In with the old: Let our older buildings age gracefully
Retrofitting, rather than demolition, allows us to preserve the character of our building facades while achieving our green goals
KALLANG Pulse, a mixed-used commercial building nine minutes’ walk from the Bendemeer MRT station, was built in 1995. This year, it turns 30 years old.
With Singapore celebrating its 60th birthday in 2025, a 30-year-old building might seem comparatively young. According to the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), however, 57 per cent of buildings in Singapore are 26 years old on average.
About a third of these are non-residential buildings like Kallang Pulse; but unlike Kallang Pulse, they have yet to be converted into green buildings.
As Singapore targets greening 80 per cent of its building space by 2030, there is a danger that some of these still-young buildings will be demolished to comply with green building requirements.
While BCA has set aside S$100 million to fund a Green Mark Incentive Scheme for Existing Buildings, the private sector needs to do its part by embracing the retrofitting of established buildings.
To that end, tenants can actively lobby their landlords and support green building upgrades. Owners of buildings, meanwhile, can take advantage of fast-developing technologies to improve the financial and environmental performance of their properties.
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Cost challenges
In a recent report jointly produced by Schneider Electric and the Singapore Green Building Council, business leaders indicated a strong desire to increase their adoption of green buildings.
Among the 505 respondents, 74 per cent said they are planning to increase their green building adoption over the next two years. In a similar survey conducted in 2023, only 52 per cent had these intentions.
When asked about their biggest challenge to increasing green building use, 36 per cent of executives cited costs.
This is unsurprising. Green building spaces tend to command a rental premium, and owners of older buildings could incur substantial costs when installing green upgrades.
More interesting was the fact that 25 per cent of executives cited relocation difficulties as a top challenge. This suggests there is a sizeable pool of business leaders who face the uncomfortable choice of having to move so that they can increase their rates of green building adoption.
While all new builds in Singapore are green-certified, much of the commercial and industrial sector still operates from non-certified spaces.
Tenants in such spaces would be dependent on the willingness of landlords to upgrade building management systems or install new chillers.
When asked about their green building strategies, tenants were slightly more likely than building owners to prefer a retrofitting strategy.
In constructing a new building, landlords said it was easier to fully integrate green building technologies. Tenants, however, preferred to avoid the hassle of relocating.
This misalignment of interests is worth addressing, especially since the numbers show that retrofitting is a far more sustainable strategy.
Retrofitting buildings is also a crucial element in the war against rising greenhouse gas emissions.
The United Nations Environment Programme, in its Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction this year, noted that the rate of building energy efficiency retrofits needs to treble by 2030 if the industry is to achieve a targeted 35 per cent reduction in energy intensity globally.
Sustainable solutions
Tearing down a building and starting over has many benefits, of course. Building owners can reconfigure a space to trending demands, for instance, and they can avoid costly audits of older infrastructure.
Yet, a well-considered retrofit can pay for itself very quickly. Schneider Electric’s own research shows that most sustainable retrofits for commercial buildings can achieve a return on investment (ROI) in 10 years or less.
Refurbishing Kallang Pulse involved an investment of S$3.3 million and delivered an ROI within 3.6 years.
Savings included some S$240,000 per annum in energy costs and another S$175,000 per annum from costs savings related to facilities management.
These calculations exclude the benefits from avoided carbon emissions, especially from embodied carbon.
Retrofitting a building is 50 to 75 per cent more carbon efficient than building from scratch, according to energy efficiency non-profit RMI.
As Singapore ages as a city, we should also think about allowing our buildings to age gracefully.
In older cities across Europe and even some parts of Asia, older buildings lend character to cityscapes. They also tell stories about a city’s past and its architectural journey, and can even offer a window into forgotten ways of living and working.
Retrofitting allows us to preserve the character of our building facades while achieving our environmental goals. When Singapore marks its next milestone birthday, we hope to celebrate not only its progress but a rise in the average age of its buildings – a sign we are protecting our heritage and making our built environment fit for the future.
Yoon Young Kim is cluster president for Singapore and Brunei at Schneider Electric and Allen Ang is president of the Singapore Green Building Council
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