Green building in China: Needs great promotion

•Grim situation of pollution and energy around the world.•Buildings contribute most of the world's pollution and energy consumption.•Green building is the inevitable choice for China.•Situation of green building in China.•The features, requirements and concrete measures of green building.

Resource depletion and environment pollution is a great challenge in the world today. As the main human living environment, building is one of the main contributor of energy consumption and pollution emission, construction industry has become the focus of energy conservation and emission reduction. China has been the world's largest carbon emitter and the world's largest energy consumer country since 2011. To solve these two issues, the promotion of green building (GB) is of great urgency. This article analyzed GB situation and challenges in China, and then pointed out some special requirements of GB. At last, authors put forward some suggestions to promote the development of GB according to current situations in China including: taking measures to enhance awareness of stakeholders, strengthening technology research and communication and establishing codes and regulations.