T U E S D A Y , F E B R U A R Y 2 4 , 2 0 0 9

Ministry of Construction Green Building

Evaluation Standard- The “Three Star” System

Today’s post will describe China’s green building evaluation standard

and compare it the US Green Building Council’s LEED rating system.

An English translation of the Chinese rating system can be found

here:

Part 1: full rating system

Part 2: notes and scoring system

(note: from the google doc's site, you can download the rating system

in PDF or Word)

The Three Star System

The Ministry of Construction’s Green Building Evaluation Standard is

China’s first attempt to create a local green building standard. As the

introduction of the rating system notes, the purpose is to create a

voluntary rating system that will encourage green development:

Our country is now in the phase of rapid economic

development, ranking world No. 1 in terms of annual building

volume, with significantly growing consumption of resources

year by year. Therefore, scientific development philosophy

must be steadily created and seriously implemented, and the

concept of sustainable development must be adhered to, to

strongly develop green buildings... The purpose of formulating

this standard is to regulate evaluation on green buildings and

promote the development of green buildings.

The evaluation system, introduced in 2006, is credit-based, and

allows developers to choose which credits they want to pursue.

The evaluation system has two different standards: one for

residential buildings and one for public (i.e. large commercial)

buildings. As the rating system describes,

Considering current construction market in our country, this

standard will mainly evaluate residential buildings that are

huge in quantities and public buildings that consume much

energy and resources, like office buildings, mall buildings and

S U B S C R I B E T O C H I N A G R E E N B U I L

D I N G S

A B O U T T H I S B L O G

This blog is the primary output of my

research on the green building

market in China and what role the

built environment can play in cost-

effectively reversing climate change.

I completed this research while on a

Fulbright scholarship in Beijing from

August 2008 to June 2009.

I plan to keep this blog up as long as

it remains a relevant source of

information on green buildings in

China. I now have limited time to

post, but I hope the site in its current

form can at least be a useful jumping

off point for everyone interested in

green buildings in China.

Many thanks to the US Department

of State Fulbright program and the

many friends and colleagues who

made this possible.

B L O G A R C H I V E

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hotel buildings. For evaluation on other buildings, this

standard can serve as reference.

The evaluation standard rates buildings with a variety of

prerequisites (called “control items” in the Chinese system) and

credits (called “general items” in the Chinese system) in six

categories:

Land savings and outdoor environment1.

Energy savings2.

Water savings3.

Materials savings4.

Indoor environmental quality5.

Operations and management 6.

A seventh category called “Preference items” contains strategies that

are both cutting-edge and harder to implement, such as brownfield

redevelopment, more than 10% on-site renewable power generation,

etc.

The China green building system grants three levels of ratings: 1-star,

2-star, and 3-star, hence the nickname “Three Star System”. The

charts below show the different ratings for residential and public

buildings:

Similarities between Three Star System and LEED

Those familiar with the LEED rating system will notice many striking

similarities between LEED and the China standard.

First, both are credit based systems rather than command and

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for green buildings...

Nokia China Campus

► January (3)

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M E D I A A T T E N T I O N F O R C H I N A

G R E E N B U I L D I N G S

China Radio International Today:

Green Architecture

Climate Change Corp: The future of

green building in China

Time Out Beijing: Linking the dots

TreeHugger: Stunning Green

Buildings in China

A B O U T M E

GEOFFREY LEWIS

BEIJING, CHINA

My primary interest in

green buildings centers

on how the

developmental problems China faces

- severe environmental degradation,

strained electricity infrastructure,

worsening traffic, loss of traditional

culture, etc- are highly interrelated. I

believe that well-designed green,

sustainable buildings and

infrastructure could provide the

Page 2 of 7

control systems. This gives the developer maximum leeway over what

credits they wish to pursue, although some critics of LEED have said

this reduces the level of sustainability in LEED rated buildings.

China’s system does have more prerequisites (32 in residential, 26 in

public buildings) than LEED (7 in LEED for New Construction

[PDF]).

Second, the categories are almost the same, save for the Three Star's

additional operations and management category. Moreover, the

credits within those categories are very similar; things like minimum

energy performance, water savings, local materials, and others are

seen in both systems.

Third, the rating categories are very similar: 1-, 2- and 3- stars in the

Chinese system and Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum in LEED.

Complement to LEED

One interesting aspect of the Three Star System is that it a rating can

only be awarded after one year of property operation:

Evaluation on newly built, expanded or reconstructed

residential buildings and office buildings, mall buildings and

hotel buildings belonging to public buildings, shall be

conducted in one year after turnover to the property owner.

I think this is a good idea for China, because it requires real,

measurable reduction. One complaint about LEED is that many

credits are based on energy savings predicted by energy modeling,

rather than actual certified energy savings. Although New Buildings

Institute data [PDF] shows that on average, the models accurately

predict energy savings, this can vary widely on a building to building

basis. The Three Star System remedies this by basing results on hard

data, and collection of this data may be an important first step toward

better measurement of building energy use in China.

However, I worry that this post-facto certification process could slow

the market transformation that LEED has driven so efficiently in

America. The LEED Core and Shell system allows developers to

submit their design and achieve “pre-certification”, which they can

then market to prospective tenants before the building is built. This

allows developers to capture some of the benefits of going green by

getting higher rents and faster lease up and ultimately drives more

developers to build green.

Luckily, LEED and China’s Three Star System can work together and

complement each other quite nicely. This will allow developers who

want to get the marketing benefits of green to pursue LEED Core and

Shell pre-certification and then ensure that the predicted energy

savings were achieved by going for Three Star certification.

