Achieving Carbon Neutrality in Urban Infrastructure Development

Dear Colleagues,

As urbanisation accelerates globally, infrastructure has become a crucial cornerstone of modern urban development. However, this development often comes with considerable environmental costs, including significant energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. These challenges demand urgent attention, given their far-reaching impacts on climate change and environmental degradation.

To address these issues, there is a pressing need to transition from traditional modes of infrastructure development to a sustainable, green, and low-carbon approach. Various target research areas have emerged in this context, including the estimation of infrastructure carbon emissions, the examination of contributing factors, the impact of these emissions on regional development, and strategies for carbon reduction and efficiency improvement.

The shift towards a green and low-carbon infrastructure development model is complex and fraught with challenges and uncertainties. It necessitates a systemic overhaul, impacting industrial sectors, driving enterprise innovation, and requiring the transformation of energy systems. Comprehensive, in-depth research from a global perspective is essential to navigate the complexities effectively and to minimise both transformational costs and associated risks.

This Special Issue invites submissions of original research and review articles focusing on the areas of infrastructure carbon emission reduction, green and low-carbon transformation, and relevant management theories and methodologies. We are particularly interested in the following topics, although this list is not exhaustive:

• The development and refinement of infrastructure carbon emission monitoring systems.
• The synergistic effects and influencing mechanisms of infrastructure carbon emission reduction.
• Evaluations of policy effectiveness concerning infrastructure carbon emission reduction and efficiency improvement.
• Pathways for enhancing the quality of green, low-carbon development.
• Strategies and policies for green and low-carbon transformation in infrastructure development.

We look forward to your valuable contributions to this critical discourse.

Dr. Yongjian Ke
Prof. Dr. Jingxiao Zhang
Prof. Dr. Simon P. Philbin
Dr. Yunyang Ye
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• infrastructure
• green transformation
• low-carbon development
• sustainable development
• carbon emission reduction
• energy consumption
• environmental impact
• policy evaluation
• efficiency enhancement
• sustainability