Meeting this prerequisite is easy for most buildings, particularly newer ones, but there are a few things keep in mind. 

You’ll need to inventory all of the refrigerant-containing equipment present in the building including small supplemental AC units and other unitary cooling equipment. This can be a time-consuming process, especially if tenants have installed their own supplemental equipment. 

A number of buildings have central cooling plants that use CFC refrigerants. If that’s the case for your building, you’ll need to conduct a cost-benefit analysis for replacing the equipment entirely or converting it to use a non-CFC refrigerant. These analyses typically show that neither replacement not conversion are economically feasible (i.e., the simple payback for either is longer than 10 years). Even so, you still have to do the analysis to confirm that’s true for your specific systems.

Remember that if you retain CFC-containing equipment, you must make sure to manage the refrigerant according to the Clean Air Act and document that the refrigerant leakage has been kept to a minimum.

What’s New in LEED v4

• Nothing new!

Readiness Review Questions

• Who is responsible for keeping records of all refrigerants used in building systems? If updated records don’t exist, who can complete a refrigerant inventory?
• Does any of your equipment use CFC-based refrigerants? Remember that equipment owned and maintained by tenants must be accounted for under this prerequisite too.
• What is the age and condition of the building equipment that contains CFC-based refrigerants? These are indicators that can help you to decide where to invest your time at the beginning of the prerequisite work. It may make more sense to phase out CFC-based refrigerants in equipment that has nearly reached the end of its useful life. Alternatively, if you have newer CFC-containing equipment, it may be better to perform the economic feasibility analysis to determine your compliance path.