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ph: (865) 576-8401 fax: (865) 576-5728 email: reports@adonis.osti.gov Available to the public from the National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce, 5285 Port Royal Rd., Springfield, VA 22161 ph: (800) 553-6847 fax: (703) 605-6900 email: orders@ntis.fedworld.gov online ordering: http://www.ntis.gov/ordering.htm This document was printed on recycled paper.Buildings account for about 30% of all energy consumption globally and a significant share of greenhouse gas emissions. Building energy codes help ensure that new buildings use energy efficiently, and this can reduce building energy use by 50% or more compared to buildings designed without energy efficiency in mind. This is important because buildings typically last 30-50 years, and it is much less expensive and time-consuming to design for energy efficiency than to retrofit a building later. Based on the experience of the Asia-Pacific region, it is clear that building energy codes, when implemented, save energy and improve comfort in new buildings. By design, most building energy codes are cost-effective, saving consumers significant amounts of money on their energy bills.The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP) is a publicprivate collaboration to accelerate the development and deployment of clean energy technologies. APP partners include Australia,

From 1995 to 2005, building energy use in China increased more rapidly than the world average. China has been adding 0.4 to 1.6 billion square meters of floor space annually 2 , making it the world's largest market for new construction. In fact, by 2020, China is expected to comprise half of all new construction. In response to this, China has begun to make important steps towards achieving building energy efficiency, including the implementation of building energy standards that requires new buildings to be up to 65% more efficient than buildings from the early 1980s. Making progress on reducing building energy use requires both a comprehensive code and a robust enforcement system. The latter-the enforcement system-is a particularly critical component for assuring that a building code has an effect. China has dramatically enhanced its enforcement system for building energy codes in the past two years, with more detailed requirements for ensuring enforcement and new penalties for non-compliance. We believe that the U.S. and other developed countries could benefit from learning about the multiple checks and the documentation required in China. Similarly, some of the more user-friendly enforcement approaches developed in the U.S. and elsewhere may be useful for China as it strives to improve enforcement in rural and smaller communities. In this article, we provide context to China's building codes enforcement system by comparing it to the U.S. Among some of the enforcement mechanisms we look at are testing and rating procedures, compliance software, and training and public information.