Promoting green buildings: Do Chinese consumers care about green building enhancements?

This paper explores sustainability‐related choices about buildings by analysing how consumers rated the relative importance of various attributes of conventional and green buildings. It also analyses how consumers judge environmental and health‐oriented improvements in green buildings. Unlike previous studies, this research applied conjoint analysis to explore the green building market at the consumer's level by regarding green buildings as nondurable green products and services. We used a survey to gather consumer preferences about several green building hotel models which partly applied green energy, modern wood structures and improved indoor environmental quality (IEQ). In total, 341 consumers participated the survey in two of China's largest cities: Beijing and Shanghai. The results revealed that green energy was the most preferred attribute of green buildings, exerting an even stronger overall effect on consumer choice than price. Afterwards, we identified distinct consumer segments and determined the background characteristics of each segment based on the similarities in the preferences for each attribute. The largest consumer segment, consisting of younger consumers, ranked green energy as the most important criterion. However, an improved indoor environmental quality was generally not highly ranked, and individuals in the consumer segment, which included more older and female consumers, were more likely to reject modern wood structures. The results also revealed that higher‐income individuals were most concerned with price, and consumers with higher levels of education were willing to pay more to support green buildings.