An Analysis of the Effectiveness of Greenhouse Gas Reduction Policy for Office Building Design in South Korea

Younghoon Kwak, Jeong-A Kang, Jung-Ho Huh, Tae-Hyoung Kim and Young-Sun Jeong
Additional contact information
Younghoon Kwak: Department of Architecture, University of Seoul, Seoul 02504, Korea
Jeong-A Kang: School of Architecture, Kyonggi University, Suwon-si 16227, Gyeonggi-do 16227, Korea
Jung-Ho Huh: Department of Architecture, University of Seoul, Seoul 02504, Korea
Tae-Hyoung Kim: Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, 283 Goyangdae-ro, Ilsanseo-gu, Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do 10223, Korea
Young-Sun Jeong: Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, 283 Goyangdae-ro, Ilsanseo-gu, Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do 10223, Korea

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 24, 1-25

Abstract: This paper examines the effectiveness of South Korea’s policy for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in office buildings and evaluates if national targets can be met. A sample of office buildings was categorized into two groups—conventional (Group A) and new (Group B)—based on when their construction was approved. Furthermore, data regarding the three design elements of the building envelope, that is building form, window systems, and U-values were collected. By statistically processing data of each element, reference building models were developed and a case study was conducted for each building. Design changes that were incorporated, keeping in mind the GHG reduction policy, showed 13.1% of saving energy in case 8 (reference building of Group B) than case 1 (reference building of Group A). The savings in case 8 were more than the average GHG reduction rate (12.8%) compared to business as usual (BAU). However, case 4 (a conventional (Group A) building form with new (Group B) window systems and U-values) achieved the greatest savings in building loads. The policy to enhance insulation in new buildings to reduce GHG emissions in the building sector has prompted changes in building forms and window systems and has reduced emissions by 10%, that is 3% more than the expected value. Thus, new innovations in building envelope design could achieve an average 12.8% reduction in emissions in buildings.

Keywords: greenhouse gas emissions; reduction policy; building sector; office building; reference building; building envelope (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/24/7172/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/24/7172/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:24:p:7172-:d:298054

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().