2.4.2. Sustainable sites: Brownfield redevelopment
Although the intention is to encourage the redevelopment of Brownfield sites compared to virgin sites, this is one of the least represented categories within the rating system. According to our data, there was nil representation of Brownfield developments among Asian case studies. This may have been due to shortage of urban land and the tendency of the office developments to be developed in areas with established infrastructure.
3. Conclusion and recommendation
In this context, an apt question is: Has LEED achieved the vision of market transformation and leading a sustainable construction industry in Asia as it did in the United States? LEED [7]. Our analysis indicates similar trends and priorities in adopting a majority of credits prescribed in the LEED rating system considered for this study. Although energy efficiency if the highest weighted category in the LEED rating system for New Construction and Major Renovations, our data case studies did not perform high on this category within rank one and two. This is possibly due to high premium involved in efficient technologies, lack of incentives and government legislation in developing countries. As per CEU [6] an integrated poly framework incorporating regulations, financial incentives, and the trust between stakeholders is necessary to advance building energy efficiency in these regions.
Our data justified the prominence given to Indoor Environmental Quality category. On the contrary although water efficiency category is not given a high priority in terms of credit weighting within the system, our case studies indicated higher performance in this category with Asian studies demonstrating higher performance in innovative wastewater reduction strategies.
Attention to material is low in both countries within first and second ranking
Although this study focused on new construction, the emphasis on energy efficiency should extend to the existing building stock. Improving existing building environmental performance can be achieved primarily through replacing inefficient HVAC equipment and improving building envelope performance. Improvements of existing buildings can contribute to significance improvement and are “low hanging fruits” (Chu [7]) to scale up energy use reduction.
In conclusion LEED offers an alternative for benchmarking and commitment to addressing building energy and environmental impact. LEED as an recognized, accountable rating tool however is indispensible in the Asian regions where the building community is nonetheless making an effort to improve buildings energy and environmental performance.