GREEN CONSTRUCTION
BEING ONE WITH NATURE
Randima Attygalle surveys the principles governing green buildings
As the World Green Building Council’s (WorldGBC) annual report 2015/16 notes, “buildings are major contributors to climate change” and “green buildings offer one of the most cost-effective solutions to climate change, and can lead to significant environmental, economic and social benefits around the world.”
The U.S. Green Building Council defines a ‘green building’ as an effort to amplify positive and mitigate negative effects on the natural environment. It is further defined as “the planning, design, construction and operations of buildings with several central foremost considerations: energy use, water use, indoor environmental quality, material selection and the building’s effects on its site.”
When 195 countries signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in December 2015, WorldGBC launched its campaign Better Build Green – its most high-profile campaign to date that “showed global leaders, business executives, policymakers and city mayors the vital role green buildings can play in tackling climate change, and delivering immediate environmental, economic and social benefits.”
Green principles have remained an ingrained component of our hydraulic civilisation, which we have sadly lost sight of. As Dr. Locana Gunaratna – a chartered architect at Gunaratna Associates – observes, these green fundamentals of our ancient heritage “provide ecological principles to guide the development of the built environment.”
He notes that a return to the original state of forest cover in the highlands that was adversely disturbed during the British colonial period is no easy task. The growth of urban areas through new construction to accommodate population increases should preferably involve settlement densification versus horizontal expansion, says Gunaratna.
“Steep hill slopes, designated forests and nature reserves including those meant for wildlife should be strictly conserved for their stated purposes, and encroachments should not be tolerated,” he stresses.
Green construction can drastically reduce energy consumption in built environments through climate-sensitive architectural design – usually at no extra cost to the client.
“This can also be done through the use of technological aids involving perhaps a marginal increase in initial construction costs,” Gunaratna explains, citing equipment to trap wind and solar energy for heating and generating electricity as examples.
Harvesting rainwater and ‘green’ ways of disposing ofwaste are also noteworthy.
Although not heirs to an eco-sensitive hydraulic civilisation such as ours, Malaysia and Singapore have taken giant strides in green building construction in recent years, which Gunaratna attributes to “the foresight of professionals, and their farsighted political leaders. They have heeded advice and supported professionals.”
The GreenSL rating system for existing and new buildings is a set of performance standards adopted to certify the operations and maintenance of commercial or institutional buildings of all sizes, both public and private. The objective of these standards, as the Managing Director of Civil & Structural Engineering Consultants Shiromal Fernando explains, is to promote “high-performance, healthy, durable and affordable environmentally sound practices in buildings.”
Prerequisites and credits of the GreenSL rating system address the following: management, sustainable sites, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, innovation and design processes, and social and cultural awareness.
Although the initial cost of green buildings is higher (around 5-10% more) than ordinary construction, the increments are offset by operational savings and can be recovered within five years, Fernando maintains.
In terms of eco-friendly building material suppliers, we have sufficient numbers and the basic construction material is locally sourced, says Fernando, noting that electrical fixtures such as solar panels, low-e glasses and sanitary fittings are largely imported.
Heading into an era of energy and water scarcity, along with the burden of a growing population and climate change, the demand for water practices upheld by green construction is unprecedented.
Unlike our forefathers, we’ve become complacent in water management, says the CEO of Lanka Rain Water Harvesting Forum Dr. Tanuja Ariyananda, who endorses water management and conservation interventions such as rainwater harvesting.
“Modern water-saving interventions such as dual flush, aerated showers and taps with sprays can reduce consumption by around 25 percent with some products cutting usage by 50 percent,” she explains.
Even simple practices such as fixing leaks could save large quantities of water. “A dripping tap can waste 15 litres of water a day, which is the equivalent of 5,500 litres a year,” Ariyananda points out.
Which is why she’s lobbying for tax concessions or rebates on green buildings as a means of promoting them.
Green building concept should be a norm and not a fad. Otherwise the concept won’t be long lived.
It is praiseworthy that even a handful of firms/businesses take effort to go ahead with the green building concept. Currently, what is meant to be of mandatory nature, such as adhering to procedures, reporting with true and fair view, take attention and priority in management concerns. Had there been regulatory standards, such as audit and compliance obligations, the ‘green building’ concept would take off in an orderly manner. Though this concept is about to be on its way to the limelight; its value is still in the shadow as far as table level discussions are concerned.
Energy is a fixed consumption in terms of office space, and cannot be directly attributed to the number of employees or operational volume. Habitually, some managers overlook the marginal incremental cost for the ‘green building concept’ and are tempted to approve budgets on comparatively low building costs. The extra 5-10 percent increase to the initial cost of the building may be seen as a drawback. Thus, they fail to grasp the good – savings on operational costs on utility bills such as electricity & water, as well as the bad – the gravity of utilising more units of energy, especially when energy tariffs are taking an upward turn. This makes adverse variances pile up on operational overheads beyond businesses’ control.
It is not feasible to depend on artificial lighting and air conditioning, especially in a country where an energy crisis already exists and generators are not able to fully match the demand during a power failure.
We expect that lobbyists will make changes for better, with some GBC prerequisites soon be included as mandatory in the local construction industry regulation including the high-rise buildings.
It should be highlighted that the success of GBC remains on a comprehensive and close loop system. This concept is not restricted to merely planning/architectural design, but it also refers to how the green concept should be implemented, monitored and practiced. With GBC, multiple benefits can be gained on many aspects.
Moreover, there may be subtle points that a company would take for granted, such as water consumption from dual flush toilets and leakages. Getting employees to use flush in the right way and monitoring the water consumption against a benchmark is one such method. It is easier said than done, but it is worth the effort and is a responsible task to life on earth.
There would also be a substantial reduction in maintenance costs as well, over time. Another plus is that employees too, get to practice minimising wastage in their day to day life, and spreading the habit of being concerned about their consumption regarding environment and scarcity of natural resources.
Initiatives to embed the GBC into strategies – i.e. structure and polices of a company is one of the greatest social responsibility projects. A green building indirectly contributes to save natural water resources. Those green buildings and its promoters could partner up to save the planet from global warming and climate change.