Exotic Canada: Where the bison will lay down with the lamb

by Angela Hickman 
Source: life.nationalpost.com

The most popular white animal in Manitoba might be the polar bear, but the most common is the smaller, woollier lamb. Manitoba lamb is a kind of local secret, but it’s a meat that pairs perfectly with the province’s main crops, such as hemp, lentils and chickpeas, matching well with Manitoba’s many cultural influences.

Karen Peters is Manitoba-born and raised, and although she has lived all over the world, she is back in Winnipeg. Her new restaurant, Bistro Arkadesh (named after the Turkish word for friendship), will open in the city’s Bell Hotel in November. As a chef, Peters says she likes to use local products such as lamb in exotic dishes, reflecting both her travel experiences and the multicultural atmosphere of the province. “Lamb is something that a large group of communities use,” Peters says. “Elk is slowly increasing because it is such a high-quality meat; bison, of course, has been gaining steadily over the years.”

When it comes to Moroccan stew, though, you just can’t beat lamb for authenticity. Peters says she buys her lamb at either Winnipeg’s Halal Meats and Specialty Foods shop or the local Italian grocery DeLuca’s.

When it comes to serving up a hearty meal to visitors, Peters says she likes to show off local products in an interesting way that reflects the province, she says.

“We’re very cosmopolitan. The whole world is here and people want to try different flavours.”

MOROCCAN STEW WITH MANITOBA LAMB

Recipe courtesy of Karen Peters, karenfood.blogspot.com.

-1 lb lamb shoulder, cut into bite-sized pieces 
-2 onions, thinly sliced
-2 tbsp Ras el Hanout spice blend
-1-2 tbsp olive oil
-1-2 tbsp butter
-good pinch saffron
-2 large tomatoes , chopped
-3 carrots, peeled and diced 
-2 green peppers, seeded and diced 
-½-1 cup prunes
-2-3 tbsp honey
-1 cup chicken broth
-1 cup red wine
-salt to taste

1. On medium-low heat slowly sauté onions with olive oil until they begin to caramelize. Stir in Ras el Hanout spice blend. Turn up heat to medium-high and add butter and saffron. Brown meat well on all sides and add tomatoes and other vegetables. Add broth, prunes and honey.

2. Add red wine and salt and let simmer for 1 to 2 hours — the time depends on whether you’re using a traditional Moroccan tajine, as well as toughness or tenderness of the meat (meat should melt in your mouth when done.)

Suit doesn’t stain; won’t wrinkle. Honest

Water-resistant Naked Suits fit work-play image
By NELLIE BOWLES San Francisco Chronicle
Source: thechronicleherald.ca

BERKELEY, Ca. — In his tightly tailored wool suit on a sunny summer afternoon in Berkeley, Ming Chang looks like any other upwardly mobile young professional.

That is, until he grabs a glass of water and, before anyone can stop him, pours it all over himself.
The water beads and rolls off. The suit looks untouched, completely dry.

People walking by pause and clap. A man at another table asks if he can stroke the suit.
"Awesome, right?" Chang smiles and does it again.

Launched in June after more than a year of development between childhood friends Chang and Albert Shyy, Naked Suits is a line of high-end water-resistant menswear. These so-called performance suits are Gore-Tex-inspired formal wear that’s slim enough to be hip while tough enough to be useful.
"For months," Chang, 28, begins, "we’d been staying up all night trying to figure out how to make suits less . . ."

". . . oppressive, conformist, miserable," Shyy, also 28, finishes.
Yet the suit has a valuable place in society, he says. "It’s what we wear to convey a formality. It gives you confidence."

"Men used to wear suits for everything — baseball games, the train, dates," says Neysa Young, design professor at California College of the Arts. "Then the tech industry gave Northern California a permanent casual-Friday look.

"But with more durable suits, ones that can handle a bike ride and some rain, we’re seeing the suit coming back."

The Naked Suit is tough. They have tested it biking to work, snowboarding, dashing between bars in the rain.

In many ways, says Young, this undermines formal wear’s traditional purpose — delicate clothing meant to show that one doesn’t have to be in the fields labouring, designed to impart notes of power and status.

