by Ir. Leong Siew Meng (adapted from the cover story authored by Suvarna Ooi, published in the June 2010 edition of the Institution of Engineers, Malaysia (IEM) monthly bulletin “Jurutera”)
The word “Green” has evolved to become a buzz word in many sectors of industries and businesses. For example, green products, green technology, green labelling, green economy, green growth, green buildings, etc. Since the launch and introduction of Green Building Index (GBI) on 21 May 2009, there has been greater awareness now on green buildings in the country. The first certified green building in the country is the GreenTech Malaysia (formerly known as Pusat Tenaga Malaysia) office building (also known as the Green Environment Office or GEO building) located in Bangi, Selangor. This building has the lowest building energy intensity (BEI) in the country at 65 kWh/m2/year compared to most conventional commercial buildings with a BEI of between 200 to 300 kWh/m2/year. This building has demonstrated that substantial energy savings can be achieved through purposeful and guided design considerations at the outset and application of current technology. However, energy efficient buildings are still few and far between.
From the interview with Ir. Chen Thiam Leong conducted by Suvarna Ooi as reported in the cover story entitled Building Green: Challenges Faced by Engineers and published in the June 2010 edition of the Institution of Engineers, Malaysia (IEM) monthly bulletin “Jurutera”, there are various challenges faced by local engineers. Ir. Chen stated that the first challenge faced by local engineers is the need to change their mindset to take cognizance that they can take the lead in building green buildings and not be confined to their respective narrow scope of technical per se. He explained that, to be recognized and accepted for such ability, engineers must be prepared to continually update their knowledge and discard conservative and safe approaches.
To do so, many local engineers will need to shed their ‘cut and paste’ reputation, which they have been practising for decades and which, unfortunately, had been imparted to the new generation of engineers. Ir. Chen elaborated that such examples exist in many buildings ranging from the ‘cut and paste’ use of colonial dated specifications to full-scale copying of latest foreign designs, specifications or practices without localized modifications to suit the local climate and conditions.
However, Ir. Chen acknowledged that there are also local engineers who have kept up with the ‘green wave’ developments and excelled in their quest to become industry leaders in building green. It is unfortunate that most of these pioneers tend to ply their trade and expertise overseas because the local market is either not ready or due to the prevalence of the dreaded ‘Gucci Syndrome’.
Ir. Chen reiterated that the effort to build green was also affected by the lackadaisical attitude of engineers in the building industry due to the lack of opportunities (often as the result of a non quality-based selection process), unconvinced owners, and unappreciative owners and project team members. This was compounded by the proliferation of low expertise, low awareness or even non-quality service providers courtesy of the lax legal qualification requirements over the past decades.
In addition, local engineers were often relegated to be backroom members of the design or project team, which is traditionally led by the architect, and is thus, subject to the architect’s leadership in building green. “There are not enough green building champions especially amongst the traditionally subdued local engineers who prefer not to venture outside of their safe domain”.
Ir. Chen further contended that another challenge faced by local engineers is the lack of good and passionate leadership in engineering bodies to strive for excellence in the various engineering fields. He felt that this is because there has been a tendency for engineering organizations to duplicate effort rather than address other neglected areas of engineering to complement each other’s progress.
He said, “The BEM’s (Board of Engineers, Malaysia) mandatory fee structure had also unwittingly discouraged innovation. For example, with fee payment based on the percentage of engineering installation costs, designing for natural ventilation or daylighting equates to zero engineering installation costs, hence zero fee payment’.
Public awareness of the need for sustainable developments still remains low. From a commercial standpoint, the impact of benefits arising from sustainable developments has yet been fully comprehended. On the other hand, the perception of high incremental costs on sustainable developments prevails in the public including some professionals. This had, in turn, led to a low market demand for green buildings. Ir. Chen also believes that the populist policy of maintaining low energy tariffs has obviously contributed to the hitherto lacklustre progress of energy efficient buildings, which would otherwise have spurred the growth of green buildings much earlier as sustainable buildings have been developed since the nineties.
OVERCOMING CHALLENGES
One favourite quote of Ir. Chen’s is, “Engineers can even build you a bridge to the moon – it is a matter of cost and time, aka value for money”. With this in mind, he believes that all the aforementioned challenges can be overcome with ease provided the engineering fraternity and industry look at the bigger picture.
To begin with, Ir. Chen stressed that local engineers need to come out of their comfort zone and rejuvenate their passion for the engineering discipline. To achieve this, they must be ready to embrace and adopt cutting edge technologies in their designs and approach with sound engineering judgment. This applies to all facets of the engineering profession be it the consulting engineers, contractors, manufacturers, vendors, academicians, etc.
