Evaluation of ENERGY STAR Rating for Office Buildings in South Korea

To address the climate crisis, South Korea has set ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 32.8% by 2030 and 88.1% by 2050, compared to 2018 levels. With approximately 70% of Seoul’s carbon dioxide emissions coming from buildings, it is crucial to reduce emissions in this sector. In support of these efforts, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MOLIT) introduced building certification systems. However, these systems mainly relied on design-based evaluations and provided limited assessments for existing buildings. This study applied the ENERGY STAR certification method, which is based on actual energy consumption, to an office building in Korea and compared the results with those from design-based assessments. The findings indicated that while the design-based Energy Use Intensity (EUI) rated the building as Grade 1⁺⁺⁺ , the actual energy use assessment resulted in a lower rating of Grade 3. This significant discrepancy highlights the need for building certification systems to incorporate actual energy usage data to more effectively support carbon reduction goals.