Emerging one recent morning from their office under Berkeley’s Bancroft Hotel, Chang and Shyy sip iced tea at Caffe Strada, a little nervous (this is their first interview). Passers-by, young men in sweatpants and jeans, eye the formal wear with curiosity and possibly jealousy. On the crowded corner, Chang and Shyy are the only people in suits.

That, they argue, is a problem.

"Our generation needs to reclaim the suit," says Shyy, who lists Naked Suit’s inspirations as everything from iPhones to Patagonia underwear. "We’re using technology everywhere. It’s time to apply it to our formal wear."

Growing up together in Gainesville, Fla., they moved to Berkeley for school, where Chang studied computer science and Shyy business.

As undergrads, they were less than stylish and never caught in suits. "There was definitely some hoodie action, some jeans and V-necks," Shyy said.

Later, Chang became an Apple engineer and Shyy a managerial consultant, and both quickly learned the misery of an ill-fitting suit, or of a suit in the hot sun or a suit in rain — really, the misery of a suit — and how now-ubiquitous fabric technology (like Gore-Tex) is never applied to formal wear. Suspecting they were on to something, they quit their jobs in 2010 and began their startup: Naked Suits.

After 10 months testing various fabric weaves — hemp, bamboo, cotton — that might lighten and toughen the traditional wool suit, Chang and Shyy ditched the cubicle for a weekend in Vegas.
At the Bellagio, they were dealt a sweet hand and, in the way people meet over great hands in Vegas, found themselves chatting with a wealthy Shanghai fabric developer, William Ma of Jiangsu Brilliant Textile Co.

They talked about the dearth of good performance suits, their vision and frustrated efforts; he told them of a fabric he’d been developing.

By the end of the night, a deal was struck. The developer would supply the fabric, and Chang and Shyy would design the suits and market them.

Today, Chang and Shyy, who both speak Mandarin, split their time between their suppliers in Shanghai and offices in Berkeley.

How top secret is this fabric? "Very," says Shyy. "I can say it’s vegan."

Espadrilles are very French, but shoemakers fight to prove it

BY CLAUDE CANELLAS, REUTERS
Source: montrealgazette.com


They're cool, they're fashionable and they're very, very French, but espadrilles are fighting an uphill battle against cheap Asian imports which are threatening the long-held domestic industry.

At the base of the French Pyrenees, in Basque Country, lies the small municipality of Mauleon-Licharre where shoemaking, and the production of espadrilles, is a centuries-old tradition.
"Capital of the Espadrille" is how the area advertises itself, although Catalonians across the Spanish border can boast of a similar heritage.

The lightweight fabric shoe with a woven hemp sole made its first appearance in the area by mid-18th century, becoming the choice of soldiers and others who appreciated the shoe's flexibility and low cost.

While espadrilles have long been a summertime staple - Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Pablo Picasso all favoured the casual look - their popularity ebbs and flows with fashion.
But this year they've become a designer pick, appearing in glossy magazines and on the catwalk of haute couture atelier Lanvin.

Today the French buy five to six million pairs of espadrilles a year, from the most basic to the most stylish - wedge-heeled versions are considered a key part of a fashionable woman's summer wardrobe in Paris - but 80 per cent come from Asia.

Less than 20 per cent come from the Mauleon-Licharre region.

"We've seen espadrilles hit the market at excessively low prices," said Jean-Pierre Errecart, the 71-year-old founder of Prodiso, one of the last businesses in the industry.

He said some French shoemakers at first reacted wrongly by trying to fight the new competition by lowering their quality.

But now, the region's shoemakers are waking up to their strengths and trying to better market their handiwork while showcasing their long history with the shoe.

According to one local manufacturer, the espadrille has ancient roots, having been worn by the troops of Hannibal, who copied the footwear of mountain farmers and other inhabitants of ancient Gaul.

Workshops in Mauleon-Licharre have been exporting to as far away as South America since the late 19th century.

"We had a boom during the 1920s, 1930s, because miners in the north of France received a pair of espadrilles every week in their kit," said Errecart.

