This course is approved for 0.5 GBCI CE credit.

Majority of the ozone depleting substances (ODS) are used as refrigerants in buildings in air conditioning and refrigeration equipment. It is essential to reduce the cooling demand of buildings in order to directly reduce the refrigerant use in the equipment. Further, using low-GWP refrigerants will help avoiding the lock-in of high GWP alternatives in buildings, even if they are zero-ODP; which are ultimately damaging to the environment. Green building rating systems address both these aspects.

Asia Pacific is home to half of the world’s new construction and consequently a large contributor to global building emissions. Green buildings are gaining a lot of important in the region. Interestingly, 12 countries in the Asia Pacific continue to use their indigenous green building rating systems in addition to the presence of LEED in the region. Some of them even have a stringent requirement for the use of refrigerants in buildings; For example GREENMARK of Singapore requires that the GWP of the refrigerant should be less than 100.

This course enumerates all the green building rating systems being used in the Asia Pacific region and how each of them is addressing the ozone depletion issue. The course is designed in handy modules with high-quality visuals and engaging content. At the end of the course, you’ll have the clarity in how green buildings can influence the uptake of low-GWP alternatives as refrigerants.

This is the last course in the series developed on ozone depletion and climate change. The first two courses are

1) Green buildings and ozone depletion

2) Ozone and Climate Friendly Policies in Asia Pacific Building Sector

By completing all three courses, you will have a well-rounded understanding of how buildings are major contributors to ozone depletion and how buildings also offer solutions to achieve both ozone protection and climate change mitigation. You will also be able to enumerate different policies and programs and their status in the Asia Pacific region that can be instrumental to achieve the Montreal protocol phaseout targets. Further, you can describe how green building ratings across different countries in the Asia Pacific region address the use of ozone depleting substances through its compliance requirement.