by Brianna Crandall — September 5, 2014—Continuing to set the pace for cities around the world, Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA) has just unveiled its 3rd Green Building Masterplan to accelerate Singapore’s drive to become a global leader in green buildings with special expertise in the tropics and sub-tropics. Announced at Singapore Green Building Week 2014, the 3rd Green Building Masterplan will place greater emphasis on the behavior and practices of tenants and occupants. New initiatives and a $50 million Green Mark green building incentive program for Existing Buildings and Premises (GMIS-EBP) will be introduced to encourage and enable greater adoption by smaller players and individuals.
“The 3rd Green Building Masterplan maps out a holistic strategy for the next five to 10 years to accelerate the ‘greening’ of existing buildings and bring us closer to achieving our target of 80 percent green buildings by 2030. Beyond focusing on the building infrastructure, we also want to get building owners, facility managers, tenants and occupants to play a bigger role in the green building movement. Achieving a green, sustainable built environment is a collaborative effort that requires commitment across the value chain, from policy makers, to developers, right down to the end-users. As such, there will be a greater emphasis on engaging and enabling stakeholder communities so that we can champion change together,” said Dr John Keung, chief executive officer (CEO), BCA.
Under the 3rd Green Building Masterplan, new initiatives for the public sector, which has been leading the Green Mark green building certification movement in Singapore, will be rolled out to:
- Require existing public sector buildings with more than 5,000 m2gross floor area to achieve Green Mark certification
- Require office spaces to be leased from a building of high Green Mark rating upon lease renewal
- Certify public sector offices under the Green Mark for Office Interior scheme at the next lease or retrofit
- Adopt green procurement approach by holding government events and functions in Green Mark certified venues
- Promote the adoption of green leases
BCA also announced the following initiatives:
- New $50 million Green Mark Incentive Scheme for Existing Buildings and Premises (GMIS-EBP) to help building owners and tenants to undertake energy efficiency improvements
- New Green Mark Pearl Award to recognize buildings that have done well in terms of owner-tenant collaboration to achieve better total building performance
- Release of the inaugural BCA Green Building Energy Benchmarking Report to share top performers and their green building best practices and encourage greater energy efficiency adoption
Over the past nine years, BCA has steadily introduced a comprehensive suite of policy levers and initiatives to promote building energy efficiency and encourage the adoption of green building practices. Through the efforts of its first two Green Building Masterplans, BCA has successfully grown the number of green buildings in Singapore from just 17 in 2005 to more than 2,100 today. This is the equivalent of about 62 million square meters or more than 25 percent of Singapore’s total gross floor area (GFA), notes the agency.
