The energy consumption of buildings is about 25 to 30% of the total energy consumption of the whole society. Hence, it is important to make buildings energy efficient to achieve the sustainability of the world. The energy efficiency of buildings depends largely on the material employed. How to make materials more sustainable plays an important role in the reduction of energy, natural resource consumption and CO2 emission. In the last decades, many countries and regions have devoted great efforts to studying and developing advanced materials for sustainable buildings and many new innovative ideas and advanced technologies have been developed. Notable examples include the design and modification of material microstructure; the development of cementitious materials with lower energy consumption and lower CO2 emission than Portland cement; more effective utilization of raw materials; approaches to efficiently prolong the service life of concrete structures by making them more durable. This conference will focus on the information exchange on these new developments to stimulate further in-depth study in this field as well as the close collaboration among the conference participates in the future. The topics of the proposed conference will cover both basic research and practical application of advanced materials for sustainable energy effective buildings. The conference will be multi-disciplinary in nature, covering a wide range of expertise in materials science, structural and mechanical engineering, environmental engineering, architecture, life science and chemistry. We hope that this conference can serve as a platform for further developments in education, science and technology in this growing area. This Gordon Research Conference is going to be held in Hong Kong, the gate of China and meeting point of East and West, and an ideal place to coordinate world-wide activities in the field.
