Green and healthy buildings are on the rise

(Published in Enrich, magazine of Mercury Drug Corporation)

IT'S KIND OF KIND hard wrapping your head around data showing that buildings, yes, buildings are a major man-made source of unhealthy carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution, and also use up most of the world’s electricity every year.

Buildings emit about 40% of the total amount of CO2 in the U.S., according to government data. While comparable data is absent, it can perhaps be reasonably assumed the percentages are almost similar for the Philippines. Residential, commercial and industrial building operations also consume 75% of total electricity generated in the United States. Evidently, the building sector (industrial, commercial, residential and others) should be a primary target in any national effort to combat climate change and enhance human health.

“The world is putting 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. The building industry is responsible for half of the total carbon emissions,” said architect Amado de Jesus, a founder of the “Philippine Green Building Initiative (PGBI)” launched this March. “One way to promote sustainability in the building sector is to raise awareness among building owners, developers, architects, engineers, contractors and occupants.”

Makati City

PGBI’s main activities include the adoption of a Green building rating system and standards adapted to the Philippines’ humid climate. PGBI will also promote sustainable building practices in aid of legislation and formulate public policy relating to climate change. New buildings are its main target group; retrofitting of existing buildings is also a goal.

PGBI pushes “Green Architecture,” which is a sustainable method of Green building design. Green Architecture is design and construction with the environment in mind. Green architects generally work with the key concepts of creating energy efficient and environment friendly buildings.

Energy Efficient Buildings
Energy efficiency over the entire life cycle of a building is the most important single goal of Sustainable or Green Architecture. In the Philippines, however, the fight for Green Architecture has only just begun. “To reduce carbon emissions we have to design and build Green buildings that use energy efficiently,” de Jesus explained. The Philippines is 48th among 212 countries in man-made CO2 emissions.

He noted that Green Architecture has two objectives: cut building operating costs (including energy consumption and maintenance) to minimize a building’s negative impact on the environment, and promote a healthy lifestyle to ensure the health and well-being of building occupants.

The Green Architecture movement in the Philippines involves construction design that is environmentally sensitive; in harmony with natural features in a project site; is energy efficient in that it emphasizes passive systems and uses materials that are recyclable and derived from sustainable sources that can be replenished or replaced so there is lesser wastage. It is basically the intelligent use of materials for the right purpose.

“It is the role of the Green architect to be able to meet these two objectives with as little compromise between protecting the earth and meeting human needs. The whole point of green architecture rests on accomplishing these two general objectives. Green architecture is proof that both man and his natural environment can live in perfect harmony,” de Jesus said.

“Green Architecture is very promising. It is the future,” said architect Anna Siao Ling, president of the 23,500-member UAP, the driving force behind the Green Architecture movement in the Philippines. “Currently, the prime considerations of Green Architecture are minimal energy use, as well as utilizing eco-friendly products—ideas which are already visible (in) Filipino designs in the past.”

She noted that sustainability is a trait which is very Filipino. “Just by observing how local homes are insulated with nipa and make use of bamboo blinds and rolling windows, we can attest that Green concepts are not foreign to us,” she said.

Green Rating Systems
The Philippines does not have its own building rating system and prefers to use the U.S. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System). It was only in 2009 the Philippines had its first Green building certified to LEED. This is an assembly and test building of Texas Instruments in Baguio City that received a Silver certification for maximizing the use of natural daylight; extensive water recycling and a reflective roof that significantly cut heat gain.

LEED is a Green rating tool and consists of a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction. Established by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED is a means to rate the environment-friendly designs and energy efficiency of buildings that want to reduce negative impact on the environment. Since it began in 1998, LEED has reviewed over 14,000 projects in the U.S. and 30 countries.

The United Kingdom rates buildings according to the BREEAM environmental assessment method. In Asia, some of the existing rating systems are Japan’s CASBEE, Australia’s Green Star, Taiwan’s Green Building Label, Singapore’s Green Mark and Indonesia’s Green Building Council.

Europe is the world leader in Green Architecture and environmental awareness. But it is wise to remember that Green or sustainable architecture is a fairly recent phenomenon, even in Europe. In Germany, for example, it was only in January 2009 that the first German certificates for sustainable buildings were handed out.

In France, the government has put forward recommendations—the "Le Grenelle de l'Environnement,”—that provides a rating system to accelerate the pace of transforming new and existing buildings into sustainable structures. The first zero carbon office building in France opened in December 2009.

Other members of the European Union (EU) have their own national standards as regards Green Architecture. All of these, however, are guided by the greater goal of helping Europe reach its 2020 targets of 20% energy saved, 20% energy from renewable energy and 20% greenhouse gas reduction.

Mandatory European standards also address new or existing buildings, while the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive aims to promote improvements in the building sector.

How You Can Help
By altering his individual behavior, the average Filipino has a key role to play in pushing efforts promoting sustainable energy and infrastructure. “Earth Hour” and the Philippines’ shift to compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are cases that prove the individual Pinoy is important in pushing a sustainable lifestyle.

Some 15 million Filipinos took part in “Earth Hour 2010” last March 27 to support the growing nationwide commitment to the environment. Organizers said the fourth staging of Earth Hour involved 4,000 cities in a record 125 countries turning off their lights for one hour thereby saving a huge amount of electricity.

During Earth Hour 2009, some 10 million Filipinos in 647 cities and municipalities saved an estimated 611MWh of electricity, the equivalent of shutting down a dozen coal-fired power-plants for an hour.

The government early this year again urged Filipinos to switch to more energy efficient CFLs, thereby cutting their monthly electric bills and reducing CO2 emissions. CFL use falls under the enhancing energy efficiency and conservation component of the Philippine Energy Efficiency Program (PEEP) whose aim is attaining a sustainable 60% energy self-sufficiency level beyond 2010.

The government plans to distribute 13 million CFLs nationwide this year, thus saving 611,000 MWh annually. By adopting CFLs nationwide in 2010, the Philippines became the first Asian country to completely ban incandescent bulbs.

PGBI is an initiative among professional building organizations that signed the “PGBI Declaration of Commitment.” Signatories include the United Architects of the Philippines, Philippine Society of Ventilating Air Conditioning Refrigerating Engineers, Institute of Integrated Electrical Engineers of the Philippines, American Society of Heating Refrigerating & Air Conditioning Engineers Philippine Chapter, Philippine Institute of Interior Designers, Geological Society of the Philippines, Heritage Conservation Society and International Council of Monuments & Sites Philippines.

(Published in Enrich, healthy lifestyle magazine of Mercury Drug Corporation, 2010.)