But once espadrilles were abandoned by miners in the 1950s, the industry hit its first slump. It got worse in the 1970s as footwear companies turned to China for low-cost manufacturing.
Today, Mauleon-Licharre counts just 80 employees making espadrilles versus some 1,600 from 25 businesses that churned out seven to eight million pairs a year in the industry's heyday.
Companies like Prodiso and Don Quichosse still make their shoes entirely by hand, while others such as Tauzin have added some type of mechanization to ramp up their distribution.

The mayor of Mauleon-Licharre, Michel Etchebest, wants to polish up the industry's image after it was tarnished by some companies who in past years boasted their authenticity, while manufacturing in faraway places like Bangladesh.

The area wants to have "Mauleon" registered as a brand name to connote authenticity, and Etchebest envisions a "House of Espadrilles" where visitors can see how the handiwork is done.

"It's about keeping our head held high as we emerge from this major crisis in the industry," he said. "That will bring us more renown, and then we'll start to see a new fascination for espadrilles."

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Hempsters: Plant the Seed

by: Brent Simon
Source: shockya.com

Another recent documentary that tackles a social issue (sort of) is “Hempsters: Plant the Seed,” about the fight not for legalized marijuana, but industrial grade hemp, which is actually used in over two dozen industrialized nations (including our neighbor to the north), and widely known to have numerous enviromental advantages, but still banned here in the United States. 

Director Michael Henning’s film takes as its crusading subjects a collection of activists — including Woody Harrelson, Ralph Nader and others — and builds a fairly persuasive case for both hemp being entirely different from recreational marijuana (they’re plants of the same family, but have vastly different levels of THC, and other important differences) and a crop with real value and benefits. It does all this almost in spite of itself, however, as it’s assembled in a jumbled-together manner that does its narrative clarity of focus or overall mission statement much good.

Instead, it’s the straight information and agricultural science that tend to win out, bolstered by an understanding of the vested interest that petro-chemical companies and mono-culture corporate farms have in stamping out the ability of independent growers to work this durable multi-purpose crop, and serve it to various industries. 

More than anything, moneyed interests typically abhor an even playing field; they want to stay on top. “Hempsters” shuffles fitfully to and fro and could use an independent eye in the editing room, but there’s a stamp of swaggering personality on the film (Willie Nelson and especially Gatewood Galbraith, an independent candidate for Kentucky’s gubernatorial office, assure if of that) that makes sure it’s neither some staid policy-advocacy flick, nor a stoned bong-lover’s protest tract. 

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, “Hempsters” comes to DVD on a region-free disc. Supplementary features include seven minutes of movie clips highlighting reasons for hemp legalization, a two-and-a-half-minute alternate introduction, a collection of trailers, and an extended scene featuring activist Craig Lee. For more information, visit www.hempstersthemovie.com.

Freedom: The Movie that Dares to Defend Ethanol

Reviewed by Gar Smith
Source: berkeleydailyplanet.com

It’s not easy being an environmental prophet. Back in the ‘80s, I was in the vanguard of environmental reporters who warned against the adoption of methanol as an alternative to oil-based gasoline. After all, methanol could dissolve engine parts and only produced a third of the energy as gasoline. The preferred fuel, I claimed, was ethanol. Made from a renewable plant crops, ethanol was a perfect “green” fuel that burned clean, contained twice the energy as methanol, and wouldn’t add any new CO₂ burden to the atmosphere. 

Ah, but that all changed after a series of critical scientific studies began to argue that producing ethanol consumed more energy than it produced; that ethanol generates unwanted emissions; that ethanol would cause food shortages and price spikes. 

The idea that using food crops like corn to feed automobiles instead of people was particularly gripping. Ethanol was no longer a cool fuel and environmental organizations began to target agrofuel programs as criminal conspiracies against the biosphere. 

And then Josh and Rebecca Tickell rolled into town. 

