Recycled water has been widely recognized in the world as an effective approach to relieve the issue of water shortage. Meanwhile, with several decades of development, the insufficiency of technology is no longer the primary factor that restricts the popularization of recycled water. What makes it difficult to promote the concept of reusing recycled water in China? To solve this issue, a special experiment on the public’s attitude towards the reuse of recycled water was designed based on a Single Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT), so as to avoid factors like social preference that can influence the survey results, and to gain the public’s negative implicit attitude towards reusing recycled water reuse, which is close to the public’s real attitude to it. From the perspective of implicit attitude, this research testifies the “spiritual contagion” phenomenon of the public, which refers to refusing recycled water reuse because recycled water is made from sewage treatment. By comparing the implicit attitude to recycled water reuse with the explicit attitude that is acquired from self-reporting questionnaires about reusing recycled water, this research finds that the implicit attitude is more positive than the explicit attitude, which accounts for the phenomenon of “best game no one played” in the promotion of the recycled water reuse, that is, the public though applauding the environment-friendly policy, will not actually use the recycled water.

Pro-environmental behaviors related to reclaimed water reuse are regarded as important motivations for both environmental protection and the use of reclaimed water, and these motivations could affect the citizens’ decision whether they will accept reclaimed water reuse. A hypothesis model was developed as the NAM (Norm Activation Model) has changed, and this hypothesis model was used to explore the factors that affect the citizen’s decision about the reclaimed water reuse, and obtain a better understanding of the mechanism of urban citizens in environmental protection and the related outcomes. First, 584 samples were used to verify the reliability and validity of data, and AMOS21.0 was used to test the goodness-of-fit between the sample data and the hypothesis model. Based on this, the applicability of the improved NAM was verified through the study of recycled water reuse. The hypothesis model was used to analyze its direct influences, showing that environmental motivation has positive influences on the citizens’ acceptance toward recycled water reuse. Besides, Bootstrap method was used to verify the mediation effect, proving that awareness of consequences regarding environmental pollution caused by human activities and ascription of responsibility could strengthen the citizens’ motivation to protect the environment.

It is important to reduce primary energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions associated with residential buildings in the hot summer and cold winter (HSCW) zone of China. Changing the insulation thickness of the external walls of residential buildings (ITEWB) is regarded as an effective way to manage such problems within a budget. This paper aims at developing an innovative way to select the optimal insulation thickness of external walls for residential buildings (OTWRB) in the HSCW zone of China, considering economic, energy and greenhouse gas emissions issues associated with the ITEWB. Four different cities and two different operation modes of the air conditioners (continuous and intermittent) are considered in this study. To explain the selection process, typical hypothetical buildings are simulated in Wuhan, Changsha, Hangzhou and Chengdu. Expanded polystyrene is chosen as the material of the insulation layer while split air conditioners are selected as the equipment for space heating and cooling. Integrated Environmental Solutions-Virtual Environment is used for the dynamic operational energy consumption of buildings. Life cycle cost method is adopted to calculate the economic impact of ITEWB on building performance. The Chinese life cycle database is used to quantize the impacts of ITEWB on building performance in the aspect of energy and greenhouse gas emissions based on the life cycle theory. The most appreciated insulation thickness is chosen from the thickness range of 30 mm to 150 mm. We find that for continuous operation mode of air conditioners in Wuhan, the optimal economic insulation thickness is 70 mm, whereas when considering only energy and environmental aspects, the OTWRB is 150 mm. These are all larger than the current insulation thickness which is 30 mm. When the weighting efficiencies of the economy, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions are different, the OTWRB varies from 70 mm to 150 mm for continuous operation mode. The different cities have little influence on the OTWRB while the different operation modes of air conditioners have some influence on the OTWRB.

To promote the EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) model in public projects has become a key task of China’s construction industry reform. However, the behavioral and strategic choices of stakeholders related to the EPC model will affect its stable development. We establish a tripartite evolutionary game model of government-owner-construction company, and analyze the behavioral strategies and influencing factors of these stakeholders in the development of the EPC model based on actual engineering case data. The results show that (ⅰ) there are six evolutionary stable strategies, formed from different combinations of conditions. Among them, the strategy of government incentive, owner choice, and company upgrading qualification is the most suitable for the development of the EPC model in China; (ⅱ) the relevant parameters have threshold effects, which may affect the behavioral strategies of various stakeholders. Therefore, the standards of government incentive policies must be scientific and reasonable. Graphical Abstract

As college students bear little energy cost of public buildings on campus, information intervention is more feasible than economic intervention to augment the energy-saving intention of college students. College students are sensitive to environmental information; thus, building energy consumption information, which reflects the energy consumption levels of the environment where students live, may be effective to promote the energy-saving intention of college students. However, the changeable cognitive structure of college students makes it difficult to predict the cognitive results of building energy consumption information. Based on social cognitive theory and theory of planned behavior, this paper reveals the impacts of building energy consumption information on energy-saving intentions of college students from the perspective of perceived value and personal norms. The conclusions are: (1) The impacts are positive and indirect; (2) the impacts are realized through the path “perceived benefit—perceived value—intention” and “perceived benefit & risk—personal norm—intention”; (3) the perceived value and personal norm independently affect energy-saving intention; and (4) the effect of perceived benefits is the most obvious. Based on the above results, we put forward a series of policy suggestions, with the aim to enhance the positive effect of building energy consumption information on college students.