GB/T 50640-2023Evaluation standard for green construction of building and municipal engineering (English PDF)

1 General provisions

1.0.1 The standard was drawn up in order to promote green construction and to regulate the method of evaluating green construction in building and municipal engineering works.

1.0.2 It applies to the evaluation of green construction in building works that are newly built, extended, altered or demolished, and in municipal works such as roads, bridges and tunnels.

1.0.3 Besides complying with this standard, the evaluation of green construction in building and municipal engineering works shall also comply with the provisions of the relevant current national standards.

2 Terms

2.0.1 green construction: construction activity that, on the premise that the basic requirements of quality and safety are met, puts people first, suits the measures to the place, and through scientific management and technical progress saves resources to the greatest extent and reduces the negative impact on the environment.

2.0.2 prerequisite items: clauses that must be met during the green construction process.

2.0.3 general items: clauses whose difficulty of implementation and whose requirements are moderate during the green construction process.

2.0.4 extra items: clauses whose difficulty of implementation is greater and whose requirements are higher during the green construction process.

2.0.5 construction trash: waste material produced during the construction of building works and of municipal works such as roads, bridges and tunnels.

2.0.6 building waste: the part of construction trash that, once sorted, has lost its value for recovery and use on the construction site.

2.0.7 percentage of recovery and reuse: the share of the construction trash recovered and used on site in the total construction trash of the site.

2.0.8 obdurate ground water lowering: a method of lowering the water table in which cut-off measures are taken at the base and at the side walls of the excavation, so that the groundwater level outside the excavation is not affected.

2.0.9 informative construction: construction activity in which information technology is used to collect, transmit, process, use and store the information of the process of carrying out the project.

2.0.10 green construction evaluation: the activity of judging the level and the effect of green construction of a construction project.

3.1 Implementation organization

3.1.1 The main contractor shall bear overall responsibility for the green construction of the project.

3.1.2 A subcontractor shall be responsible for the green construction of the project within the scope of its subcontract.

3.1.3 The project department shall set up a green construction management system in which the project manager is the person with first responsibility.

3.2 Green construction planning

3.2.1 Before the project starts, the project department shall analyse the factors that influence green construction and shall state the green construction objectives.

3.2.2 The project department shall plan green construction on the basis of the results of that analysis and shall decide which of the evaluation clauses among the green construction evaluation factors are to be kept and which left out.

3.2.3 Green construction planning shall be realised through the preparation of documents such as the green construction organisation design, the green construction scheme and the green construction technical disclosure.

3.2.4 The green construction organisation design and its schemes shall include the content of technical and managerial innovation and the corresponding measures.

3.3 Management requirements

3.3.1 The construction unit shall inspect the green construction of the project.

3.3.2 Green construction of a project shall satisfy the following: a sound green construction management system and set of rules is established; the green construction planning documents are complete; clear and conspicuous green construction publicity signs are set up; a green construction training system combining specialist training and post training is established and records of it are kept; the records of the batch and phase evaluations of green construction are complete and the material on continuous improvement is fully preserved; typical photographs or video material of the green construction process are collected and kept; the four new technologies are promoted and applied; and the subcontract or the labour contract contains green construction requirements.

3.3.3 A project shall not be rated as a project qualified in green construction when any one of the following occurs: a fatal accident of work safety responsibility; a quality accident of the works, or an adverse social effect caused by a quality problem; a responsibility accident such as a group infectious disease or food poisoning; a penalty imposed by a government administration during construction for a problem of environmental protection and resource saving; a violation of the national laws and regulations on environmental protection and resource saving that causes a social effect; disturbance of residents by the construction work that causes a social effect; or the burning of waste on the construction site.

3.3.4 The joint review of the drawings shall include green construction content.

3.3.5 The construction unit shall optimise the construction drawings, the green construction organisation design and the green construction scheme.

3.4 Evaluation framework system

3.4.1 The green construction evaluation of a project shall be made on the basis of the analysis of the factors that influence green construction and, according to the green construction planning documents, shall evaluate the process by which the works are carried out.

3.4.2 The green construction evaluation framework is made up of the evaluation of the basic requirements, the index evaluation, the factor evaluation, the batch evaluation, the phase evaluation, the unit project evaluation and the division into evaluation grades, and the evaluation is carried out in that order.

3.4.3 The evaluation of the basic requirements shall evaluate the clauses on green construction planning and on management requirements.

3.4.4 The index evaluation shall evaluate the clauses of the prerequisite items, the general items and the extra items.

3.4.5 The factor evaluation shall, on the basis of the index evaluation, evaluate separately the three factors of environmental protection, resource saving, and human resource saving and protection.

3.4.6 The batch evaluation shall, on the basis of the factor evaluation, be carried out batch by batch as the work proceeds.

3.4.7 The phase evaluation shall be carried out on the basis of the batch evaluation. For building works the phases are foundation and substructure works, main structure works, and finishing works together with mechanical and electrical installation. For municipal works: road and bridge works are divided into foundation and substructure works, structural works, and bridge or road surface and ancillary facility works; tunnel works built by the mining method are divided into excavation, lining and support, and ancillary facilities; tunnel works built by the shield method are divided into launching and reception, driving and lining, and ancillary facilities; pipeline works are divided into setting out, installation, and testing and connection to the network.

3.4.8 The unit project evaluation shall be carried out on the basis of the phase evaluation, and the evaluation grades are the three grades unqualified, qualified and excellent.

4.1 Evaluation index for environmental protection: prerequisite items

4.1.1 The green construction planning documents shall contain environmental protection content and an environmental protection management system shall be set up.

4.1.2 Environmental protection signs shall be placed in conspicuous positions on the construction site.

4.1.3 Effective protective measures shall be taken for the historic remains, cultural relics, trees and ecological environment of the construction site, and an emergency plan for the protection of buried cultural relics shall be drawn up.

