China Architectural Engineering Inc.: Building a Future

Green building is being sweeping the nation. Corporations from McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), who retrofitted its 1980s Oak Brook, Ill., headquarters with renewable technology to achieve the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, to Adobe, which spent more than $2 million on its head office in San Jose, Calif., to optimize energy and water consumption and reduce environmental impact.

Ordinarily, we don't tend to think of China as a place big on environmentally-friendly innovation. After all, the fast-growing nation of 1.3 billion is plagued by rampant pollution—it is today the world's largest source of greenhouse gases.

But in the Chinese municipal region of Zhuhai, on the southern coast of the manufacturing hub of Guangdong province, a small company is making a name for itself in the green building industry.

Enter China Architectural Engineering, Inc. (Nasdaq: CAEI), a USGBC member and leading provider of custom architectural solutions for developers or commercial and public works projects in China. CAE specializes in the design, engineering, fabrication and installation of high-end building envelope systems, including curtain wall systems (glass, stone and metal), steel construction systems, roofing systems, eco-energy-saving building conservation systems and related products.

Through its subsidiaries, CAE's principal business is the design, manufacture, installation and maintenance of structural glass walls for new construction, glass skins for existing buildings and other light structure building systems. CAE's energy-efficient coated glass provides solar control, both minimizing heat gain and controlling thermal transfer—stabilizing indoor temperature and humidity while conserving energy.

Like many other companies in the commercial construction sector, CAE has stumbled with the softening of markets, but the company has managed to stay afloat in China and steadily expand into international markets from New York City to Dubai.

The company's domestic business and global expansion are likely to be supported over the longer term by China's infrastructure build-out and its management team's ongoing efforts to gain market share in two of the most lucrative construction markets in the world: the Persian Gulf and the United States.

Engineers and builders like CAE continue to prove that it possible to go green without operating out of a cabin in the woods. And for investors looking for a niche with a wide-open future, green building holds great promise.