Haiyan Lu (Berlin)

In the past decades, China has experienced unprecedented rates of urban growth, which has also created challenges for China’s environment. To tackle the environment crisis, China has started to emphasize low-carbon initiatives in the urban development, especially in the new built areas. The infrastructure provision is one of key areas influencing low carbon emissions in the new built areas. To meet the low carbon requirements, the infrastructure provision requires high technological input and financial investment. Facing these challenges, private actors are also allowed to participate in infrastructure provision to provide technological input or financial investments in recent years in China.

This research analyzed the relationship between public and private actors in the infrastructure provision in one new town project with low carbon initiative, which is located in Shenzhen. This research identified different types of actors and their dynamic constellations in the energy provision, waste management, and housing provision. The features of Public Private Partnership can be found in infrastructure provision in above sectors. It is found that the state-owned enterprises have played the role of private actor in the infrastructure provision. The dominant role of state-owned enterprise limits the participation of small and medium private owned enterprises in the electricity and garbage treatment market. The Public and Private Partnership in Shenzhen also has its own feature. For instance, semi-public enterprises also played a role to promote housing renovation when the market could not work.

Haiyan Lu was born on 29th January 1989 in Yichun, Heilongjiang Province, China. She obtained her bachelor degree in English and Accounting at Harbin Institute of University in 2012. In the same year, she was admitted to the master program of accounting at Harbin Institute of Technology. In 2014, she obtained her master degree.

In November 2014, Haiyan started her PhD research at the Organization and Governance Section, Delft University of Technology. Her research focused on how the regions and cities in China have reacted to environmental deterioration from their policies and corresponding urban projects in a multi-level governance system. It explains how the ecological initiatives are adopted in the regional and city brands, and how these eco-smart initiatives further impact the development of new town projects in the Pearl River Delta. During the research, she attended a plenty of international conferences and received positive feedbacks about her presentations. Haiyan also published five peer-reviewed journal articles in Journal of Cleaner Production, Computers, Environment and Urban Systems and Sustainability.

Website: www.tudelft.nl/en/tpm/about-the-faculty/departments/multi-actor-systems/people/phd-candidates/h-haiyan-lu/