Contextualizing green building rating systems: Case study of Hong Kong

Zhonghua Gou; Stephen Siu-Yu Lau

doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.07.008

Contextualizing green building rating systems: Case study of Hong Kong

Habitat Int. 2014 Oct:44:282-289. doi: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.07.008. Epub 2014 Aug 12.

Authors

Zhonghua Gou¹, Stephen Siu-Yu Lau^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
² Department of Architecture, Tongji University, China.
³ Department of Architecture, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

Abstract

The paper reports on a research study undertaken on the differentiation of green building certification systems at an international, national and local level. Through a cross comparison, authors are able to explain the differences by the contextualism theory which could be traced back to the fundamental divergence on lifestyles, preferences, urban morphology besides climatic variations. The discussion is derived from a study of three green rating systems representing international, national and local systems with reference to intentions, mechanisms and benchmarks to facilitate objective assessments. For the case of Hong Kong, local challenges are identified and compared with counterparts at a national level. Two residential projects having certified by the 'modified, localized' national system is selected for a case study for synopsis with a view to explain the cause and effect of transferability versus non-transferability of assessment credits and protocols. Introducing and applying national and international systems to a local context can detect flaws in local design practices that may be ignored in the local rating system.

Keywords: BEAM plus; China GBL; Green building; LEED; Revision and contextualization.