Greening Singapore’s built environment

THE concept of climate change has gone from being something abstract to being a lived experience. The hottest days on record occurred within just the past few months, and there are ever-increasing extreme weather events globally.

Singapore’s third National Climate Change Study (published on Jan 5, 2024) has projected daily maximum temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius, for up to 351 days a year by 2100. While talk has shifted from mitigation to adaptation, we must not lose sight of the urgent need to reduce emissions.

As an architect working in finance, I can attest to how the built environment plays a most crucial role in our climate change mitigation endeavours.

Singapore has done well to address some of the environmental impacts of buildings and urban areas through starting to promote climatically responsive (vernacular) design and retrofits, energy efficiency, and resilient infrastructure. But let’s be clear: More can and needs to be done.

The Singapore Green Building Masterplan, with the infamous 80-80-80 goal in 2030, provides a roadmap for policies and the industry. Having been at the forefront of climate action for the built environment for the past 15 years, I have no doubt that two targets – to have 80 per cent of buildings by gross floor area to be “green” by 2030, and 80 per cent of new buildings to be Super Low Energy buildings from 2030 – will be met.

But the third “80” – achieving 80 per cent improvement in energy efficiency for best-in-class green buildings by 2030 – could use more focus. I would say that the quality of the first “80” (greening floor area) could use some work, too. As we approach 2025 – the halfway mark of the “decade of action” to meet the goal of being aligned to holding the world to 1.5 deg C of global warming – this is where we can and must do more. There are two things that I think can drive significant change.

Mindset matters – leave no buildings behind

Most of the buildings that we will be using in 2050, the year we hope to achieve net zero, are already standing. Here’s the challenge: This means billions of existing buildings globally must meet performance standards that allow for net zero. Buildings are the major end user of electricity, hence power grids need to decarbonise at scale. Conversely, the pace at which grids decarbonise is reliant on buildings having the ability to reduce their energy demand.

Zooming into Singapore, this means upgrading our existing buildings at an unprecedented scale, creating a large demand for upfront capital. The good news: This will create vast downstream savings, and the required professional knowledge and technologies already exist.

Retrofitting programmes around the world (including those in Singapore) provide clear evidence of the potential for significant energy savings and emissions reductions, without the need for demolition. What is needed is a mindset change around how we view our “old” buildings, and how we use them.

We must start to view our activities though the wider lens of finite resources. The closure of JCube last year (2023) – a building that was just 11 years old – to make way for a 386-unit residential development, has sparked conversations around this topic. Surely, say critics, our “tear down” penchant cannot continue.

Then there is the Golden Mile Complex megastructure, a monument of tropical modernism completed in 1973, that was gazetted as a conserved building in 2021. It is set to become a condo, an office space and more, with its iconic terraced façade and other key structural elements left intact.

In my opinion, in order to scale action, we need to think of wider environmental budgets when it comes to buildings and limit the “tear down and rebuild” option. Gazetting has been a useful tool for conservation of assets with historical importance, but our broader approach should be to adapt and improve on buildings that are already standing. Yes, that means all of them.

There are wonderful examples of such endeavours including the National University of Singapore’s School of Design and Environment SDE1-3, Prinsep House (formerly NTUC Income Prinsep House). If we look further afield, I can cite Sydney Australia’s Quay Quarter Tower, a Six Star Green Star awardee. There are also bold visions for the soon-to-be-obsolete Canary Wharf in London, where the HSBC Tower is set to be revamped in three years.

Some of these examples are not heritage sites that force refurbishments. It has been a considered choice to retrofit. They are examples of how we can work with existing assets and achieve often higher-quality results than new builds. They are, unfortunately, not yet the norm. But they serve to showcase an approach that can be replicated at scale with a mindset shift.

The approach of adaptive re-use will allow us to scale building upgrades and performance gains in a resource-efficient manner without the financial and environmental costs of demolition and new construction. This in turn can unlock opportunities for the built environment, the professionals in the sector, and the value chain.

How do we get there? By creating the right market conditions through the right policies, pricing of resources, and consumer behaviour.

Unlocking required capital through policy change

I have transitioned from being a built environment professional to coming on board with a financer, providing the technical expertise necessary to help accelerate the transition. Singapore is well poised to ramp up its solid track record in financing the built environment’s green transition, which started over a decade ago.

Financers have been keenly directing their attention to growing their green asset pool, which has typically meant pivoting their loan or investment books towards buildings with a robust Green Building rating, such as the Building and Construction Authority’s Green Mark.

In addition, the Green Mark tool and the associated wider policies have (since their introduction in 2008) driven a 29 per cent reduction in energy use intensity across the commercial property sector.

This is no small feat. However, based on an internal study, a further 48 per cent of emissions intensity reduction is required to maintain the notional carbon budget for the built environment (based on an apportioned downscaled global carbon budget applied to Singapore) in 2030. To achieve this, we need to further activate the market by creating the right conditions through carefully tailored policy instruments.

In Australia, Nabers (the National Australian Built Environment Rating System) has been in place since 1999 and in 2010, Nabers ratings became mandatory for office buildings. Over the last 14 years, Australian offices that used Nabers energy ratings have benefitted from average energy savings of 42 per cent and have reduced greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 53 per cent. This is one of the fastest wide scale building transformations recorded globally and proves that ratings work to drive change.

In the United Kingdom, the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards regulations were introduced in 2018. These made it unlawful to rent out premises with a low Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of below “E”. By 2027, this is expected to move to “C” and by 2030, it is anticipated that an EPC rating of “B” will be required.

Singapore could consider bringing these two policy approaches together, leveraging the existing well-developed systems including Green Mark and the energy disclosure requirements published in the annual Building Energy Benchmarking Report. This would give annual “normalised” energy ratings to all commercial assets.

Combining such ratings with time-bound requirements for specific ratings to be achieved for different asset classes in order for them to be leased (or sold), and the market conditions for extraordinary action would be created.

For financers, this would help simplify and streamline the structuring of impactful transition loans. We could base financing conditions on energy rating improvements over time, more quickly shifting brown assets (inefficient, carbon-emitting properties) to become increasingly green. This would also encourage the development of solutions that drive real results while bolstering the market for newer energy efficiency capabilities.

From a policy outcome point of view, the first “80 per cent” outlined in the Green Building Masterplan would then be more impactful. It would be more clearly defined and based on annual performance ratings, rather than relying on one-time (potentially stale) certifications, or regulatory clearance post-2008. Importantly, standards would evolve as standards need to, and would ensure that progress does not stall. This would also drive the third “80” (pushing best-in-class buildings to an 80 per cent energy efficiency improvement from 2005 standards), and set the benchmark for top energy ratings.

This is why to me, tying policy and ratings together create the right market conditions that would best facilitate the transition of the built environment through the financial system.

The writer works for OCBC’s Global Wholesale Banking Sustainability Office. He recently co-authored an international guide titled Financing Transformation: A Guide to Green Building for Green Bonds and Green Loans with an alliance of Green Building Councils and organisations. He also sits on the Singapore Institute of Architects’ sustainability committee, and chairs the Singapore Green Building Council’s sustainable finance working committee.