Speech by SMS Desmond Lee at BCA's Breakfast Talk for CEOs 2016
Sep 9, 2016
A very good morning to all of you. It’s not very often that I get the opportunity to address a room full of CEOs – all captains of our built environment sector. So it’s a wonderful occasion to have everyone here for a dialogue on sustainability in our buildings.
I hope that you have found the presentations and discussions over the past 2 days useful. In our built environment, we want to take it to a very different level altogether and focus on what goes on in a building and not just how you build the building.
The Next Lap
At the opening session, Minister Lawrence Wong spoke about the challenges and the opportunities for the next lap of our green building journey.
He described an exciting future ahead of us – one that is green, one that is smart, and one that is innovative.
Where the sky is the limit and our ingenuity and our ambition will chart the path forward.
So today, let me talk a bit about how we can rise to this challenge and achieve a breakthrough. Not just about the public sector, it is about all of us here working together to sustain the green building momentum. And as I said earlier, the green building movement is not about the building alone, it is about the people who use the building and live in them.
And, I will make just 3 basic points, because I think the dialogue later will be where you get all the details and all the thought leadership. So, the three points:
First, on the need to be bold in adopting new technology.
Second, on the need to widen and deepen our engagement with tenants, occupants and users of our buildings.
And third, on the need for us to innovate within our specific sectors and domains.
A Smarter, Greener Future
Let me now touch on the first point for a smarter, greener future. We need to be even bolder in adopting new technologies. Smarter buildings with smarter technologies will be the next frontier. The Government will lay the groundwork. For example, we have launched the Building Energy Efficiency Research (BEER) and Development Roadmap in 2014.
This Roadmap mapped out the ideas and technologies for a greener future.
It identified obstacles to our ambitions.
One of the obstacles really was a lack of test-bedding opportunities.
In July, BCA launched the SkyLab.
Last year, at NUS, I visited a similar kind of laboratory by CDL, which used a different kind of testing parameters. But nevertheless, the concept was clear – to be able to test-bed technologies to give innovators an opportunity to see how their technology works in a setting that is as realistic as possible, both for their own R&D purposes but also for potential uses in industry, to see validated results before they apply them on a larger scale. And so, many exciting new technologies will be tested at the SkyLab.
For example, we are testing dynamic shading technologies, where automated shades can tilt according to the angle of the sun. Buildings of the future will be able to control indoor light and temperature conditions much better, leading to energy savings on a larger scale.
There are also plans to test innovative air conditioning like the chilled beam system. This takes advantage of simple laws of physics to minimise energy consumption while continuing to keep us, as users, cool.
Innovative facade materials are another promising technology. These materials reflect solar energy to reduce ambient temperatures indoors. This technology will be important as we try to mitigate climate change.
The Government can help, but really, industry is the key to realise our ambitions. In this regard, we are glad to note that several industry partners are already using the latest technologies in their developments.
One example is how NTU’s learning hub, known as The Hive, has deployed the Passive Displacement Ventilation system. This cooling system uses natural convection and can reduce the energy used for air-conditioning by as much as 30%.
We look forward to more technologies being implemented in our developments. Please do showcase them. It is good for your marketing, but also good for awareness amongst users and to create the general sense that being green and sustainable is a major push for all of us here in tropical Singapore.
Every Tenant, A Green Tenant
The second point I want to make is the need to step up engagement with tenants and building users.
Tenants and building users are responsible for half the energy used in a typical commercial building, perhaps even more.
So we need every tenant and every occupant to be a green tenant.
And BCA, in this regard, launched the Green Mark Pearl Award 2 years ago. The award recognises building owners who go the extra mile to help their tenants adopt environmentally sustainable solutions.
City Developments Limited (CDL) and Keppel Land were among the first to receive this accolade.
CDL worked with its tenants to green more than 70% of the tenanted spaces at City House and 7 & 9 Tampines Grande.
