Keller Center - Educating Leaders for a Technology-Driven Society

Perspectives on Leadership from a Green Entrepreneur and Chinese Tycoon

Perspectives on Leadership from a Green Entrepreneur and Chinese Tycoon

Thumbnail image for zhangyue.jpgBoth the United States and China must do much more to promote green building practices and end wasteful consumption of resources, Chinese business leader Zhang Yue told a Princeton audience of students, faculty, and members of the community Sept. 24 at 4:30 p.m. in the Friend Center Convocation Room.

In a lecture sponsored by Corporate and Foundation Relations and the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, Zhang said both countries face challenges – high per-capita consumption in the America and corruption in China – but current technologies would allow both countries to greatly improve their energy efficiency.
His talk, titled "A Sustainable Building Revolution: Chinese-Style," included a short movie about the sustainable building that was erected at the Broad corporate campus in Changsha, Hunan Province. He spoke of the fundamental principles of energy-efficient buildings, the economic and environmental value of non-electric air conditioning, his U.N. work and his vision of creating a sustainable building revolution.
 
Mr. Zhang gave the talk in Chinese with translation provided by his assistant Michael Collins ’07 and with additional help from May T. Cheng of the Woodrow Wilson School and Yin Liang ’11, chemical engineering major and member of the student group PULP (Princeton University Language Project) .
 
Zhang_campus.jpgPrior to giving his lecture, Zhang Yue met with select faculty, students for an informal lunch. He then toured the Princeton campus with Shana Weber, Princeton University’s sustainability manager. The campus tour focused on Princeton's green/sustainable initiatives. Claire Gmachl, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of MIRTHE- Mid-InfraRed Technologie for Health and the Environment, also helped arrange a visit for Zhang Yue to the gas sensor lab of Gerard Wysocki, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering. 
 

About Zhang Yue

Zhang Yue, born in Changsha in 1960, graduated from college in 1980 with a degree in fine arts. After working as a teacher and a librarian for several years, he founded Broad in 1988. He is currently the Chairman of Broad Air Conditioning. Since his childhood, Zhang Yue has been keenly interested in creating art and literature, and after founding Broad, he poured his innate passion for creative work into his company. He has obtained over 100 patents for his inventions: in 1989 the Non-Pressurized Boiler, in 1992 the Direct Fire Chiller (non-electric air conditioning), in 1999 the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) System, in 2005 the Electrostatic Dust Cleaning Indoor Air Conditioning Unit, and in 2009 the Factory Built Sustainable Building.  Zhang is also the Vice Chair of the United Nations Environment Program’s Sustainable Buildings & Climate Initiative (SBCI) and in 2009 he drafted for UNEP the Building Energy Efficiency Guidelines, which proposed a set of measurable, reportable and verifiable indicators and measurements for a building energy efficiency standard.