By the time the government unveils the next Budget in February, it should be much clearer as to where Singapore’s sustainable development journey is headed over the next 10 to 15 years.
The government is trying to balance the costs and benefits of going green, in a manner that will not upset economic development, said the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Development at a press conference yesterday that was fronted by five ministers.
One question raised during earlier dialogue sessions with property developers is whether current incentives are enough to encourage developers to go green, noted the committee that was set up five months ago.
‘We have been giving incentives for developers to adopt a green mark,’ said Mah Bow Tan, committee co-chairman and Minister for National Development, referring to programmes such as the Green Mark incentive scheme under the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), which pays out cash grants of up to $3 million to developers that construct buildings of high environmental standards.
‘We are now discussing, are these incentives enough?’ added Mr Mah.
A City Developments spokesperson told BT that the company now invests up to 5 per cent of the construction cost of a property development to incorporate green design and features.
BCA Green Mark cash incentives ‘did not have a material impact’ in cost savings for green buildings but such financial incentives would push its peers to go green, the spokesperson added.
While all options are still on the table, the government said that it would be more cautious over implementing any legislation.
The other committee co-chairman Yaacob Ibrahim, who is also the Environment and Water Resources Minister, said: ‘We have to study very carefully whether we want to move towards the area of legislation. Some countries have gone ahead of the curve, at a great cost sometimes to businesses and the community.’
This caution also applies to subsidising solar energy production through feed-in tariffs that have been implemented in other countries such as Germany.
‘Our position has been that we should avoid subsidies because that tends to create an artificial demand,’ said Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S Iswaran.
‘The right thing to do is to price in the (carbon) emissions, not to subsidise solar,’ adding that Singapore would continue to focus on its R&D efforts in this renewable energy sector.
Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam called for a ‘pragmatic and measured’ approach to going green, even as he highlighted the fact that some initiatives could mean having to fork out more in the short term but reaping greater cost savings over time.
‘We will avoid extremes such as going green regardless of costs,’ said Mr Shanmugaratnam. ‘The idea is to weigh these costs against the short and long-term benefits. There will be no sudden increase in costs.’
Following its dialogue sessions with the private sector, the committee now plans to widen the ‘national conversation’ by gathering feedback from the public through means such as a new website (www.sustainablesingapore.gov.sg).
The government will compile the feedback at the end of two months and prepare a framework that will be ready by next year’s Budget, said Mr Mah.
No comments:
Post a Comment