Similarly, Keppel Land greened 50% of its tenanted spaces at Ocean Financial Centre.
I encourage more building owners to follow their lead.
But we need to change behaviours by building ground-up partnerships – from students to the man in the street. In fact, before I came on stage, I had the opportunity to have a chat with some of our BCA interns, and they are from Temasek Polytechnic. They described how they had gone back to their alma mater, and have very carefully nurtured and mentored their juniors. It is very different when a figure of authority or if a government campaign tells you to save energy and switch off the light. It is quite another thing if your own peer, or your mentor, or your senior in school, comes back and tells you that this is the way to go; this is the right thing to do; and that in our generation, we want to be green. That has a different impact altogether. And that kind of peer-to-peer, ground-led initiative, to every person who uses buildings, which is all of us, is a second wave of supportive campaigning to build in each of us the DNA to live the green life and not just speak about it.
So, we really need to use behavioural insights to better understand how users think. And what I have just described is perhaps one of those ways to influence people’s way of life.
This way, small targeted actions collectively lead to big changes.
At the same time, we are making it easier for tenants to green their premises.
We launched the Green Mark Portfolio Programme in 2013, one year before the Pearl Mark. It simplifies the Green Mark accreditation process for businesses with multiple outlets and multiple centres.
BCA will certify one outlet and businesses can replicate the technologies at their other outlets to get mass accreditation more quickly.
One of the businesses that benefited from this is NTUC Fairprice. I think that looking at the number of outlets they have, this is one good way to do so.
They are a pioneer partner for the programme and have 20 stores already certified Green Mark “Gold” and above.
More businesses are taking advantage of this Programme. For example, Din Tai Fung recently came on board. They are the first Chinese restaurant to embark on the greening journey.
A Green Building for Every Domain
The third and last point I will make is that we need to think bigger and innovate within our respective domains.
The one-size-fits-all green solutions for buildings are no longer sufficient.
Every sector has its own needs.
A green hospital, for instance, is quite different from a green school.
We recognised this and launched the Green Mark schemes for different sectors. We have the Green Mark for healthcare facilities, offices, restaurants, schools and supermarkets and so on. Over 2,800 projects have applied for certifications under the various Green Mark schemes.
Two good examples I will cite today are the MOH Holdings as well as Hong Wen School.
MOH Holdings is a pioneer in the greening of hospitals and it runs many Green Mark Platinum healthcare facilities.
The second example, Hong Wen School, also has a strong culture of sustainability.
They established a Protect our Earth Together (POET) programme to engage students on sustainability.
We challenge everyone here to pioneer new solutions to better address the needs of individual sectors.
Launch of “Back to School” Programme
Now on this note, we are happy to use this occasion to launch the “Back to School” programme.
Under this programme, which I have just described and sketched out earlier in terms of our Temasek Polytechnic friends, BCA will provide internships to our students from our polytechnics. The students will be attached to BCA’s Green Mark team to understand the Green Mark accreditation process.
These experiences will equip students with knowledge about green buildings.
Our students will in turn become our green champions, going back to their primary and secondary schools to help their alma maters to achieve Green Mark accreditation. So that is for the school, the institution, the building, but also the people. And I am sure they influence all the way from the principal to every child in every classroom.
BCA piloted this programme with Temasek Polytechnic since 2015. The feedback has been very good so we are extending it to other polytechnics in Singapore.
This programme is important because our schools nurture the next generation of leaders, and the next generation of building users and office users .
A green school not only provides a conducive environment for our children to grow but also educates them on environmental sustainability.
In time, they may even join the green building industry. But even if they don’t, they can realize our dream for a smarter and greener built environment wherever they go and whatever they may do.
Concluding Remarks
I will conclude by saying that the opportunities are really unlimited in this area. Our future is only constrained by our ability to articulate our dreams. I hope this morning’s exchanges onstage will provide all of us with new information and knowledge to really push the boundaries and to build greener and to build better.
Thank you.