Public Procurement Service Mandates Design Review for Eco-Friendly Public Buildings

Design reviews in the eco-friendly sector for public buildings will become mandatory starting this month.

On the 17th, the Public Procurement Service announced that to strengthen design reviews in eco-friendly areas such as energy saving and greenhouse gas reduction for public buildings, it will require eco-friendly sector advisory committee reviews during the design appropriateness review process for large-scale projects exceeding 20 billion KRW.

The mandatory eco-friendly sector advisory committee review will be applied from this month. The design appropriateness review is a procedure conducted at each design stage?planning, intermediate, and execution?to assess whether the purpose, use, and scale of the project are appropriate. It also includes reviewing whether the project budget is excessive or insufficient.

The Public Procurement Service has been the only government agency operating design appropriateness reviews since 2013.

Eco-friendly sector advisory committee members are selected and composed of experts affiliated with eco-friendly certification bodies and related companies. They are responsible for reviewing the appropriateness of eco-friendly designs, including energy saving and the efficiency of applying renewable energy in the target projects.

The Public Procurement Service expects that strengthening eco-friendly design reviews will support energy consumption reduction, resource saving and recycling, preservation of the natural environment, and the creation of comfortable indoor environments in public buildings.

Kang Seong-min, Director of the Facilities Project Bureau at the Public Procurement Service, stated, “We will continue to strengthen eco-friendly design reviews so that public buildings can effectively respond to environmental issues such as global warming.”