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City to introduce green building certification
The city is expected to reveal a revised bylaw on building permits that will lay the foundation for a new certification scheme for environmentally friendly buildings
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he city is expected to reveal a revised bylaw on building permits that will lay the foundation for a new certification scheme for environmentally friendly buildings.
Head of the Jakarta Building Supervisory Agency (P2B) Hari Sasongko said the bylaw would require future construction projects to meet energy-efficient standards set in the decree, including on water and electricity efficiency. However, there will be no enforcement of the law.
“Details on the standards of green buildings will be regulated by the gubernatorial decree on environmentally friendly buildings,” he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday after a plenary meeting at the city council.
Hari said his agency would study developers’ construction plans after they had secured building permits, to ensure the designs met the standards of the bylaw.
Hari said the city would not issue green building certificates, but rather only a benchmark rating, which he said was in line with the lowest standard set by Green Building Council Indonesia (GBCI).
Recently, the GBCI launched a green building rating system called Greenship to assess new buildings.
The system covers six rating criteria — the use of site, energy, water and materials, indoor quality and environment management.
“The public will administer the punishment.
“Prospective tenants will be reluctant to use their buildings that are not energy inefficient, as those will entail high operational costs,” he said.
The new regulation on green buildings is expected to help the city meet a carbon dioxide emission cut target for 2020.
In February, Indonesia reaffirmed its pledge to cut emissions by 26 percent from current levels by 2020 to combat climate change.
Hari said his agency was currently trying to outline a road map to reach the target in the planned gubernatorial decree.
He said the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) would provide assistance to create the road map, which he claimed would involve consultants and experts from various universities.
“The IFC will conduct a two-month study to assess energy usage in various buildings, help us to arrange the road map and improve our inspection skills,” he said.
The road map, he said, would introduce consecutively stricter regulations for buildings after initial efforts to disseminate information about the new certification system.
A number of political factions in the city council have criticized law enforcement for illegal buildings.
Asyari of the National Mandate Party (PAB) said building permits should be used as a tool to check whether developers had met buildings standards and regulations.
“The city should be consistent in upholding spatial planning regulations,” he said.
He said the city often turned a blind eye to large developers who neglected the environment and the concerns of nearby housing areas.
Fahmi Zulfikar of the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) said the city should strictly deal with developers who constructed buildings that violated spatial planning regulations.
He said he suspected that law enforcers were often bribed by developers to approve development projects.