BuildingGreen.com

China Environmental Law

China Greenspace 中中中中国国国国绿绿绿绿区区区区

Cleaner Greener China

Climate Progress

Earth2Tech

Green Leap Forward 绿跃进绿跃进绿跃进绿跃进

Green Thoughts

GreenerBuildings.com

Greentech Media

solution to all of these problems

while simultaneously boosting the

economy. I have worked on green

building projects in both the US and

China, through roles with the Green

Building Finance Consortium, EMSI

and CTG Energetics, and I'm a US

Green Building Council LEED

Accredited Professional.

VIEW MY COMPLETE PROFILE

B L O G S

Page 3 of 7

As Rob Watson, “father of LEED” and CEO of EcoTech International,

a green building consultancy in the US and China, says:

I really don't see LEED or other international green building

standards as "competing" with the MOHURD [Three Star]

green standard. The real competition is with the standard non-

green developments. The MOHURD [Three Star] green

standard is more geared for the Chinese market and should

appeal to a broader base of developers than LEED. However,

key segments of the market are demanding LEED and

everyone agrees that the market should not be interfered with.

I also believe that, as the cost to certify comes down, I expect

the reach of China's green standard and LEED to expand.

Watson expects to pursue both the Three Star standard and LEED

standards on the projects he works on in China.

All in all, the Three Star System seems to be a good start for China’s

nascent green building market. As the market begins to accept this

system, I hope we will see the Three Star System begin to gain

popularity and become much more widespread than LEED, which

still remains almost exclusive to Class A office and luxury apartment

development. After all, for China to get serious about green

development, all buildings will have to be green, not just those at the

top end of the market. Hopefully the Three Star System will

eventually help make the Chinese real estate market greener,

healthier and more prosperous.

POSTED BY GEOFF AT 12:12 AM

5 C OMMENTS :

Ben Cooper said...

Is the one year, post-completion certification contingent upon

supplying the certifying body with actual energy performance

data? I should think it would be.

This is a huge difference between LEED and 3-star. Actual

performance is never the same as designed performance. In

many cases, actual performance is worse. This is why the 3-

star system should actively promote this difference as an

"edge". 3-star buildings can give prospective tenants actual

energy use data certified by a 3rd party as opposed to design

energy use data.

The NBI study you refer to is highly controversial as it used

somewhat suspect statistical analysis methods - i.e. compared

means to medians and vice versa. Check out this link for a

rundown on why you may want to take the NBI study with a

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grain of salt:

http://www.buildinggreen.com/live/index.cfm/2008/9/2/Li

es-Damn-Lies-and-Are-LEED-Buildings-iLessi-Efficient-

Than-Regular-Buildings

Thanks for the article, Geoff. Looking forward to future posts

on this topic.

Coop

FEBRUARY 24, 2009 3:45 PM

Geoff said...

Coop--

Thanks for your tough but fair comment.

I have read Gifford's critique and did link to it in the post. I

will not address the statistical questions, but rather agree

with you that energy modeling has it's problems, and

therefore basing the most important of the LEED rating

system- energy savings- on modeling is a scary proposition.

That being said, I think the pre-certification aspects of LEED

CS are incredibly important. Let's face it, most developers are

only going to build green because they can make money doing

it. When a developer can market a building under

construction as precertified for LEED, they can actually make

money through faster lease ups, higher rents, etc. This

encourages more developers to go for LEED, which is

undoubtedly a good thing.

LEED precertification is even more important in China,

where greenwashing is prevalent. The third party stamp from

the USGBC is worth it's weight in gold, and allows developers

to shop the building as a green building to multinationals

with CSR policies to occupy green space or others interested

in sustainability. I find it incredibly hard to believe that a

multinational would be willing to pay any more for space in a

building pursuing an MOC green rating, since the rating won't

be given until a year after occupancy begins.

Now, again, this is not to say LEED is perfect. There needs to

be some way to balance the precertification benefits with

measurable reductions in energy use. That's one reason I like

pairing LEED CS with the MOC rating tool: you get the

precertification marketing benefits of LEED as well as the

MOC rating tool confirmation that energy savings were

indeed achieved.

Page 5 of 7

I also hope we see some changes in LEED that allow for more

credit given to hard, verifiable energy (and emissions)

reductions. I hope that the carbon weighting scheme in LEED

2009 will help by putting more focus on the EA categories. If

you'd like, I have an analysis comparing LEED NC 2.2 to

LEED 2009 that I could forward to you.

Thanks for keeping me honest.

FEBRUARY 27, 2009 8:04 AM

Robin said...

Hi Geoff,

Is there any more information about how one actually goes

about documenting and applying for the Three Star

certification. The documents you linked to do not seem to go

into that level of detail. Looking at the evaluation methods

listed for many of the criterion, there doesn't seem to be a

parallel submittal requirements which are so key to LEED

submittals.

Thanks,

Robin

MARCH 4, 2009 6:09 PM

Bygningsentreprise said...

Go and Go its really close to be perfect! Keep up the excellent

work. I love your system.

SEPTEMBER 13, 2009 11:29 PM

Xiaoying said...

Hi, Geoffrey,

Thank you very much for your informative site!

I am a Chinese architect/urban planner working in the

Netherlands and China. I came across your site when

searching for the different standards. By looking through the

different GB standards, I have the impression that LEEDS is

more orientated on performance of single buildings, while the

European standards such as the BREEAM is more focused on

the urban level, community impacts, water system impacts,

traffic etc.

What would be your opinion?

Xiaoying

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