Singapore’s regulators are raising the energy efficiency bar for new buildings from December as they step up the drive for a leaner and greener economy.
The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) announced on Thursday that all new buildings will have to comply with a higher Green Mark standard calling for an additional 10 per cent of energy savings in buildings from the current standard.
Under the revisions, which have been updated four times now, the minimum energy efficiency standard will be 28 per cent higher than in the first building code released in 2005 when the Green Mark was launched.
The Green Mark is a green building rating system that evaluates a building’s environmental performance. The standards for other Green Mark levels – Gold, GoldPlus, and Platinum – will also be raised accordingly.
BCA chief executive John Keung said at a briefing that some other revisions in the new standard will require building owners to install air-conditioning systems that are more energy efficient, along with monitoring devices to track their performance.
For the first time, the rating system will also take into account the use of recycled materials such as recycled concrete aggregate, and will encourage the use of passive design to integrate natural ventilation into a building.
Mr Keung said the higher standards will help Singapore achieve its goal to reduce 7 to 11 per cent of its carbon emissions below business as usual levels by 2020 – a target set by a national sustainable blueprint last April.
“The added emphasis on energy efficient building systems… will gradually guide our industry towards more environmentally sustainable practices,” he said.
Singapore Green Building president Lee Chuan Seng said the move will keep Singapore “at the forefront of the green building design and construction arena… if we don’t improve standards, we’ll be left behind.”
Under BCA’s green building masterplan, 80 per cent of all buildings in Singapore should be certified Green Mark by 2030. In April 2008, legislation mandated that all new buildings should achieve the minimum Green Mark standard. A $600 million incentive fund was provided by the Government to spur building owners to green their assets.
To date, Singapore has 450 properties which have achieved the Green Mark certification, representing 8 per cent of the Republic’s total built-up floor area. The Green Mark has also spread beyond the city-state’s borders to certify buildings in countries such as Malaysia and Thailand.
BCA’s efforts in Singapore’s green building drive have been recognised on the international stage.
Last week, BCA was awarded the Energy and Environment Award by the Aspen Institute, a Colorado-based international non-profit organisation, in the government category.
This was the first time the award was given to an organisation outside North America. Board chair of the Aspen Institute’s awards said that BCA had demonstrated leadership “at the national level in this very critical area of renewable energy standards and green buildings”.
“We saw a clear outstanding example of disruptive innovation, creative and breakthrough solutions in Singapore’s entry, which could be reproduced around the globe to tackle large scale energy and environment issues,” he said in a statement.
BCA’s Mr Keung said the award was a “strong endorsement of our policies and efforts in steering the built environment towards sustainable construction and ‘green’ buildings”.
“I hope that with such international recognition from a renowned and respected organisation, it will spur us on to do more to guide the industry towards developing more ‘green’ buildings in Singapore.”
BCA said the latest revisions to the Green Mark will be announced to the industry later this month, and briefing sessions will be held before its implementation in December.
