The green mindset spreads to 1,000 developers, 30 countries

By: Tessa R. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer

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PROUDLY GREEN. Tan Chuan Jin, Minister of State for national development and manpower, is flanked by several green proponents. Singapore was ranked first among major cities in Asia Pacific for its environmentally sustainable building policies. Photo by Tessa R. Salazar

SINGAPORE—One color has been changing the way buildings and their components are now being made. It is, undoubtedly, green. But whereas before that color represented money and unbridled profits, and which had ironically cast a gray pall over the environment, today’s green stands for environmental sustainability.

And for just a conference and an exposition being held in the Lion City, this new “identity” assigned to the color which traces its roots to the Old English verb “growan” (to grow) can still also mean making a good, clean profit.

The International Green Building Conference 2011 and the green products exhibition Build Eco Xpo Asia were held at the Suntec Convention and Exhibition Center from Sept. 13 to 16. The conference gathered green building councils from various countries as well as an estimated 1,000 developers, architects, engineers and urban planners, while the exhibition had brought in 250 companies from 30 countries, attracting an estimated 8,000 visitors, and by the exhibit’s end, generated nearly $90 million in business transactions, as claimed by the expo organizers.

These events were held within the Singapore Green Building Week, and essentially offered to the public a new universe of environmentally sustainable building practices and technologies conceived by renowned industry think tanks, and made real by innovative organizations, engineers and industrialists from all over the world.

Ecologically responsible

The various symposiums on eco-cities, the tropical and subtropical green building councils’ alliance and sustainable construction pushed the envelope on ecologically responsible industry practices.

AUSTRIAN Fritz Oettl makes his home base for international consulting for sustainable architecture in Pakistan, Montenegro and Indonesia. Photo by Tessa R. Salazar

Christopher C. Dela Cruz, president of the Philippine Green Building Council and one of the speakers in the conference, told the Philippine media that PhilGBC’s mission in the building industry has primarily been to transform the market. “Berde is now positioned to be the rating system of choice of the property sector. More and more developers are using the scheme to illustrate leadership in environmental stewardship,” he said.

Berde, which stands for Building for Ecologically Responsive Design Excellence, is the first green building rating systemdesigned by Filipinos.

Dela Cruz also said the Apec-Asean joint workshop on green buildings, which was held here at the start of the week, “endeavors to harmonize standards in the region. We are working with the national Green Building Councils to create solutions in the property marketplace,” he said.

Dela Cruz’s counterpart Tai Lee Siang, the president of the Singapore Green Building Council, signed a strategic partnership with the Beijing Construction Decoration Association, Housing andDevelopment Board, the Building Research Institute, Jurong Town corporations and Singapore Business Federation.

Products of green minds

Simultaneously, at the expo, hundreds of enterprises proudly showed how green their minds were:

• One showcased its lightweight wall planting modules.

• Another displayed efficient hoisting machines with regenerative drives, thereby cutting energy consumption of building elevators by up to 50 percent.

• A monitor showed real time consumption of electricity, water and gas.

• Another group showed its sustainable lighting technology to reduce energy consumption.
  
  

  THE WALLBOARD is of volcanic ash. Photo by Tessa R. Salazar

• Another explained a new vertical farming solution with integrated biological lighting.

• A window film with high clarity and low light reflection that blocked harmful UV rays demonstrated the potential of nano-ceramic technology.

Architects like Fritz Oettl, known for the “green building” design of the Austrian Embassy in Jakarta, were seen hobnobbing with the audience, answering questions on sustainable architecture in hot and humid climates.

At the exhibit opening, BG (NS) Tan Chuan-Jin, Singapore’s Minister of State for National Development and Manpower, announced the Building Retrofit Energy-Efficiency Financing program that would provide loans to building owners and energy services companies to enable them to carry out energy retrofits on their buildings starting on Oct. 1.

Greening target

Singapore, a city-state of just under 700 square kilometers, has set an ambitious target of greening 80 percent of its buildings by 2030.

Since April 2008, the Building and Construction Authority (the government agency responsible for the built environment and green building policies in Singapore) had required new buildings to meet a minimum environmental sustainability standard. The Ministry of National Development is set to amend the Building Control Act to extend the minimum Green Mark standards to existing buildings as and when they are retrofitted, making Singapore one of the first few countries in the world to mandate such standards for existing buildings.

DRAINAGE modules have high-volume water capture and transport. Photo by Tessa R. Salazar

Besides meeting minimum standards, Singapore’s buildings are required to operate at the optimum performance level to reap the most benefits out of their retrofits. Thus, owners would be required to conduct a thrice-yearly audit on their buildings’ cooling systems.

For energy monitoring purposes, BCA would also require utility companies and building owners to submit energy consumption and energy-related data. In 2009, BCA launched a $100-million Green Mark Incentive scheme to encourage owners of existing buildings to upgrade their equipment and carry out retrofits in order to achieve the Green Mark certification.

