GREEN building experts urged the 10 Asean member-states, especially calamity-prone Philippines, to continue to adopt sustainability practices and not to be complacent with the extent of progress they have achieved in promoting environment-friendly construction.
This is in the face of the Filipinos’ reluctance to shift to “green” options because of concerns over the up-front costs and perceived inability to adapt to complex technologies that go with the campaign for sustainable construction.
“[The] Philippines is among the most vulnerable countries to climate change due to its long coastline and reliance on agriculture. We need to continue inspiring the community to increase their adoption of sustainability practices in their projects,” World Bank environmental education advocate and former Philippine government Climate Change Secretary Lucille L. Sering said at the recent news briefing for the 10th Build Eco Expo (BEX) Asia at a hotel in Makati City.
Because of its growing commercial industry, the region’s economic development has shown rapid increase in its energy consumption, which amounted to almost a quarter of the total energy produced.
The relative hike in the cost of electricity has been felt by all stakeholders—government, building owners and tenants. This is so apparent in the Philippines, which currently charges the highest rate among its neighbors.
Studies revealed that significant reduction in the exploitation of resources could be achieved with green building, which refers to the quality design, construction, maintenance and education of professionals and consumers for a sustainable and efficient living.
Based on a study of Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED), green developments can cause energy use to go down from 50 percent to 24 percent and carbon-dioxide emissions from 39 percent to 33 percent. Water consumption will decrease 40 percent and solid waste will go down 70 percent, according to a 2003 California study.
While these data amplified the call for sustainable construction and green buildings across Asean, Architect Miguel Guerrero, chairman and founder of Green Architecture Advocacy Philippines (GreenAP), noted that the Philippines is not moving fast enough with the green initiative, though sustainable building is gaining ground in the country.
“In theory, we should be very green by now. But look around, unfortunately, it’s not the case. We’re still using a lot of energy, not exactly green, so to speak, as what we want to be,” Guerrero said, while citing the challenges as cost, complex, and change.
The 3 Cs
THE Philippines’s bumpy ride to green building, according to Guerrero, could be blamed on the so-called three Cs.
First is complexity, which, he said, pertains to the public notion of it as complicated as technologies, such as solar panels and wind turbines, among others. “Most people on the streets, [the] public, understand ‘green’ as tech-driven.” he said, noting that it’s not always the case to be pro-environment when building a house or any kind of establishment.
The complexity of the problem is, likewise, partly due to the green building rating system, set by the government and nonprofit organizations. These include the LEED of the US Green Council Rating System, as well as two local green rating building systems, Building for Ecologically Responsive Design Excellence (Berde), which is put up by the Philippine Green Building Council; and the Geared for Resiliency and Energy Efficiency for the Environment (grEEEn) by the Philippine Green Building Initiative Inc.
Cost is another hurdle because they view it as expensive, mainly due to the technology that comes with it. This way of thinking “sort of scare some” to go green, Guerrero said.
Sharing the same idea with him, G-Energy Global Director of Business and Operations Choong Chow Neng stressed how it does not merely revolve around new technologies, but it can also be applied efficiently through green building constructions.
“Going green should not [only] be tech-driven but should [also] be value engineering because by implementing more efficiently we can actually generate more in the long run,” he said.
The last “C” is change, which Guerrero referred to as part of the Filipino culture also. He said the local mind-set should be changed first to have a bigger impact, adding that it should be addressed by educating Filipinos that going green need not cost a lot.
“Let’s encourage people to go green in simple way first,” he said. “For example, the orientation of the buildings.”
Guerrero cited the placement of house windows must be facing north and south to capture the amihan and habagat breeze. He added having a more open home that can capture natural light.
“If they save and they realize they could save money, then we’ll end up having what is known as a win-win solution—they’re saving money, at the same time saving the world. In that way, more and more people will start going green, from the small sectors to the big projects,” he said.
While the innate attribute of Filipinos being resilient is positive, the top executive of GreenAP also pointed out the downside of it.
“We have typhoons every year, we have earthquakes, [but] it happens after the typhoon, we’re cool. That is a challenge also for us,” he explained. “We build exactly the same structure knowing that maybe a few years later, it’s going to get destroyed again by another typhoon.”
Transformation
THE recent years have been transformative for the Philippines in terms of green building initiatives. Even if it trails behind its neighbors when it comes to adopting sustainable construction, the outlook is seemingly just as promising this year and beyond.
In fact, the current state of the Philippine real estate that is growing, with building constructions and transport systems popping up not only in urbanized Manila but also in provinces, is indicative of the country’s journey in this field, Guerrero commented.
“If I look at it in the perspective of an architect, the design part, I think the industry is booming, we’re doing well, and I would assume since they’re building, there must be buyers, which means at the end of the day, real-estate sectors are doing well,” he told the BusinessMirror.
In the past few years, the green building sector in the Philippines showed promising growth. About 61 of the 245 new projects in the market have earned LEED certifications.
The Citadines Salcedo Makati and Ascott Bonifacio Global City are two certified Green Mark projects that originated from Singapore.
Green buildings usually have 20 percent to 25 percent energy use intensity (EUI). A study conducted by Arcadis shows an average EUI of 136 kilowatt-hour per meter square for LEED-certified office buildings in the country.
This translates to about a 32-percent reduction to the Berde baseline, or reductions of P92.9 million in electricity bills, 33,000 gigajoules in energy consumption and 6.53 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions (equal to 167,000 new trees planted).
The country’s improving green architecture and construction landscape is a very timely backdrop, as BEX Asia will hold the International Green Building Conference from September 12 to 14 at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore.
The water and energy exhibition will be a platform for international environment advocates and thought leaders to share ideas for more buildings to be green in our environment.
“We really want to reach out to regions beyond Singapore, and the Philippines is a very important market for us here. We want to really engage the building community to share what we have achieved so far in terms of sustainability. We can collaborate between the Philippines, the community, as well as the regions,” shared Sering, who is also the owner and president of Greenwarehouse.
With Verna Mae Barrozo
Image credits: Kwest19 | Dreamstime.com