He further stressed that the urgency for this approach is especially critical for service providers (consulting engineers) as they must innovate or risks being sidelined when the services industry is fully open to the world in 2012.
In addition, local engineering organizations must also learn to complement their resources of duplicating less demanding effort at the expense of other more challenging fields. The respective roles must be diligently pursued to maximize the advancement of engineering.
Ir. Chen said, “There is so much to be done to safeguard our environment for the future and there is simply no time to waste as we need to progress from green buildings to green townships and a green built nation”.
BUILDING GREEN: GOING FORWARD
In Southeast Asia, Singapore was the first country to develop a Code of Practice on Energy efficiency for the building industry. This was closely followed by Thailand and Malaysia. However, for a green building rating system, Singapore was the first to adopt such a system in 2005 followed by Malaysia in 2009. While Thailand is still finding its footing, Indonesia has approached Malaysia for advice and the experts from the Green Building Index Malaysia conducted a “train the trainers” programme in Jakarta in July 2010.
The green building movement in Malaysia is certainly gaining momentum and adoption in tandem with its growth, affordability and readiness, amongst other factors. Ir. Chen adds, “We could have perhaps started 2 to 3 years earlier, but that delay has now been more than adequately mitigated with our accelerated progress over the past 12 months”.
In the global scenario, Ir. Chen lauded the Malaysian government’s effort in providing generous tax exemption incentives for green buildings. He said, “At the November 2009 World Green Building Council conference, our GBI representatives were given a standing ovation when we related the incentives given by the Malaysian government, which has set a benchmark for others to emulate”.
With such fiscal incentives, he believes that Malaysia’s effort to build green is in a position to surpass the initial pace of many other countries. Ir. Chen is confident that Malaysia have the expertise to further develop and maintain the green building rating tools that suit our country’s needs. Together with MGBC (Malaysia Green Building Confederation), GBI are embarking on strategies to accelerate the necessary training, implementation and scope for a comprehensive sustainable built environment.
Due to the poor publicity accorded to the engineering profession, many iconic buildings are associated with the architects involved but never the engineers behind the scene. For example, Ir. Chen pointed out that many people were not aware that one of the country’s award winning buildings, designed by local engineers, is the first building in the world to implement an UFAD (Under Floor Air-conditioning Distribution) system with a totally ductless and non insulated raised floor plenum exceeding 600 m2 per cooling zone. This achievement is certainly notable as worldwide practice limits ductless cooling zone to no more than 300 m2 and many experts believe that a non-insulated UFAD air plenum in an equatorial climate application may not be possible due to condensation issues.
Ir. Chen said, “Now that we have set a benchmark, the world is learning from us. Unfortunately, it is also common knowledge that many of our own local engineers remain ignorant of the home success, courtesy of their ‘cut and paste’ attitude and adoption of zero risk approaches”.
Local engineers should learn, improve, modify and localize for implementation wherever feasible. Likewise, Ir. Chen felt that it would be a challenge to local engineers to adopt a mind-set change by being prepared to share their knowledge and experience for others to improve upon and for them to in turn gain from the improved versions of others. He said, “Whilst local engineers can and should certainly learn from advanced countries who definitely gain from their better R&D facilities and opportunities, it is also time for us to encourage our local R&D”.
According to him, the government has already given the best incentives in terms of full ‘green cost’ tax exemptions until the end of 2014. He also pointed out that there are also other incentives that can help to further accelerate building green for which some local authorities are beginning to implement, such as increased development density.
Ir. Chen opined that the next stage would be to extend incentives to end users to ensure sustenance of green buildings. A viable proposition would be a reduction in assessment rates to reward such buildings which, after all, will produce less waste and less pollution and hence cost the local authorities less to maintain.
Being the largest building owners, he believes that the government could lead the effort by greening all their existing building stock and stipulating all their new buildings to be green rated. He added that the government’s assistance is also needed to fairly ‘reward’ new green building owners in terms of reduction in capital cost contribution for utilities, such as the water concessionaires, sewerage concessionaires, etc.
In addition to this, the industry and public at large should also take responsibility for building green. They should not merely wait for or rely on government incentives or leadership in many other related areas including eco-labelling of products, advancing recycling and landfill facilities, developing more reuse material products and so forth.
Simply put, Ir. Chen believes that there are plenty of challenges and opportunities for engineers in the green built industry. He added that engineers will inevitably play a crucial role if the earth is to survive as mankind may not be willing to sacrifice all the luxury and comfort they have been accustomed to.