environment
(Ürge-Vorsatz et al., 2020), as they set minimum requirements for en-
ergy efcient design and construction (Evans et al., 2017). The super-
vision and inspection systems are key for enforcing the building energy
efciency codes. Therefore, stricter building codes and related regula-
tory enforcement are the most effective basic measures. However, no
mandatory ZEB standards have been issued at the national level.
Based on government investment and market nancing, the building
sector can gradually raise mandatory standards to the level of net zero
energy consumption. China has issued the rst ZEB standard and plans
at the national level in the world and plans to make them mandatory by
2035. South Korea has also issued ZEB standards in the form of national
standards and plans, which will be mandatory by 2030 (MOLIT, 2019).
According to Fig. 2, each economy is divided into three stages from
benchmark buildings to ZEB: ultra low, nearly zero and zero energy.
Thus, mandatory standards can be upgraded three times to ultra low,
nearly zero and zero levels between the present year and 2030. As a
result, national building energy efciency standards will ultimately
achieve the ZEB goal with maximum energy savings and the best eco-
nomic efciency ratio.
5. Conclusion and policy implications
This paper studied the ZEB progress of ve economies in the APEC
region from 2005 to 2020 under the APEC energy intensity goal,
analyzed the gaps in the building sectors towards zero energy/emission
with the goal of carbon neutrality by mid-21st century, and proposed 10
policy recommendations covering multi-aspect and multi-factor. The
main conclusions are as follows:
(1) From the 1970s to the present, the energy efciency of buildings
has improved by 50–70% in the Asia-Pacic region. Over the past
decade, some APEC members have simultaneously moved to-
wards a zero energy/emission building sector and established a
complete denition, standard and certication system for ZEB.
Although the denitions of ZEB differ in terms, boundary and
calculation, the core of ZEB is consistent in its anticipated goals of
reducing fossil energy consumption as much as possible, making
full use of renewable energy, and exerting building energy-saving
potential;
(2) According to the Paris Agreement, more and more economies
have announced the target of carbon neutral by mid-21st century.
If we want to limit the level of carbon emissions as stipulated in
the carbon neutrality, the building sector should aim for net-zero
energy buildings and include all buildings where possible; and
(3) The zero energy/emission policies developed by the major
economies for the building sector have not been well imple-
mented so far due to various reasons. There are various gaps that
hinder the promotion of ZEB throughout the Asia-Pacic region,
such as the uncertain development goals, inconsistent denitions,
lack of technical personnel, incremental costs, and green invest-
ment. APEC as a whole and the member governments should
develop proactive policies to support the popularization of ZEB,
including updating development goals in the light of recent
situations, establishing ISO standards to form a consensus on ZEB,
strengthening mandatory regulatory policy instruments, and
guiding market transformation.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Shicong Zhang: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing,
ConceptualizationConceptualisation, Visualization. Ke Wang: Investi-
gation, Data curation, Writing – review & editing. Wei Xu: Supervision,
Writing – review & editing, All authors provide data and information for
paper and discussed the results and implications and commented on the
manuscript at all stages.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing nancial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to inuence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
Research and Integrated Demonstration on Suitable Technology of
Net Zero Energy Building, No.2019YFE0100300, National Key R&D
Program of China; APEC Nearly (Net) Zero Energy Building Roadmap
Study responding to COP21, No. EWG-15-2016A, Asia-Pacic Economic
Cooperation.
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