T

he Green Building Council of Indonesia (GBCI) launched on Wednesday guidelines for environmentally friendly buildings to increase the public's and business community's awareness of sustainability issues.

"Buildings emit a large amount of carbon dioxide, thus we need a platform to raise awareness about this issue and the GBCI is building it," council head Naning S. Adiningsih Adiwoso said.

Dubbed the Greenship, the guidelines list a number of aspects to take into consideration when constructing a building, which affect the environment and the building's users. The checklists includes energy-saving mechanisms and indoor air quality.

"The Greenship is an initial step towards developing a rating system. The guidelines include a list of desirable features *to make buildings environmentally friendly* but does not include scores, points or standard references," said Rana Yusuf Nasir, the council's chairman for equipment and skills.

Having a rating system will make it easier for the council to join the World Green Building Council, which currently has 14 members, including Australia, Japan and India.

Indonesia, along with France, Iran and Costa Rica, is one of the countries that has expressed formal interest in joining the World Green Building Council.

Although the Greenship is paving the way for a rating system, as with Singapore's Green Mark or Australia's Green Star, it will not be identical to the ones found in other countries, Rana said.

"We are developing our own system. We are not simply copying Singapore's rating system despite the fact that the country is geographically close to Indonesia," he said.

The GBCI, which was established in February 2009, also endorsed - at the same event - 21 companies as the council's "corporate founders".

The companies, which include state-owned energy company PT Pertamina, property giant PT Summarecon Agung and PT Ciputra Development, will strengthen the council's case for joining the World Green Building Council.

"Having corporate entities as founding members is one of the prerequisites to join the World Green Building Council, thus we ask *the companies* to work to-gether in developing the GBCI," Naning said.

The companies joining the green scheme stand a good chance of enhancing their public image, Mardjoeki Atmadiredja, the council's head of coordinating board, said.

"Industries that do not keep up with environmental sustainability will be seen as out of date and will fall behind in the market," he said.

The companies' status as the council's founding members does not lock them into following the principles of green building in their business, Rana said.

"Being in the council does not mean they must adhere to green building rules, but they will certainly have a bigger moral responsi-bility to do so *after joining the council as founding members*," he explained.

Head of the city's Building Monitoring and Control Agency, Hari Sasongko, said the government would help put together environmentally friendly building schemes.

"The city authorities will adopt green building *standards* before enforcing them around the city."

"We are planning to issue a gubernatorial rule *on environmentally friendly building schemes* in 2010. It will not be all encompassing but sensible and feasible. For instance, it might focus on saving water and energy," he said. (dis)