The Tickells first gained renown when they helped publicize biofuels via a self-made Sundance-Award-winning movie that documented their cross-country trip in a VeggieVan powered by leftover fry-grease collected at US fast-food joints. With a little pluck, patience and a portable mini-refinery, the Tickells demonstrated how it was possible to transform used French-fry oil into a road-worthy substitute for petroleum. Talk about living off the fat of the land! 

Just as in the 90s, when the Tickells pulled into town last week in their latest oil-free vehicle, it was an event. This time, instead of a small van, the Tickells arrived in a large, tricked-out bus called “Freedom” that’s powered by a hybrid ethanol/electric engine and outfitted with an array of 19 photovoltaic panels on the rooftop. 

Last Thursday, the bus was parked prominently on Oxford Street in front of the David Brower Building. It was Week Two of a 140-week, 50-city tour and the Tickells were inside, preparing to host a screening of their latest documentary, “Freedom” (as in “Freedom from Oil”). 

‘Freedom’ Screens in Berkeley 

Josh apologized for the “unfinished” quality of the rough-cut but no apologies were needed. The film is expertly edited and filled with enough revelations, interviews and on-site excursions to fill a dozen films. But the main goal is a simple (but challenging) one: to defend ethanol and debunk the debunkers. To bolster their argument, the Tickells rely on more than 20 talking heads ranging from Ed Begley Jr. to Newt Gingrich (and that’s quite a range). 

The Tickells kick off their film by recounting the personal anguish of seeing ethanol — a “solution” Josh has promoted for more than 10 years — suddenly demonized. “We would show up for an event in our van and environmentalists would start protesting us!” they recalled. “What happened? We thought we were the good guys!” 

The film’s best early argument for reconsidering the ethics of ethanol comes with an investigation into the roots of the anti-ethanol campaign. Behind the public attacks (which included numerous research papers and an oft-cited cover story in Scientific American) the Tickells discovered a vast, covert PR campaign that had been put together by the same powerful company that had once worked for John D. Rockefeller’s oil cabal. 

One of the film’s more remarkable assertions is that Rockefeller was responsible for pushing the law that resulting in Prohibition, a law that was carefully crafted to outlaw the production of farm alcohol as well as bootleg booze. Up to that point, auto pioneer Henry Ford had presided over an expanding auto industry that was fueled by renewable, farm-based agrofuels. (Ford even used hemp to make body parts for some of his vehicles.) 

According to Tickells’ narrative, it wasn’t impatience with the gangland tactics of organized crime that lead to a repeal of Prohibition, it was Henry Ford’s personal capitulation to Oil Baron Rockefeller. When Ford agreed to abandon farm-alcohol as a fuel, Rockefeller signaled it was time to pull the plug on Prohibition. [For more, see “Rockefeller, Ford and the Secret History of Alcohol” at: http://www.prisonplanet.com/rockefeller-ford-and-the-secret-history-of-alcohol.html.] 

The film quotes the hidden strategies and goals spelled out in the oil lobby’s secret game plan. This effort to manipulate public opinion recalls a historic parallel to the campaign to criminalized hemp. Once again, it was a case of Big Oil versus Small Farmers. Hemp had proven its utility as a robust commercial crop that provided reliable and durable fiber for clothing and rope. But the Petrol Potentates saw potential new markets for synthetic cables and garments — once hemp was taken out of the picture. A media campaign against “Devil Marijuana” was the result. (The Tickells’ film includes a snippet of the US government’s earlier pro-marijuana propaganda flick, “Hemp for Victory.”) 

“Freedom” starts off by confronting the arguments against ethanol and goes straight to the source, interviewing the scientists whose work has been most effective in damaging ethanol’s reputation as a responsible fuel choice. And one by one, the Tickells throw every argument into question. To challenge the argument that turning corn into fuel is tantamount to taking food from the mouths of children, the Tickells visit the Corn Belt to interview farmers. Turns out that only a small percent of the nation’s corn harvest is used for food. Most is industrialized corn, grown for processing into by-products and additives. To prove the point, the Tickells hike halfway up a mini-mountain of kernels and try a mouthful. Sure enough, the stuff is tasteless and inedible — like munching on gravel. 

