Green road to Chongqing

[NOTE: Chris Rogers from Point32, developer of the Bullitt Center, participated in the recent trip from Seattle to Chongqing.]

Seattle to help China in its quest for sustainable development

When US President Richard Nixon made his historic trip to China on a Boeing jet in 1972, little did the Seattle-based aircraft maker know that it would soon be a key player in trade ties.

Over the years, aircraft, spacecraft and spare parts have been Seattle's largest exports to China. But if Mike McGinn, the mayor of Seattle, has his way, the pride of place would soon be taken by the city's green exports to China.

During a recent trip to Chongqing municipality in Southwest China, McGinn's team inked a memorandum of understanding to enhance cooperation in the green building sector with the fastest growing city of China to promote sustainable development.

"China has been an important market for Seattle for some time. Seattle's exports to China include airplanes from Boeing and software from Microsoft. With China's economy developing in a more sustainable way, we hope to export our green building expertise as well," McGinn says.

Most of the buildings in Seattle are so energy-efficient that have already exceeded the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standard, a green building rating system that is considered the benchmark for energy-efficient buildings in the world.

The city's Bullitt Center, which is under construction, has a target to become the greenest commercial building in the world when it is finished by November this year. The $30 million project promises to be a carbon-neutral energy and net-zero water building, which means it can be self-sufficient in energy.