All new and existing building types are eligible to join the Scheme.

For the best certificate to apply, please refer to the website, or consult the Energy Assessors-ZCRB.

New building with detailed design plan and energy simulation model is eligible for applying certifications. However, the validity of new building certifications is only 2 years and applicant has to apply for energy performance assessment in order to maintain the recognition.

Eligible applicants shall be the building owners, consultants, management companies, or their representatives, etc. who are eligible to obtain the building information/ data of the premises for the application. The copy of documentary proof of the identity shall be provided upon request.

HKGBC reserves the right to determine the eligibility of any application.

There are three types of certificates included in the Zero-Carbon-Ready Building Scheme. They are Energy Performance Certificate, Target Setting Certificate and Progress Certificate.

For details, please refer to the website.

For the current Scheme, only the renewable energy certificates issued by the two utility companies in Hong Kong (ie. CLP Power Hong Kong and HK Electric) are eligible for applying the certificate.

To be an EA-ZCRB of the Scheme, he/she must:

a) be a qualified Registered Energy Assessor (REA) of Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) of HKSAR Government under The Buildings Energy Efficiency Ordinance Cap. 610;
b) have completed the training and passed the examination of the Scheme offered by the HKGBC Secretariat; and
c) be registered with the HKGBC Secretariat as an Energy Assessor-ZCRB.

An Energy Assessor-ZCRB, who should be a Registered Energy Assessor (REA) under the Buildings Energy Efficiency Ordinance (Cap.610) is required to provide a detailed and independent verification services of the building’s energy systems to the Applicant.

This requires identifying the internal floor areas, reviewing electricity bills, documents and building data to substantiate building usage, building energy use, number and type of energy end-use equipment, using of the energy performance tools to assess energy performance rating and the possible future energy improvement measures for target setting according to the Scheme so as to fulfil the application requirements.

Once you have paid for the certification application, the registration fee cannot be refunded.

Your building should be serving by a central chiller plant or district plant covering 90% of the premises.
You should choose “Combined” if your premises is feeding from the landlord’s chiller plant or “Separated” if your premises served from your own chiller plant in the application.

Choosing the combination use of chiller plant shall have a nominated energy consumption factor adjustment to the overall building energy consumption in calculating the output.

You may choose the route “Landlord” in the application.

You should input the total energy consumption of all the tenants in the premises for the “Whole Building” application.

You should refer to the Supporting Document list to provide the document proof to support your application, i.e. the floor plans, internal floor area schedule, the electricity bills issued by the utility company, the schematics, etc. for assessment.

For details, please refer to the website.

You should leave blank where there is no data input required.

The assessment needs to set a baseline for benchmarking, year 2015 has been set for the base year as the immediate year after the peak carbon emission in year 2014 in HK.

The four level benchmarking indicators are:

For EUI route, “Low”, “Extra Low”, “Super Low” and “Zero-Carbon-Ready”.
For % Reduction route, “Level 1 improvement: – 10%; Level 2 improvement: – 25%; Level 3 improvement: - 40% and Level 4 improvement: -65%.
For details, please refer to the website.

We encourage the building to strive to reduce energy consumption from year to year. The “EUI” method shall benchmark the peer buildings in Hong Kong, however the “% reduction” method shall recognise the effort of your building on the reduction over the years.

Also, you may consult the Energy Assessor-ZCRB who should be able to advise you the best out of the two routes.

This box is intentionally blocked for input so that you can finally check if the “other non-air-conditioning area” match your holistic building floor area schedule.