Based in Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong province, China Construction Steel Structure Co Ltd (CSCEC Steel) recently won the gold award at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ESCI Best Practices Awards, the first time that a company from China has done so.

ESCI, an abbreviation for Energy Smart Communities Initiative, was launched at the 2010 APEC Leaders Meeting, with the purpose of aiding APEC economies in achieving their energy reduction goals by disseminating best practices in smart buildings, smart transportation, smart grids, green jobs, and low-carbon model towns.

As a way to encourage energy saving smart-related best practices and facilitate knowledge sharing within the APEC region, the ESCI Best Practices Awards was set up as the only project award of APEC. It is a biennial award that was first given out in 2013.

The design sketch shows a bird's eye view of Butuka Academy in Papua New Guinea built by China Construction Steel Structure Co Ltd, who is based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. [Photo/Official WeChat account of China State Construction Engineering Corp]

CSCEC Steel's project, the Butuka Academy design and construction integration (EPC) project in Papua New Guinea (PNG), was China's first educational public welfare project to aid PNG in its infrastructure construction.

The whole project adopts prefabricated green buildings featuring high security, energy conservation, and environmental protection properties, as well as seismic performance.

Industrialized methods for construction were used for the project, which improved the working efficiency by more than 50 percent, reduced 80 percent of wet construction and 50 percent of construction waste, as well as increased the building use space by over 10 percent.

The primary school of Butuka Academy, which also contains the kindergarten and the middle school, nears completion. [Photo/sstr.cscec.com]

In accordance with the local climate and site conditions, the project comprehensively applies five green technologies spanning land saving, energy conservation, water saving, material saving, and indoor environment management, making the buildings more ecologically and environmentally friendly under the premise of fully meeting architectural functions and practicality.

Located in Port Moresby, capital of PNG, Butuka Academy covers an area of 48,000 square meters and can accommodate about 3,000 local students at the same time.

CSCEC Steel, a subsidiary of China State Construction Engineering Corp (CSCEC), is the largest structural steel industry group in China.

The construction site of Butuka Academy in Papua New Guinea [Photo/Official WeChat account of China State Construction Engineering Corp]