Speech by MOS Faishal Ibrahim at the establishment of Honeywell’s sustainable buildings Centre of Excellence
Feb 21, 2025
A very good morning to all of you. It is my pleasure to join you today for the establishment of Honeywell’s Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Buildings. Congratulations to Honeywell on this important milestone and thank you for your commitment to advancing building efficiency and sustainability in Singapore and the region.
The launch of this Centre of Excellence is timely, as Singapore continues to push forward with our Green Plan 2030 and long-term net-zero ambitions. Buildings are a significant part of our urban landscape, and improving their energy efficiency will be a key enabler in our journey towards a more sustainable future.
Importance of Building Efficiency in Singapore’s Sustainability Goals
As a highly urbanised city-state, Singapore faces unique challenges in energy consumption and carbon emissions. Buildings currently account for about 20% of our national emissions, arising from high energy consumption for cooling, ventilation, and other daily operations. With rising urban density and increasing reliance on air-conditioned spaces, this energy footprint will only continue to grow exponentially unless we take decisive action now. If we are to meet our sustainability goals, we must make our buildings smarter, greener, and more efficient.
Under the Singapore Green Building Masterplan, we aim to green 80% of our buildings by 2030, with ambitious targets for energy efficiency improvements. To achieve this, we must leverage technology, innovation, and collaboration, which is why today’s launch is so significant.
Enhancing Energy Efficiency for Long-Term Sustainability
Improving building efficiency not only reduces carbon emissions but also lowers energy costs, benefiting businesses, building owners and end-users. By adopting smart building management systems and leveraging technologies such as AI-driven automation, IoT sensors, and real-time energy monitoring, buildings can significantly cut energy wastage.
For instance, AI-powered energy management systems can adjust cooling and lighting dynamically, ensuring energy is used only when needed. Predictive analytics can also help predict potential equipment failures before they lead to unnecessary energy consumption. Smart grids and energy storage solutions help us efficiently tap on renewable energy sources, such as solar power, by managing power distribution and storing extra energy for later use.
By implementing these solutions, Singapore can achieve a more sustainable Built Environment while enhancing energy security and resilience.
Role of the Honeywell Centre of Excellence
Achieving our sustainability and resilience goals requires strong collaboration between the public and private sectors. Industry leaders like Honeywell play a pivotal role in driving innovation, by investing in cutting-edge research and providing scalable solutions for smart building management.
The Centre will drive the development of next-generation building management solutions based on AI technologies for sustainable buildings. With capabilities in energy management, optimisation, and predictive analytics, this will enable building owners and operators to, firstly, reduce energy consumption, thus lowering operational costs; secondly, optimise building performance and improve occupants’ comfort; and thirdly, predict and prevent inefficiencies, by using AI-driven analytics to proactively manage energy use.
These efforts will contribute to the broader goal of reducing the carbon footprint of buildings, making our Built Environment more sustainable.
As the industry moves towards smarter, more data-driven approaches that leverage predictive maintenance and advanced analytics to manage buildings, a key challenge faced is vendor lock-in. This limits the ability of building owners to integrate new technologies and results in higher long-term costs. The Centre can help address this by developing scalable, open solutions that facilitate system interoperability to future-proof our building systems.
I am also encouraged to hear that the Centre intends to collaborate with research partners, industry stakeholders, building owners and operators, to pilot and deploy building automation solutions. Such partnerships are essential to ensure that cutting-edge solutions can be developed, tested, and implemented effectively across different building types. Every building is unique, so it is important for us to adopt a data-driven approach to help us navigate this landscape together and practicably.
I encourage more companies to follow Honeywell’s lead in embracing smart building solutions. By investing in R&D and adopting new technologies, businesses can shape a greener future while also enhancing their own resilience and competitiveness.
As we look ahead, we must continue working together – government agencies, industry leaders, researchers, and building owners – to accelerate the adoption of energy-efficient solutions. Sustainability is not just an environmental imperative; it is also an economic and social responsibility.
Let me conclude by commending Honeywell for its leadership in this space and for choosing Singapore as the home for this Centre of Excellence. Your expertise and innovations will contribute significantly to our green building transformation. I look forward to your continued support to transform the Built Environment sector to become more sustainable, innovative and globally competitive. Thank you for having me today.