by Xinhua Writer Xu Xiaolei
UNITED NATIONS, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Broad Group, a Chinese non-electric central air conditioning giant, was invited to a UN business forum on sustainable development Tuesday to share its green manufacturing experience. However, the focus was turned to the company's ambitious plan to transform the way we build skyscrapers.
"We believe cities inevitably develop vertically, and our material is light and sturdy enough to make really high skyscrapers achievable," said Wang Shuguang, general manager of Broad Group USA.
Light and sturdy are desirable traits, but the icing on the cake is modular building. These high-tech sections can be put together like Lego bricks, and the result is stronger, cleaner and better thermal-insulated units than those traditionally built, plus less energy consumption during both construction and habitation.
According to Wang, a four-story residential building meeting such criteria has recently been erected at the Broad headquarters in Changsha, capital of China's southern province of Hunan, using the Core Tubular Stainless Steel based material.
Years ago, at least two other buildings were constructed using the company's older-generation material based on light steel: T30 in Xiangyin of Hunan, a 30-floor hotel now in full operation, and J57 in Changsha, a 57-floor multi-purpose building that includes apartments. The construction of both structures took less than 20 days.
"All of the sections are pre-fabricated in factories, and their light weight and modularity enable rapid construction as well as energy-saving," he said.
Tuesday's business forum is a special event of the ongoing High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, an annual UN platform to review progress towards the 17 sustainable development goals (SGD) set in the 2030 Agenda, a milestone document a UN summit adopted in 2015.
"SDG 11 and 12 are most close to our heart, which aim to make cities sustainable as well as ensuring sustainable consumption and production," Wang said.
Board started as a manufacturer of non-electric central AC units in late 1980s and has developed into a multi-subsidiary group with businesses in 80 countries, covering energy service, clean air technology as well as sustainable building.
"From the very beginning, we wanted to build a responsible company that improves people's life with minimum impact on the environment. That's why we opted gas, a primary energy, rather than electricity, a secondary energy whose generation involves dirty coal burning and entails waste," Wang said.
In later years, Broad incorporated solar and industrial waste heat as sources of energy to power AC units. As Wang put it, "it has been updating its understanding of corporate responsibility, and sustainability has become the core of its culture."
Although AC businesses still account for 70 percent of Broad's revenue, Wang expects sustainable building to become the company's leading business in the years to come.
