Marrying urbanisation with green goals 

THE late great American architect and visionary Buckminster Fuller famously said: “The best way to predict the future is to design it.”

Fuller’s philosophy has implications on the way forward for green urbanisation. The future, as he saw it, is anything but defined; it is created by us. In that vein, if we are to change our current trajectory towards certain climate doom, we will have to reassess the way we design, build and manage our urban settlements. And we need to do this sooner rather than later if we want to live and thrive in the cities of the future.

A new flagship UN report on climate change has made it abundantly clear that harmful carbon emissions in the past decade have never been higher. Estimates suggest that buildings and construction account for a massive 39 per cent of all carbon emissions in the world.

With rapid urbanisation and a predicted 75 per cent increase in floor area across the globe, our carbon footprint is only expected to grow. In Singapore, the building industry produces more than 20 per cent of the country’s emissions. To address this, the government has set the national target of achieving 80 per cent green buildings by 2030.

How Asia’s built sector must respond

Across Asia, there is no doubt that contributions are fuelling building sustainability efforts. These include rating schemes such as Singapore’s Green Mark to raise the eco-friendliness of buildings. That said, more must be done to enact long-term and effective change within this sector.

With the rising flow of capital into new technologies, organisations must capitalise on this opportunity not just to promise greener initiatives in the built environment but to implement them as well. As the innovation hub of Asia Pacific, Singapore is well equipped to inspire organisations to innovate and implement greener solutions, and to share our experiences.

One of these experiences that could serve as a blueprint for other cities to learn from is an incentive scheme to encourage building owners and designers to install rooftop gardens and vertical plant walls.

To date, close to half of Singapore’s buildings have been retrofitted with green roofs, edible gardens, recreational rooftop gardens, and verdant green walls, leading up to Singapore’s ambitious target of greening 80 per cent of its buildings by 2030. Incorporating greenery into buildings not only helps to mitigate the effects of urban heat and improve air quality, it also has social benefits. These can range from providing a space for recreation to promoting social interaction and fostering mental well-being.

Social infrastructure aside, green strategies must also address the impact of urban mobility on the built environment. Urban mobility plays a crucial role in how we transit across the city; this is especially true for a populated nation such as Singapore. In Southeast Asia alone, transport is responsible for 40 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and 23 per cent of carbon dioxide. To green our roads, governments are looking to electric vehicles (EVs) to lead the way, with Singapore committing S$30 million to EV initiatives.

Other efforts around sustainable mobility includes minimising carpark spaces, installing solar panels on bus depot rooftops for solar to power the facility in the day. In another example, SBS Transit installed inverters on its Downtown Line to recover excess regenerative energy from the braking of trains, to convert for use in other areas.

Designing new normals

The next wave of Singapore’s green building movement is one close to heart—and in line with Hitachi’s commitment through social innovation to co-create technological solutions in solving real-world problems for climate good. In fact, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) commissioned Hitachi Asia to develop The Super Low Energy Building (SLEB) Smart Hub, a one-stop digital hub for green solutions. The state-of-the-art digital hub is equipped with a smart advisor on energy efficiency for buildings across Singapore. Big Data analytics and artificial intelligence techniques are deployed to leverage the energy data of 2,000 buildings. BCA is targeting for 80 per cent of new builds to be Super Low Energy Buildings that feature best-in-class energy efficiency, deploy intelligent energy management systems, and run on renewable energy.

With countries in Asia ramping up their efforts for the green transformation, it is important to implement infrastructure that supports the transition. One promising enabler for a carbon-neutral energy system that’s on the rise is high-voltage direct current (HVDC) technology. What makes HVDC grids attractive is the flexibility and efficiency they provide to connect remote renewable energy sources to the main grid.

Spurring green innovations through co-creation

Rapid urbanisation means cities are going to need more buildings and urban spaces than ever. Making the built environment greener is now a global imperative. Let us be under no illusion about the magnitude of the challenges ahead. Fostering real, holistic change in Asia’s built environment for a greener, more sustainable future requires an all-in effort.

As an early adopter of green architecture and sustainable urban planning, Singapore can play a pivotal role for the greener built environment within the region. From a strong digital framework to multilateral digital partnerships, this small, heavily-urbanised island nation has shown the action that needs to be taken.

One such example of working in partnership was a project we did to power a building’s air-conditioning using heat. Together with A*Star and BCA, we launched a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) pilot plant that harnesses waste heat and converts this to energy to run the air-conditioning.

Opportunity to innovate

Up until now, much of the push towards greener buildings has been devoted to minimising the energy needed to keep a building running. The pandemic has served as a seismic reminder of the magnitude of the environmental challenge we face, while also highlighting opportunities for out-of-box ideas in rethinking our urban settings.

For instance, ventilation will be more crucial than ever in an endemic world. One suggested approach to air-conditioning would be to have sensors on a personal ventilation system. This can save more energy by delivering cooled air to only occupied desks in an office building.

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we need, now more than ever, to challenge the status quo. Fortunately, thanks to digital technology, the possibilities are limitless.

Gerald Hane is senior executive and GM corporate strategy at Hitachi Asia