The Tickell Tour returns to Josh’s Louisiana birthplace to check out the Gulf shore, a year after the BP oil spill. Walking on the beach, Rebecca is able to spot clumps of oil on the rocks and manages to dig up more lumps of crude hidden just beneath the surface of the sand. Soon afterwards, her body erupts in a painful rash and the skin on the bottom of her feet begins to peel away. She also experiences lung irritation and other maladies reported to be common among local residents. 

How to Switch over to Biofuel in Berkeley 

Finally, the film takes viewers on a tour of the many of the cutting-edge businesses that are springing up with new solutions to the fuel dilemma. Some are making fuel from algae; others are producing high-octane alternatives from cellulosic crop wastes. “There is no one solution,” Tickell cautions in the film. Finding a way to move heavy loads on this planet is going to take a lot of different approaches. One of which is relearning how to do with less. 

During the post-screening Q and A, the Tickells invited a dozen local innovators to discuss the work they were doing. Josh pointed out that the speakers demonstrated how “fuel and food interests could stand side-by-side.” 

A farmer who supplies fresh organic food to Gather, the Brower Center’s celebrated restaurant, spoke about plans to grow plants to produce alcohol for fuel. A gentleman from San Francisco’s Department of Transportation reviewed his city’s 20-year campaign to introduce alternative vehicles and fuels. The owner of Dogpatch Biofuels invited drivers to sample the 100% ethanol fuel available at his pumps in San Francisco. A representative from the International Institute for Ecological Agriculture plugged the pioneering work of David Bloom, author of Alcohol Can Be a Gas (a massive book that was the target of a long-running censorship campaign by the Oil Lobby). 

One of the most interesting speakers was Matt Horton, CEO of Propel, Inc., a Redwood City company that is already supplying ethanol blends and 100% ethanol fuels to Bay Area drivers. Thanks to businesses like Propel, local drivers are finally being given the freedom to choose a non-petroleum fuel. (It’s not even that radical. As one audience member recalled, in the 1960s, then-Governor Jerry Brown had promoted 100% ethanol for state vehicles. ) 

In the film, the Tickells are shown installing an “ethanol conversion device” under the hood of their vehicle. These devices cost around $200 and snap into place within minutes, turning many standard vehicles into cleaner-burning “flex-fuel” cars. If your car is compatible (check www.propelfuels.com to find out), you could be pulling into the Propel station at 849 University Avenue as early as next week — and declaring your own “freedom from oil.” 

Resources: Information on do-it-yourself ethanol conversion is available on the Internet and in numerous YouTube videos.  

For more information on the Tickells’ film and their bus tour, go to: www.thefreedomfilm.com

Hemp Seed Oil for Horses

Source: dressagedaily.com

There are many oils that are commonly fed to horses. These include corn oil, soy oil, canola oil, flax seed oil, coconut oil, fish oil, and vegetable oil (a blend of corn and soy bean oils). Hemp  oil is a relative new-comer to the group of oils fed to horses, but it has a traditional use as a healthy, beneficial oil that dates back to the Ming Dynasty. Hemp seed oil is a unique oil in that contains all the identified essential fatty acids, known as the omegas. Hemp seed oil provides not only Omega 3 and Omega 6, but Omega 9 as well. But what really sets Hemp seed oil apart from the other oils is that it provides GLA: gamma linolenic acid.

GLA is a regulator of the prostaglandins, the hormone-like substances that act as chemical messengers inside the cell. Their physiological effects include regulation of inflammation. There are two predominant prostaglandins: PGE-1 the anti inflammatory prostaglandin and PGE-2 the pro inflammatory prostaglandin. GLA increases production of PGE-1, thus reducing the levels of PGE-2. Misoprostol, a common medication for horses with hind gut ulcers is a synthetic form of PGE-1.

The prostaglandins are also involved in the increased secretion of protective mucus in the GI tract, which makes hemp oil’s GLA an important ingredient for horses with ulcer issues.

Hemp seeds unlike corn, soy or canola are not genetically modified or engineered. These seeds were developed THC-free in Finland, and are grown predominately in Canada, the world’s largest producer of hemp seed oil.

