Why sustainable building is a growing trend throughout the region

The green building trend is catching on fast. Is it being driven by economic pragmatism or a new-found social conscience? Mike Zamora, Chair, Corenet Global Asia reports.

Environmental sustainability in the building and maintenance of offices is the subject on everyone’s lips. By sustainability, of course, we mean meeting the needs of the present without undermining the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This is a question that has gained added urgency as a result of the growing awareness of the dangers of global warming and the greenhouse effect.

More than half of the corporations surveyed by real-estate association, CoreNet Global in 2007, answered that sustainability was important to them and 64 percent said that they would be willing to pay more to enhance it.

A few years ago such a positive response would have been unlikely. This is because the idea of sustainability was until recently not regarded as important at chief executive level. The situation has now changed. The need for sustainability has the attention of the “C” suite and not too soon, either.

A study of business energy usage by CoreNet Global says that buildings account for at least 40 percent of total energy utilisation and commercial buildings make up nearly half of that amount. In 2003, it says, buildings were linked to the emission of over 2.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, while transport accounted for only about 1.8 million metric tons and manufacturing for around 1.6 million metric tons.

The Pew Centre on Global Climate Change noted in a report that year that 43 percent of carbon dioxide emissions resulted from the energy services required by residential, commercial and industrial buildings. Yet between 30 and 40 percent of these emissions could be reduced using current technology.

What is needed is to transform the way buildings are constructed and operated. In this regard, building certification programmes help promote the cause of environmental stewardship and sustainable development.

The US Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), has become a standard in other countries. It is a voluntary, consensus-based standard for developing high performance, sustainable or green buildings. It stresses strategies for sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

While LEED focuses on the construction side, another set of standards developed in Australia, looks at operating costs. Both approaches need to be combined.

In Asia, China is taking the lead among countries that have buildings designed in conformity with the LEED standard.

LEED-certified facilities in China include Dow Chemical’s R&D centre and GE’s corporate campus (both in Shanghai) and Otis Elevator’s office in Tianjin.

Ricardo Pineda, Director of Worldwide Manufacturing Engineering, Plantronics, Inc., confirms that his company achieved LEED certification for its office and manufacturing operation in Suzhou. The three-storey office building achieved the Silver rating, while the 148,540-square-foot factory netted the higher Gold designation.

While these are offices belonging to multinational companies, the Pearl River Tower in Guangzhou is being built for a domestic corporation. It is an example of a building intended to be a zero net energy consumer.

Designed by architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) as the headquarters of the Guangzhou Tobacco Company (part of CNTC, the China National Tobacco Corporation), this 71-storey office tower will be completed in October 2009. It will have very low carbon emissions and in fact be a net producer of energy.

Another example of a green building in China is the Prosper Centre, right at the heart of Beijing’s Central Business District. “It’s the first commercial project in the country to achieve LEED,” Kenneth Langer, President of consulting firm EMSI, told the conference delegates.

The developer’s investment in sustainable features has a payback period of just 1.1 years, he said. “They’ll save $7.8 million in operating costs each and every year. If you want to attract the very best companies and fill up your building fast, LEED is a great way to do it.”

There is similar interest in building LEED-certified offices in India and other Asian countries. Entrepreneurs in China and India are asking, “How can we differentiate ourselves from the competition?”

It’s like Alice in Wonderland: to keep up you have to run. And to get ahead you have to run twice as fast.

One reason for the interest in Asian countries for sustainable buildings is the cost of electricity.

Though labour costs are lower in Asia than in North America, electricity costs are significantly higher. For example, electricity costs (kilowatt per hour) are estimated to be cents 1.56 in India and cents 1.09 in China. In parts of the US, costs can be as low as cents 0.31. So the price of energy negates the lower labour costs in Asia, a point which has not been focused on before. There are clear gains in terms of operating costs, which provide an incentive to bring the cost of electricity down.

There will be a lot more buildings designed in an environmentally sustainable manner. A lot of developers are already saying that they will build only in this way in the future.

In two or three years time you probably won’t hear the word ‘sustainable’ because it will be a given. Right now it’s not.

Looking at developments in the different countries, it’s clear that they are moving in the same direction: sustainable buildings are here to stay.

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