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I would like to start by acknowledging the organizers of this exceptional event, and thank them for the opportunity to speak with you today.

For those not familiar with United Technologies, we're a $53 billion company with more than 200,000 employees worldwide. We make numerous products for the building industry, such as Otis elevators and Carrier heating and air conditioning systems. We also make fire protection and security systems from companies in China like GST, building automation systems, as well as integrated solutions for on-site tri-generation of electricity, cooling and heating. Our combined product offering can equal 20-plus percent of a building’s construction budget.

And as some of you know, we have a long history of working with China, employing approximately 19,000 people in this country. We are also committed to local R&D with our China Research Center, first established over 10 years ago, the first ever by an international company. Today, our China Research Center is collaborating with leading Chinese scientists and research universities, developing research that addresses urbanization challenges, and finds innovative solutions that meet Chinese realities.

So we are honored to be here, and to be a part of this event for our sixth year.

As you have heard this morning, there are many large-scale trends driving the world toward more sustainable buildings and cities. These trends include the increasing pace of global urbanization, and a growing awareness of the world’s carbon footprint, with the consequent attention to sustainable life in cities. As I look around this room, I am confident you are aware of the challenges associated with these trends. So, I’d like to focus on what we at United Technologies see as potential solutions for buildings and cities of the present and future. These solutions revolve around finding ways to avoid wasting energy by improving basic energy efficiency or by capturing and re-using energy that is usually lost.

We have been building cities for approximately 9,000 years. During this time, countless innovations have dramatically enhanced the way we design cities to serve the people who live in them. One great example is the aqueducts of Ancient Rome.

Through the use of gravity and simple materials, such as rocks and cement, Roman aqueducts solved a big problem that remains important in cities today: How do you transport large quantities of potable water to population centers?

Naturally, builders and city planners have long contemplated other issues as well. What’s the smartest way to build a tall building? How do we stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer? How do we remain safe from natural disasters and crime? And today, there is an additional issue for builders and city planners: How do we erect buildings and design cities in ways that are economically sound and sensitive to natural resources?

Simplicity and efficiency should still blaze the trail to future progress. We should be asking ourselves the same kinds of questions that master builders and city planners surely pondered centuries ago.

Questions such as, are we making the most of the materials and technologies presently within reach? And are we designing buildings and communities that make the best use of the energy readily available?

And we should be asking these questions with a keen eye for a good return on investment, which we believe is achievable today.

In the coming years, there is little doubt that more energy will be supplied by purely renewable resources, such as the wind and the sun. And more buildings will be constructed to higher energy standards. For example, we recently commissioned a facility in Shanghai with China Eastern Airlines that has been awarded LEED Platinum, the highest level of building sustainability and energy efficiency in the U.S. Green Building Council’s standards.

But these are not the only untapped resources for energy. When we look at the value chain of energy delivery for electricity, for example, we know that the amount of energy lost due to system losses or user behavior is striking. If the potential value of energy in the ground is 100 units of useful work, by the time it is effectively put to work, up to 90% of it can be lost. One of the biggest sources of this loss is in the central utility power plant, where unused energy goes right up the smokestack. Meanwhile, a significant amount of energy is also wasted in buildings, due to inefficient equipment and “careless” user behavior.

It is our belief that the greatest potential for enhancing the sustainable performance of buildings and cities can occur through a focus on three areas:

• Broadening the use of energy efficient technology that already exists, which provides good financial payback.
• Adopting a more holistic approach to building and urban development, which can facilitate the reuse of lost or wasted energy.
• And realizing potential energy gains through integration and collaboration among many systems.

The first step towards reducing waste and harnessing available energy involves examining the details. We firmly believe you have to go building by building, and product by product to accomplish this. You have to take stock of the technologies and materials in use and determine whether or not they are truly operating in the most efficient manner.

Examples of more energy efficient products for buildings are numerous. At United Technologies they include:

• Elevators that generate energy during descents and unloaded ascents, which can be put back to use on the building’s electrical grid.
• HVAC equipment that uses non-ozone depleting refrigerants, and can achieve significant energy efficiencies during partial loading phases, not just at full load.
• Building automation systems that use information about occupancy and behavior to further automate and refine building energy consumption.
• And fire suppression systems that use water mist to more efficiently cool a fire to the point of extinguishing it, rather than wasting unnecessary quantities of water.

As we often remind ourselves at United Technologies, buildings consume 40 percent of the world’s energy, while technology available today can reduce energy consumption in buildings by at least 50 percent. Meanwhile, even higher levels of energy efficiency can be achieved from good control integration of these products, and through efficient building design that also considers building orientation and exterior envelope.

Once you’re employing the most energy efficient products and maximizing efficiencies through building design, you have to think beyond the building to capture even larger opportunities for energy reduction. In a more holistic fashion, you have to think about communities, neighborhoods, districts and cities, rather than just individual building sites. Because if you think of where the energy is lost or wasted, not all of it occurs at the building level. Again, a big piece goes up the smoke stack of the central utility, or is lost over the electrical transmission lines.

How do you capture that wasted energy? One way is by generating power more locally. This can be achieved through the creation of smaller power plants closer to end use that deploy gas turbines, micro turbines, or fuel cells.

This is important because if you generate power locally, near to a campus or district of buildings, you can capture waste heat and you can put it back to use by creating heat, hot water, or cooling capacity through absorption chillers.

So thinking holistically—about a district-wide, neighborhood-wide, or campus wide set of solutions—means you can capture more unused energy.

Numerous examples exist in China and around the world where cities and provincial leadership have put good design principles to work. We also see China at the leading edge, encouraging eco-city design principles for the future, and putting them into practice today.

Carrying this logic further, even greater gains can be made through integration and collaboration with other entities and systems, such as smart grid solutions. When the utility sees that demand is starting to increase beyond set limits, it will be able to send a signal to automatically shed load, integrating and collaborating with the building automation system.

Significant progress toward utilizing a model like this in buildings and communities can be accomplished through more sophisticated building controls that allow systems and technologies to integrate and work together. In other words, connecting these and other technologies inside buildings, and among many buildings on a grid—from elevators and escalators to security systems and heating and cooling systems—can lead to tremendous energy savings across an entire community.

Of course, we are just beginning to realize and quantify some of this potential. But if we move in these directions, and if we continue to examine these issues using a more classic approach to solving the big problems of building and urban development, the future design of cities can likely harness much more of the energy wasted or unused today.

So if we are increasingly diligent at employing more energy efficient products in buildings, if we are wise in our ability to think more holistically and beyond a single building, and if we can integrate and collaborate across boundaries to create communities that operate in technological harmony, we believe that much of the energy lost today can be harnessed in cities of the future.

Naturally, this cannot happen overnight. We must take careful, measured steps towards this end, building solutions that remain economically sound and put people first. In addition, we must continue to embrace local research in new technologies that integrate, while finding ways to progressively work toward building cities of the future that really work as whole. We must work in pace with economic and social demand, and proceed with caution to ensure success. And we must implement energy standards against which we can measure success.

In the words of an ancient Chinese sage, words that existed before the Roman Aqueduct was even built, a “towering pavilion starts from the right foundation.” We have come a long way from those ancient human engineering feats. But the basic principle of ensuring simplicity and efficiency is still the right foundation for a holistic pursuit for sustainable, healthier cities—and a happier life.

Thank you very much for your attention this morning.