Hi, 

We have a greenfield industrial building in the middle of an industrial zone in China. No residential buildings in the vicinity. After a first submittal we received a comment asking us to prove that "project noise levels at the nearest property line or public right of way are a minimum of 5 dBA below the existing ambient noise levels without the project". 
I see three issues with this comment:
1) I do not see this requirement in the credit language. It does not come from local regulations either.
2) This is considerably stricter than the requirement of 60dB(A) at the project boundary which is in the credit, and the technical and financial impacts might render this credit unreachable on our project. 
3) Quite frankly, I do not think that this would bring value to a project in our context, where the neighbours are all industrial facilities. 

As in turns out, pre-construction background noise levels were high enough on this site that we may reach the target mentioned in the comment without too much hassle.

However I would like to clarify the logic behind this comment, and whether this is something we should consider as part of the credit on all projects. We have a similar project coming up, where pre-construction background noise levels are low. If this new requirement applies, then there is no sense in attempting the credit. Technical and financial impacts would be enormous, and cannot be justified.