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lobal trends in environmentally sound construction were showcased to more than 800 property developers, urban planners, architects, engineers, builders and landlords at a three-day conference in Singapore that ended on Friday.

The green building conference was the anchor event of the eighth annual Singapore Green Building Week, which was organized by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) of Singapore and the Singapore Green Building Council.

Speakers at the conference noted the tangible benefits of green buildings, such as energy savings of up to 30 percent, a healthier and more comfortable environment throughout the building’s life cycle: from design and construction to operation, maintenance, renovation and demolition.

The green building concept requires close cooperation and coordination between the designers, architects, engineers, builders, developers and even the client at all project stages. It also requires 5 to 10 percent more capital than conventional buildings of comparable size.

It is one thing to build a green building fully equipped with all the green trappings like lush indoor greenery, tall sky gardens, planter terraces and reflecting pools — as now seen in many new buildings in Singapore — yet quite another to market these green credentials to end users.

“The consumers or occupants may not necessarily know that they live in a certified green building and how it benefits their health or cuts energy consumption, thereby reducing carbon emissions,” noted Chia Ngiang Hong at the opening of the conference.

A concerted campaign was still needed to educate and empower the end users, he added.

Studies presented at the conference show that buildings account for 30 to 35 percent of total energy consumption. “The higher capital costs of planning, designing and constructing a building to meet our green certification requirements can be recouped with the cheaper maintenance and energy costs within seven years,” the CEO of BCA, John Keung, said, quoting the results of BCA audits.

Keung added that said Singapore had made green certification mandatory for new buildings and provided subsidies and incentives for retrofitting existing ones to meet the green parameters. At present, he added, about 30 percent of all buildings in the city state had been certified under the BCA Green Mark program, which was designed largely to reduce energy and water consumption. The target for 2030 was for 80 percent of all buildings to be certified.

In Jakarta, the Green Building Council of Indonesia (GBCI), which started operations in 2009, even claims that certified green buildings could reduce operational costs (mostly from energy and water consumption) by about 40 percent for new buildings and by 10 percent for existing ones.

The managers of certified buildings at the Singapore conference explained that the combination of green design techniques and energy efficient technology, such as solar power, not only reduced energy consumption, operational and maintenance costs, but also created a more pleasant working environment and boosted property values and rental returns.

Keung claimed BCA’s Green Mark certification had been used in 14 countries, including Indonesia. But several green rating tools have emerged in other countries, such as the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) in the US. The World Bank also has launched its own green certification scheme called the EDGE (Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies). The different rating systems are designed to capture country-specific circumstances.

Several green-certified buildings in Singapore, such as the Park Royal Hotel on Pickering and the Capita Green, a 40-storey office building, seemed to be designed exclusively for a prosperous urban metropolis as Singapore, and this may not be directly applicable to countries as Indonesia, with different environmental conditions.

The GBCI green building rating system, called Greenship, embodies six parameters: appropriate site development, energy efficiency and conservation, water conservation, material resource and cycle, indoor health and comfort, environmental building management.

According to GBCI spokeperson Erlyana Anggita Sari, GBCI, as the first and only green building certification body recognized by and registered with the Ministry of Forestry and Environment, has certified 19 buildings as green.

In Jakarta, Anton Sitorus, the director and head of research at PT Savills Consultants Indonesia, said the idea and concept of green building in Indonesia was still in an early stage of development. Only several top property developers acknowledged the true concept of green building, which was closely associated with sustainable and environmentally friendly projects with proper development processes and standards — from the planning stage throughout the construction period until the inauguration.

Sitorus noted that most major international companies though their head office guidelines strongly supported green technology and sustainability. Hence, certified green buildings had the advantage of attracting foreign tenants of high reputation.

Most countries still lag behind in the shift to sustainability due to some key challenges, mainly a lack of incentives, high upfront capital costs and low market awareness. In the ASEAN region, for example, only Singapore and Thailand have enforced rules for energy conservation for new buildings, while in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam they are still voluntary.

Yet most development economists at the Singapore conference agreed that the green building campaign would continue alongside other global campaigns for sustainability, such as the concepts of a green economy, blue fishing and sustainable palm oil and timber.