Greening the Olympic Village

All eyes were on China in 2008, when the Summer Olympics brought 16,000 athletes, coaches and officials from all over the world to China's capital city of Beijing.

Behind the scenes, in the years leading up to the games, NRDC worked with Olympic officials to make sure that the 42 buildings in the 160-acre Olympic Village both house the athletes and serve the city through outstanding green construction.

Thanks to more than 20 advanced green technologies, the complex makes full-scale use of renewable energy from myriad sources, such as heat and air-conditioning from solar and geothermal heat pumps and recycled wastewater, and electricity in part from rooftop wind turbines and an innovative SolarWall that produces both solar electricity and preheated air for the heating and air conditioning system.

The plumbing system, which incorporates solar heating, irrigates the landscape by recycling 200 tons of wastewater daily. Anchored by a zero-emissions reception center, the buildings are over 50 percent more energy-efficient than their typical Beijing counterparts.

The Olympic Village was awarded LEED-ND (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification, a worldwide standard for community sustainability, and reduced carbon-dioxide emissions during the Games by 8,000 tons compared with conventional buildings.

Now being converted to apartments, the complex will continue to save 11.7 million kilowatt-hours of energy from solar heating, heat recovery and photovoltaic use each year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 11,600 tons a year -- the equivalent of taking 1,600 cars off the road.

"Most of the 1,500 units sold out in one week at pretty high prices," says Jin Ruidong, NRDC's green building project director in Beijing. "The biggest selling point was the optimal green environment, both indoors and outdoors, combined with the low energy bills."