The irony of green buildings making way for newer ones is the wastage it generates

THERE is something jarring about JCube, the Jurong East shopping mall which shut its doors earlier this month to make way for a 40-storey residential and commercial mixed-use development. And it’s not the loss of Singapore’s only Olympic-sized ice-skating rink.

The building, which earned the Green Mark Platinum badge – the top honours under the Building and Construction Authority’s (BCA) green building rating scheme at the time when it was built in 2012 – will be demolished after just 11 years.

In its place will likely be another green building, given national targets to get 80 per cent of Singapore’s buildings green-certified by 2030, its developer CapitaLand’s sustainability targets, and the additional gross floor area (GFA) that a developer can unlock with it.