Construction firm Megawide Construction Corp. is committed to live the “green” way in a community where the concept is relatively new.
Edgar Saavedra, president of Megawide, said the company wants “to practice what we profess” in advocating green buildings in the Philippines.
Qualifying for a “gold standard” under the US Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the company’s 10 storey, 2,000-square meter, Megawide’s headquarters in San Juan, Manila joins the list of just three LEED-certified buildings in the Philippines, together with the Asian Development Bank’s headquarters in Mandaluyong and Texas Instrument’s Clark facility in Pampanga.
The pre-certification of the building was facilitated by ecoSolutions which led various green building certification projects in Australia, Asia, the Middle East and North America under various rating systems such as LEED, Green star among others.
“ecoSolutions is a diverse engineering consulting and design firm that specializes in green and sustainable buildings. Its wide experience in sustainable design enables it to qualify as a commissioning authority and LEED consultants for local and international projects,” the company said.
A “green” building espouses to reduce the amount of carbon compounds emitted in the environment which contribute to global warming of the atmosphere. Measured in terms of carbon-dioxide equivalent in the air called carbon footprint, the final aim is to create a “carbon-neutral” building that does not add more to carbon emission in the air when constructed.
Property consultancy firm CB Richard Ellis in a study said that achieving the “more basic” levels of certification for LEED standard may raise costs by 2 to3 percent for new constructions, while a “greener” building —- designed to achieve one of the higher standards —- is likely to add between 5 and 7.5 percent to construction cost.
In Megawide’s case, carbon reduction can be seen in the building’s no-paint facade and interior which was part of the standards given points by LEED. Electricity consumption is also expected to be lesser with the way the building was designed: by optimizing daylight and not taking in too much heat during high humidity weather which is expected to reduce electricity consumption through the air-conditioning system.
Louie Ferrer, Megawide marketing head, said the company’s a little over 100 employees are encouraged to use the stairs instead of the lift. They even built wider stairs to encourage group hiking to each employee’s floor.
Michael Cosiquien, Megawide chairman, also noted how the assignment of rooms of its employees has been designed in such a way that so much number of employees are housed in a particular floor to minimize power consumption.
Ferrer said facilities like LED lights, tables and chairs used in the building were chosen based on durability and warranty for longer usage. This is turn reduces carbon footprint since the company acquires new equipments less often.
“At first, it is costly, but if you consider the length of use, it is more cost-effective,” said Ferrer.
“There are extra benefits which cannot be quantified, like giving comfort to the employes that in turn would make them more productive,” he added.
In one particular floor, Megawide installed a machine which filters air in the area to reduce carbon-dioxide circulation.
“Dubbed as an ‘intelligent building’, Megawide’s office uses nothing but topnotch and environment-safe materials from start to finish. The building operation reacts intelligently according to the changing weather and environment to meet the outstanding level of comfort for occupants. The state-of-the-art modern design was achieved by integrated design process (which makes it) cost-effective,” Megawide said in a statement.
“Upon completion and operation, the building in New Manila promises to yield reduced electricity and power bills due to the efficiency of the air-conditioning systems. The engineered air-conditioning systems features ice thermal storages module which optimizes the time of use and yields 50 percent power reduction utilities cost. Chilled water systems improve air conditioning efficiency by more than 40 percent as compared to traditional air conditioning systems. The building envelope uses high efficiency materials that reduce the capacity of air conditioning plant by more than 45 percent,” it added.
Megawide also said that the building reduces more than 53 percent of its overall water use by implementing waste management program, sewage treatment, and rainwater harvesting.
In all these, Megawide’s green building achieved a rating of “more than 70 points” compared to LEED’s Gold standard of 60, which encourages the company to aim for a platinum certification through other adjustments.
This will make the office building, if ever, the first platinum-certified building in the Philippines. For now, Megawide’s office holds the distinction of being the only Gold LEED-certified high-/mid-rise office building to be completed in the Philippines.
Megawide’s green building meanwhile contributes only to the prestige of companies living in their own green building. The market for these buildings has yet to be established in the Philippines which is set to become a testbed once the pioneering buildings come online.
Bridgebury Realty Corp.’s Zuellig building at the intersection of Makati avenue and Paseo de Roxas is expected to come online by the end of the year, and The Net Group’s Net Lima in Bonifacio Global City.
Also a Gold LEED-certified building, the Zuellig building is a 33-storey office space building with a total floor area of 66,000 sq.m. and an adjacent four-story retail component. Bridgebury is the development arm of multinational Zuellig.
Takeup of office space is quite slow in Zuellig as potential clients want to see first what the building is all about before they commit to rent.
The same is experienced in the 55,000-sq.m. Net Lima’s case which is expected to officially come online by March. Net Lima meanwhile is a test pilot for the locally-formulated Building Ecologically Responsive Design Excellence (BERDE) of the Philippine Green Building Council (PhilGBC).
Ramon Fernando D. Rufino, Net Group executive vice president, said the market for green building in the Philippine is still under development as customer remain on the sideline about its advantage over traditional buildings.
Rufino said the limited appreciation of green building is due to the dearth of available green building units in the Philippines, with the pioneering works on these building mostly commissioned to be occupied by its developer-owner.
Rufino noted though that “trends” point to a boost in interest for green building development which is expected to increase awareness and appreciation of living in green buildings in the Philippines.