Hemp Seed oil and Performance:
Dr. Tim Ober, USET veterinarian, conducted a small study in Florida in 2009 on hemp oil for the high performance jumpers. What he found was that hemp oil helped to maintain muscle glycogen reserves, thus reducing muscle glycogen depletion and fatigue.


The Processing of Oils:
Oils like coconut oil, hemp seed oil, flax seed oil and fish oil are predominately cold pressed. This method preserves the natural antioxidants like vitamin E and Vitamin A as beta carotene. Corn oil, soy oil, and canola oil are heat processed at temps as high as 180 degrees and then put through a hexane solvent bath. Hexane is a by-product of crude petroleum and is classified as a neurotoxin. The oils are then neutralized with caustic soda (sodium hydroxide). The next stage of processing is bleaching which removes chlorophyll and the carotenoids. The final process is deodorization, which uses pressurized steam at 500 degrees or more. Because Nature’s antioxidants like vitamin E and Vitamin A are destroyed in this process, additives like BHT and BHA are then added to the oil to provide stability.

Cold pressed soy oil and canola oil are available at some health food stores.

Higher quality oils:
The higher quality of oil, the less you have to feed. Typically coconut oil and hemp seed oil are fed at ½ the amount of corn or soy or canola oils. Hemp oil is typically fed at one ounce twice a day. High Performance horses may require 2-3 ounces twice a day.

Oils are important sources of energy for horses, and for the essential fatty acids. High quality oils like hemp seed oil further provide GLA, antioxidants, and the ability to reduce muscle glycogen fatigue. Because they are not genetically modified, and are cold pressed, they can support superior health in horses.

China's buildings need to go 'green' - before it's too late

 Watford in the dead of winter seemed like an unlikely place for a spot of glad-handing when the man tipped to become China's next premier visited the UK earlier this year.
By Eric Fish, in Beijing
Source: telegraph.co.uk

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang meets David Cameron at No 10 Photo: Eddie Mulholland

However, Li Keqiang (pronounced "Lee Ker-chang") was in the Home Counties to pay a visit to the Building Research Establishment (BRE) – a group of architects, engineers and scientists at the cutting edge of new building techniques.

Founded in 1921, BRE started off by studying the behaviour of reinforced concrete and later came up with a British standard for bricks. Today, it experiments with how to make houses out of hemp and wool, how to insulate them properly, and how to take our old buildings and make them energy efficient.

As the man about to become second-in-command of a nation that plans to build the equivalent of a new Chicago every year until 2030, Mr Li didn't have to feign interest as he inspected a zero-carbon home, a house built from recycled steel, and a converted and modernised Victorian stable block.

In the next 20 years, China plans to urbanise as many as 300m of its rural people, driving an insatiable demand for energy and materials as almost the equivalent of America's population fires up their new fridges and air-conditioners.

Fast-forward six months and BRE was signed up by the Chinese to create a £100m, 4.8m sq ft innovation park along similar lines in Beijing, together with Vanke, China's largest property developer.

The Chinese park will hopefully take BRE's research and adapt it for the skyscrapers and climate of the Chinese market, where energy savings incorporated into today's buildings can slash billions of watts off tomorrow's (mostly coal-fired) energy-generating demands.

"Britain is arguably leading the world in is architectural design, engineering, costing and integrated expertise," said Peter Bonfield, BRE chief executive. "We hope to bring demonstrations [to China] of how this can work. I think that will lead the charge so there will be more procurement from Chinese companies and the Chinese government."

China is currently juggling drought, crippling power outages and the world's highest carbon emissions. The country's government is painfully aware that buildings account for a quarter of China's energy use and has pushed hard for developers to spend time thinking about water, energy and carbon savings.

The "green building" industry could eventually be worth 1.5 trillion yuan (£144bn) according to Qiu Baoxing, the vice minister of the Housing and Urban-Rural Development ministry.

The new five-year plan explicitly names green building as one way of meeting the binding target of reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 16pc and 17pc respectively by 2015. And while there are no prescriptive measures on how builders should act, architects said the plan had provided a framework to work around.

