More funds needed for green building push

Source : Business Times - 3 Oct 2008

THE Building and Construction Authority (BCA) should offer more funds to owners of existing buildings to make these buildings greener, an international panel said yesterday.

The call comes after BCA said that it would shift its focus from the construction of new green buildings to the greening of existing buildings, which are significant energy guzzlers.

The panel said that one of the barriers to upgrading existing buildings is the availability of funds.

‘While there is a strong business case to green existing buildings, there is also a need for incentives to jump-start the process and motivate building owners,’ it said.

Parliamentary Secretary (Ministry for National Development) Maliki Osman said that BCA is refining its Green Mark assessment criteria to include ‘a performance-based approach’ that will look at how developers upgrade existing buildings and the level of energy efficiency.

The panel said that Singapore should make it compulsory for building owners to publicly declare energy information on their buildings. Comparisons between similar properties could then be made, which would help companies ’set realistic energy reduction targets’.

This happens in California and the European Union, said panel member Maria Atkinson, who is head of global sustainability at Australian property company Lend Lease.

But Dr Maliki said that regulation should be the last resort. ‘We want to see how best we can use moral suasion to encourage building owners to move in that direction,’ he said. ‘It works better when one feels this is a cause to be championed.’

The panel members, who spent the past four days reviewing BCA’s green policies, said that incentives for higher tier Green Mark projects, such as bonus gross floor area, could help building owners go greener.

Another idea is the ‘green lease’ - an arrangement that considers the carbon footprint of tenants, as well as energy and water efficiency.

Ms Atkinson said that Lend Lease is structuring Singapore’s first green lease for retailers at the upcoming shopping centre 313@Somerset, which is also the first mall to achieve a BCA Green Mark Platinum award.

The panel of experts also asked the government to factor in the green element of tenders submitted for public building projects.

On the private front, banks could offer green or preferential loans for buildings that aim for higher energy efficiency, as happens in Japan, the panel suggested.