Chuan-Jin said Singapore’s building sector constitutes about a third of the country’s total electricity consumption, second to the industry sector which accounts for 40 percent of the total electricity consumption. He also said Singapore’s existing buildings make up more than 95 percent of Singapore’s building stock, and that there is much potential to improve their energy efficiency to contribute to Singapore’s carbon abatement.

He added that energy costs constitute 20 to 40 percent of the total operating cost of a typical building. “The more energy is conserved in our buildings, the lower the operating costs, all other things being equal.”

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No. 1 copier working on a paper-free world

By: Paolo G. Montecillo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

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THE TREND of becoming “green” in the workplace has taken most companies, both in the developed and developing world, quite literally by storm.

The frequent typhoons in the Pacific and hurricanes in North America remind everyone of the phenomenon now known as global warming, all caused by the world’s seven billion people not paying attention when their gradeschool teachers taught the three Rs-reduce, reuse, recycle-in class.

But the people behind the brand “Xerox” are determined to turn offices and homes around the world haspaper-free and environmentally friendly as possible.

“We are one of the members of society, so we have to give back for the benefit of everyone, especially our customers,” says Iwao Abe, president of Fuji Xerox Philippines in a recent meeting with Inquirer editors.

Now, it may sound perplexing to some Xerox, which is on the prestigious list of companies whose brand names have become synonymous for whatever it is they do (i.e., Colgate = toothpaste), wants people to use less paper.

After all, their entire business model revolves around people making as much copies of documents as they possibly can, and using endless reams paper every day. Are they trying to lose money on purpose?

The answer, if you have to ask, is no. Fuji Xerox isn’t trying to dig its own grave by turning its original business model on its head.

Like most companies that have lasted half a century, and there aren’t that many, Fuji Xerox has evolved.

“It’s good that our name is synonymous with copying, but it also makes it hard for us because we do much more than that now,” Abe says as a manufacturer of documents management hardware and software. While the act of printing out documents will remain an integral part of any workplace, Abe says the company believes that much is still wasted by printing and copying unnecessarily.

The company’s full line of products in the Philippines include digital printing and publishing systems, digital multifunctional devices and copiers, document management software, supplies and comprehensive document management services.

Aside from other big players such as Canon and Ricoh joining the photocopying game that Xerox once monopolized, the company says it has been a pioneer in coming out with new technology that not only reduces a client’s carbon footprint but cuts expenses as well.

“What’s important for customers nowadays is the total cost of ownership. Then, they want to improve productivity and security,” Abe says. “On top of that, green technology is something people are now paying attention too.”

Many tasks in offices, the company says, no longer require printing documents. Sending out memos, circulating approval forms that need to be signed, and even faxing from one office to another can all be done electronically, the company says.

The company also offers document storage services, which allow firms to do away with stacking boxes full of old printed quarterly presentations and other useless reports, leaving all that shelf space for more important things like picture frames and toys that come with happy meals.

In the country, one of the company’s major markets in the Asia-Pacific region, the company recently launched its new Eco SITE, which stands for its Ecology Showroom, Innovation and Information Center, Technology and Technical center and Education and Environment center.

The Eco SITE, located at the company’s local office on Ayala Avenue in Makati, serves as a training facility cum innovation center where clients can learn about the technical aspects of Fuji Xerox’s products, and how each device can be optimized inside a workplace.

The Eco SITE, which cost P30 million to put up, is equipped with training facilities to allow customers to train, simulate and execute different business tasks.

The goal, the company says, “is to reduce the environmental impact of our activities.”

“Through this, we encourage and inspire our customers and business partners to go green,” the company says. Abe adds it’s by using technology like that offered by Fuji Xerox that companies can balance their desire to grow profits with the need to curb global warming.

But despite the world’s concerted efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses to protect the environment, Abe says there is still a long way to go.

“The percentage of documents being printed is declining, but the actual amount of paper that is being used is still growing,” he says.

Abe adds Fuji Xerox wants to be one of the leaders in the global push for sustainability. The Eco SITE itself is built using environment friendly materials. About 28 percent of its carpet is made of recycled materials. Even more recycled ingredients went into the mix to make the Eco SITE’s walls and even the soundproofing.

The Eco SITE also promotes more obvious environmental-friendly practices in offices that anyone can do. For instance, none of the site’s projector screens are electronically operated, saving power.

He states companies, and more importantly, the government, should also include green policies in their procurement procedures. “In Japan, companies and the government require suppliers to be green,” Abe says, noting that businesses with smaller carbon footprints already have an automatic edge when vying for lucrative contracts and supply deals.

With its environment-friendly equipment, Abe says Fuji Xerox expects to grow its business significantly in the next few years. Another factor is the fact that the Asia-Pacific region is now one of the fastest-growing parts of the world.

The Philippines will be part of that growth, being the company’s third-largest market in Southeast Asia. “We’ve been growing 20 percent in the Philippines every year for the last three years,” Abe says.