Seoul mayor plans green building rating for Yongsan IBD

The Yongsan International Business District in central Seoul will be developed in a sustainable way through the implementation of a green building rating system, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said Monday.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, front left, tours the World Trade Center (WTC) Campus in New York on Monday during his weeklong trip to North America. [SEOUL METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT]

NEW YORK — The Yongsan International Business District in central Seoul will be developed in a sustainable way through the implementation of a green building rating system, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said Monday.

Oh's remark came during his visit to the World Trade Center (WTC) Campus in Manhattan, New York, during a weeklong trip that began Saturday.

The Yongsan International Business District currently consists of 500,000 square meters (123.5 acres) of empty land on what used to be a train maintenance depot site.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has long planned to transform the site into an international business, residential and cultural complex.

According to Oh, the new district could run almost completely on renewable energy and produce zero carbon emissions by adopting and adhering to the green evaluation system.

“To cut carbon emissions more efficiently, Seoul will be the first city to expand the LEED rating system and implement it to an entire area,” Oh said.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a rating system used by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to certify green buildings.

“With the climate crisis receiving greater attention, Yongsan will receive global recognition if the area relies on renewable energy as much as possible and cuts carbon emissions with elegant designs,” the mayor said.

The LEED system has four certification levels: platinum, gold, silver and certified.

A total of 278 buildings in Seoul have been certified by the rating system so far. Seoul Finance Center in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, has a platinum certification, while the IFC in Yeouido, western Seoul, has a gold certification.

Prior to his tour around the WTC Campus, Oh signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the USGBC to implement its green building rating system in Seoul.

The city and the USGBC plan to develop a system tailored to Seoul, tentatively called LEED ND Seoul, over the next five years.

This tailored system will be developed with an eye on implementation at a district or neighborhood-wide level, not merely an individual building.

The USGBC will run the evaluation system.

According to the city government, LEED ND Seoul will be an extensive version of G-SEED (green standard for energy and environmental design) and ZEB (zero energy building).

Other countries, including Canada and India, have developed systems tailored to their countries. But LEED ND Seoul marks the first time that a city will develop a system to be implemented over a large area rather than individual buildings.

The WTC Campus that the Seoul mayor visited on Monday is a leading example of green development.

The buildings in the complex are expected to reduce their carbon emissions by 35 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050. Most of them are gold-certified under the LEED system.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]