The International Panel of Expert (IPE) on Sustainability of the Built Environment reviewed Singapore’s progress on its green building movement.
Singapore Building and Construction Authority (BCA)’s Green Building Masterplan has set the framework for policies and initiatives such as legislation and incentives to expand the adoption of green buildings.
The five-member foreign experts and eight-member local experts in the field of green buildings met from Monday to Wednesday to discuss what Singapore can do to further advance the effort in green buildings.
The expert panel supported BCA’s plan to focus on greening existing buildings and to engage building users and tenants using BCA’s user-centric Green Mark schemes.
This will complement and intensify the green building efforts.
They also felt that the current incentive approach can continue to encourage building owners to go for higher Green Mark ratings and save both energy and money and to build up a critical mass of green buildings in Singapore.
In a recent study by BCA on 36 commercial buildings, results have shown that an efficient chiller system can improve energy efficiency by up to 42 per cent after retrofitting.
This contributes to an overall energy savings of 16 per cent of the total building consumption.
In addition, it is also important to educate the younger generation on environmental sustainability and continue to train a pool of capable green building workforce.
The study also recommended the need for continual government and industry support of the research, development and deployment (RD&D) of innovative and effective green building technologies.
These recommendations will be reviewed by BCA for adaptation and inclusion in the third Green Building Masterplan which will be unveiled in September, at the International Green Building Conference to be held during the Singapore Green Building Week from Sept 9-13, 2013.