"It represents a direction that can be translated into action here on the ground," said Mark Harrison, the Beijing urban planning director of the Epsom-based architectural design firm Atkins.

Already, Chinese buildings are being retro-fitted with better windows and heating systems, and the number of buildings certified with badges of sustainability, such as LEED and BREEAM, are rising rapidly.

The first LEED certification was awarded in China in 2005. By 2009 more than 100 projects had applied for some kind of green rating. Now that number is approaching 400, which largely consists of government buildings, museums and high-end hotels.

But considering there are 21bn square feet of new buildings going up every year, equivalent to 150,000 eight-storey buildings, there is a long way to go.

One major challenge is China's huge range of climates, which make it difficult to roll out a national standard building regulation.

Another is the focus among developers on quick profits over long-term sustainability.

"Most architects don't know how to calculate energy use, they just build buildings like boxes," said Zhu Yingxin, vice-dean of Tsinghua University's Department of Building Science. "We can use computer simulations to calculate energy beforehand, but it's time-consuming work and many developers only want to pay for what they can see."

"There's a lot of opportunity for dilution and reinterpretation between the top level and what happens locally," said Chris Twinn, Shanghai director of sustainability at the London-based design and engineering consultation Arup. "There's a certain desire on the part of developers to give a good [green] impression when they're trying to seek land use changes, but in reality they may not be taking it all the way through."

Developers still commonly believe sustainable construction means simply tacking on green components, which alone can cost 10pc to 40pc more than traditional building materials.

But when integrated intelligently from the start, utilities savings quickly cancel out the extra costs. Total upfront costs sometimes even dip below the price of traditional buildings.

China's first LEED-certified green building in Beijing uses 74pc less energy and 64pc less water than average office buildings in the neighbourhood. And, most importantly, its upfront building costs were also 5pc lower.

"There are a lot of trade-offs involved," said Barbara Finamore, China programme director for the Natural Resources Defence Council. "You pay more for the windows, for example, and your insulation is better. Therefore you don't need to spend as much on the heating and ventilation system."

Alan Kell, managing director of the UK-China Eco-cities & Green Building Group, which promotes building cooperation between the two countries, said this is where UK companies are well-positioned to help China.

"It's not easy to deliver green anywhere in the world," he said. "But in China because of the limitations on skills, products and standard practice, the whole integration of systems into buildings is still an area with a lot to be done where British engineering and design is very much leading the way."

Mr Kell's group has partnered with UK Trade & Investment and the Chinese government to bring in more than 140 British investors, law firms and construction companies to initiate pilot eco-cities across China.

The plan is to gradually incorporate sustainable habits in cities of 500,000 to 1m people through green building projects combined with clean transportation and energy production.

It's one of the first stages in a larger goal the Chinese government has to build 300 eco-cities across China over the next 25 years - an undertaking China has invited the UK to be a strategic partner in.

Project organisers estimate, based on UN Environmental Council reports, that if the full 300 city scale is reached, it would save 600m to 2.4bn tonnes of carbon emissions – 1.8pc to 7.2pc of the world's 2010 total.

Steve O'Leary, director of infrastructure and low carbon at UK Trade & Investment, said sustainable buildings' prospects are promising for foreign enterprises.

"The city expansion, the rate of movement from the rural to the urban economy is gigantic; the number of developments is gigantic," he said. "Nobody has the market sewn up. In the domestic market, Vanke turns out ludicrous numbers of houses and it has only 4pc of the market."

The London-based architectural firm Benoy entered the Chinese market in 2001 and derives more than 40pc of its global revenue there.

Stricter regulations on residential real estate investment stemming from fears of a housing bubble have led many investors to the commercial and mixed-use facilities Benoy specialises in.

Trevor Vivian, a director at Benoy, said that in spite of a lot of lip service to sustainable building over the years, increased awareness and commitments are starting to take hold among developers, government officials and even tenants. "They understand it more," he said. They know what it's going to cost and what the advantages are."

This understanding, he said, is a matter of survival. "Let's face it, in sustainability terms, unless we can help China change direction the whole planet is screwed."