Analysis and comparison of lighting design criteria in green building certification systems —Guidelines for application in Serbian building practice Bojana Stankovic ⁎, Aleksandra Kostic, Milica Jovanovic Popovic Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, Bulevar kralja Aleksandra 73, Belgrade, Serbia abstract article info Article history: Received 24 August 2012 Revised 5 December 2013 Accepted 5 December 2013 Available online xxxx Keywords: Green building certification systems Lighting design Assessment criteria set Green building assessment is currently being introduced into Serbian building practice. Since there is no Serbian certification system which could support building assessment, and especially lighting design evaluation, this paper analyzes and compares the lighting design criteria of three international certification systems, LEED, BREEAM and CASBEE. Specific requirements for each considered criterion, as well as the grading structure and stringency of these systems, are also analyzed. Based on the conclusions of these analyses, a new set of criteria, some of which are original, are offered in order to be incorporated into the future Serbian certification system. Taking into account that the structure of the future system is unknown, the basic applied principle was simplicity for application and, therefore, a single requirement is defined for each criterion. Finally, a hierarchy within the new set of criteria is established for both indoor and outdoor lighting. Mandatory criteria are selected first, while the remaining criteria are divided into two groups based on their relevance. Although predominantly intended for the improvement of Serbian building practice, the proposed set of assessment criteria is general and can be used throughout the world. © 2013 International Energy Initiative. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Procedures for the evaluation of buildings in terms of sustainability have been developed since the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century and as much as 600 methods of assessment exist today (Ebert et al., 2011). The scope of sustainability issues these methods address is various, ranging from a single issue, such as energy efficiency, to a wide range of issues belonging to all three pillars of sustainability (economy, ecology and society). The latter are comprehensive, complex and known as Green building assessment methods or Green building certification systems. They are considered to be objective, containing clear comparison tools for a holistic assessment of a building's sustain- ability, developed and structured in a way to give transparent building assessment results, followed by the issue of certificate which is suitable for the use in the building market. Constant development of the building market in the direction which encourages and promotes sustainable construction practice through an added value of certified buildings is giving an impetus to the further development of certification systems. As one of the fundamental elements of building design and also one of the important issues when considering building sustainability, light- ing design is being addressed in all of these systems (Liu et al., 2010). The treated aspects of lighting design are also similar within different systems. However, different structures of the systems and criteria definition put those aspects into different categories and define differ- ent thresholds and compulsory requirements for every criterion or com- pulsory criteria (depending on the structure of the certification system). There are only a few compulsory requirements addressing lighting design, and in some systems there are no such requests. Also, current grading is not stringent enough in assessing lighting design issues, which practically means that projects can achieve enough points for obtaining the certificate without improving lighting design in any way. The research presented in this paper analyzes and compares criteria for the lighting design assessment in three international certification systems: LEED, BREEAM and CASBEE. These systems are chosen because they are distributed over three continents, thus covering the variety of different climatic and building practice conditions. LEED is the only sys- tem currently being used in Serbia on several projects, and its criteria and application is already known to a number of local experts. CASBEE is selected as a representative of Asian rating systems with quite a specific assessment methodology, while BREEAM is chosen as a representative of European rating systems. Since Serbia has no official certification system and the whole sus- tainable construction practice and market is emerging, the comparison of different rating systems could give useful guidelines for the develop- ment of a national system. The aim of this research is to define the criteria by which lighting design could be assessed (not only taking them over from the considered certification systems) and to determine the compulsory criteria which must be addressed in green building lighting design in Serbian building practice. These criteria are expected to be incorporated into the future Serbian assessment method, without proposing their position in the new system's structure. Energy for Sustainable Development xxx (2013) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author at: Bulevar kralja Aleksandra 73, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia. Tel.: +381 63 8716604; fax: +381 11 33 70 193. E-mail addresses: stankovicarch@gmail.com (B. Stankovic), akostic.arh@gmail.com (A. Kostic), milicajp@arh.bg.ac.rs (M.J. Popovic). ESD-00296; No. of pages: 10; 4C: 0973-0826/$ – see front matter © 2013 International Energy Initiative. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2013.12.001 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Energy for Sustainable Development Please cite this article as: Stankovic B, et al, Analysis and comparison of lighting design criteria in green building certification systems —Guidelines for application in Serbian..., Energy Sustain Dev (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2013.12.001