BRE’s Chief Executive Peter Bonfield has been appointed as international advisor to a new Institute for Sustainable Urbanisation created by China’s National Development Reform Commission and Tsinghua University. The Institute aims to create a new low carbon development model for China as its built environment expands apace to meet market demand for new homes, buildings, communities and cities. It will provide strategic advice to developers and government along with national training and education programmes. It will also gather property performance data and set benchmarks in a move to reduce the carbon emissions and energy usage of buildings and mitigate the progress of climate change. Bonfield’s appointment comes one year after BRE signed a research partnership on sustainable urbanisation with Tsinghua University and development company Evergrande during the UK China trade summit. Speaking at the launch Peter Bonfield said ‘I’m very honoured with this appointment which strengthens our countries’ commitment to cooperate, share knowledge and learn from each other’s experiences. I look forward to contributing to the work of the Institute in galvanising a movement for positive change across China’. For further information please contact Linda McKeown, BRE, email pressoffice@bregroup.com. NOTES TO EDITOR National Development Reform Commission The remit of NDRC is to formulate and implement strategies of national economic and social development, annual plans, medium and long-term development plans; to coordinate economic and social development; to carry out research and analysis on domestic and international economic situation; to put forward targets and policies concerning the development of the national economy, the regulation of the overall price level and the optimization of major economic structures, and to make recommendations on the employment of various economic instruments and policies; to submit the plan for national economic and social development to the National People's Congress on behalf of the State Council. https://en.ndrc.gov.cn/ Tsinghua University Tsinghua University is a research university and was established in 1911, originally under the name “Tsinghua Xuetang”. It has 19 schools and 55 departments with faculties in science, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, history, philosophy, economics, management, education and art. The University has now 43,112 students, including 15,408 undergraduates and 27,704 graduate students. As one of China’s most renowned universities, Tsinghua has become an important institution for fostering talent and scientific research. Tsinghua University has 123 research institutes approved by government, including 1 National Laboratory, 13 National Key Laboratories, 17 Key Laboratories of Ministry of Education, 7 National Engineering Laboratories, 1 Major Science and Technology Infrastructure Projects, 2 National Large-scale Scientific Instrument Centres, and 4 National Engineering research centres. With the spirit of “Actions Speak Louder than Words”, Tsinghua University is dedicated to the well-being of Chinese society and to world development. www.tsinghua.edu.cn/