LOTUS BIO: Green Certification for Existing Buildings

VGBC is delighted to announce the release of LOTUS BIO V1 in this month of June 2017. This latest version supersedes LOTUS BIO Pilot which was published back in July 2013.

LOTUS Buildings in Operation (LOTUS BIO) is the LOTUS rating system developed to assess existing buildings that are already in operation.

Development of LOTUS BIO V1

LOTUS BIO V1 has been developed with one main idea in mind: it is crucial to make the existing building stock greener. Indeed, the vast majority of existing buildings in Vietnam have been built without concern for efficiency and these buildings will continue to operate for many years to come.

Existing buildings cannot be expected to meet the same requirements as new buildings. As such LOTUS BIO V1 can be differentiated from LOTUS systems for new constructions (LOTUS NR and LOTUS MFR) in 3 principal ways:

• operational management practices are put at the core of LOTUS BIO V1
• improvements over time are rewarded. No matter the end performance, buildings that succeed to reduce their impact on the environment can earn with points in some credits.
• less stringent criteria are included

Updates from LOTUS BIO Pilot version

Compared to the Pilot version, 2 main changes can be highlighted:

• improvements made by projects are now a lot better rewarded
• operational management practices are given a larger weight with 40% of the points available compared to 29% previously.

Some other modifications brought in LOTUS BIO V1 include:

• the introduction of the Platinum Certification level (in line with all the other LOTUS rating systems)
• the introduction of a Certification renewal stage for projects to maintain their LOTUS Certification every 5 years
• the creation of a new category named Sustainable Purchasing including 2 credits: Low-carbon purchasing and Healthy purchasing.
• the addition of new strategies in some credits to offer more compliant paths to projects

The Scorecard of LOTUS BIO V1 (available in English and Vietnamese) and the Technical Manual (only available in English) are now available for download from the VGBC website.