4.2 Evaluation index for environmental protection: general items

4.2.1 Dust control shall cover eleven points, among them a site watering and sweeping system with dedicated equipment and a person in charge; dust suppression measures for bare ground and for stockpiled earth; wheel washing facilities and absorbent mats at the site entrance and exit; closed storage of building materials that scatter easily or are fine grained, with recovery of surplus; dust suppression for demolition, blasting, excavation, backfilling and other dust producing operations; closed chutes or vertical transport machinery for removing waste from height; stopping earth excavation, backfilling and haulage and other dust producing activities in winds of force six or above; closed or covered vehicles for hauling earth, rock, spoil and dust raising materials; closure and temporary planting of the spoil tip; sealing and dust protection for on-site mixing; and the use of clean fuel on site.

4.2.2 Control of exhaust gas emissions shall cover: exhaust emissions of construction vehicles and machinery meeting the national annual inspection requirements; site kitchen fumes discharged only after purification; and measures against the spread of volatile substances where spray painting is carried out on a site within an environmentally sensitive area.

4.2.3 Disposal of construction trash shall cover nine points, among them a dedicated scheme for reducing construction trash that states the quantified reduction and recycling targets and the measures; a discharge of trash from prefabricated building construction of not more than 200 t per ten thousand square metres and, for non-prefabricated construction, of not more than 300 t per ten thousand square metres; a recovery and reuse rate of construction trash reaching 30 % and of building material packaging reaching 100 %; sorting, enclosure and central stockpiling of waste on site; formalities for the discharge of spoil and building waste and discharge at the appointed place; the use of crushed stone and earth and rock trash as backfill for foundations and road beds; no use of toxic or harmful waste in earth backfill; double sided use of office paper, recovery of waste paper, and closed sorted storage with conspicuous markings and disposal by a qualified specialist body for toxic and harmful waste such as batteries, toner cartridges, ink cartridges, surplus paint and surplus coating; and the choice of green, environmentally sound materials.

4.2.4 Control of sewage discharge shall cover: drainage ditches around site roads and material stockyards; treatment of process water and laboratory curing water to the required quality before discharge into the municipal sewer, tested at least once a month; septic tanks for site toilets, cleaned out periodically; grease traps for the site kitchen, cleaned out periodically; discharge and use of site domestic sewage and of construction sewage from precasting yards and mixing plants meeting the standards; and a slurry recirculation system for bored pile, pipe jacking and shield operations, with no overflow or spillage.

4.2.5 Light pollution control shall cover: measures against light pollution such as restricted working hours, shading or enclosure; shading measures during welding; and measures to prevent light escaping from the site lighting.

4.2.6 Noise control shall cover: sound insulation, absorption and silencing measures aimed at the noise sources on site; the use of low noise construction equipment; keeping noisy machinery away from the site offices, the living quarters and the sensitive areas around the site; sound absorbing noise screens or other noise reduction measures for machinery such as concrete pumps and circular saws; noise reduction facilities at the working face; noise reduction mats for loading and unloading materials, together with careful handling to control impact noise; and a sound intensity limit at the site boundary of not more than 70 dB(A) by day and not more than 55 dB(A) at night.

4.3 Evaluation index for environmental protection: extra items

4.3.1 Movable toilets should be provided on the construction site and should be cleared and disinfected periodically.

4.3.2 An automatic spray or shower dust suppression system should be used on the construction site.

4.3.3 An automatic dust monitor should be installed at the site boundary to measure dust dynamically, continuously and quantitatively, namely total suspended particulate and particles with a diameter of 10 micrometres or less.

4.3.4 Facilities for dynamic continuous noise monitoring should be installed at the site boundary and the day and night noise curves should be kept.

4.3.5 The discharge of trash from prefabricated building construction should not be greater than 140 t per ten thousand square metres and, for non-prefabricated construction, should not be greater than 210 t per ten thousand square metres.

4.3.6 The recovery and reuse rate of construction trash should reach 50 %.

4.3.7 A weighbridge or an automatic monitoring platform should be used on site to weigh building waste dynamically.

4.3.8 Measures for the local infiltration of rainwater should be used on the construction site.

4.3.9 Environmental protection techniques such as ecological slurry and rapid hole cleaning by reverse circulation with a slurry purifier should be used on the construction site.

4.3.10 Advanced techniques of efficient dust reduction, such as water sealed blasting and static blasting, should be used on the construction site.

4.3.11 Dust reduction methods such as wetting the soil by the water soaking method should be used in earthworks.

4.3.12 Silty spoil on the construction site should be dewatered before being hauled away.

Relationship to previous standards Relationship to previous standards

The announcement of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development No. 182 of 2023, reproduced at the front of the document, approves this standard under the number GB/T 50640-2023, sets it in force from 1 May 2024, and abolishes at the same date the former national standard GB/T 50640-2010 Evaluation standard for green construction of building, whose Chinese title covered building works only.

The foreword lists the main changes made in the revision: the meaning and the reach of green construction were widened, resource saving replacing the former four savings so as to loosen their constraint on green construction; the four chapters on material and material resource use, on water and water resource use, on energy and energy use, and on land saving and land resource protection were merged into the single chapter on the evaluation index for resource saving; a people first requirement was added together with a new chapter on the evaluation index for human resource saving and protection, stressing better working conditions and lighter physical effort; the field of application was widened to municipal works and evaluation indexes for green construction of municipal works were added; scores for the evaluation index for technical innovation were added and the priority directions of green construction technical innovation were stated; and some evaluation indexes of the existing chapters were updated, quantified indexes being added so as to move gradually from scoring measures to scoring results.