Green Building Development in the Philippines

The trend emerging these days in building structures is the development of design solutions that can be a sort of medicine to impending environmental illness. Researching about these design solutions can take up a lot of time as many parameters are to be considered. Some researchers started studying from building materials to design strategies and concepts. Crawford, et al. (2011) concluded that the ranking of assemblies appears to provide an appropriate approach for streamlining the selection of construction elements during the building design process. The concept of “Net Zero Energy Building” was also a research solution wherein Photovoltaire, micro-combined heat and power off-site windmill, share of a windmill farm and purchase of green energy from one hundred percent renewable utility grid were the discovered solutions (Marszal, et al., 2012). While most researchers focused on investigating building materials as solutions, they likewise promote the concept of passive buildings. The said concept was discovered to use significantly less heating energy and offer slightly better indoor conditions (Mahdavi and Doppelbauen, 2010).

Several studies have focused on researches about design solutions as a remedy to the growing problems of climate change. However, only few have started implementing such design solutions, particularly green building in the Philippines. Some of those few are the developers of high-end malls, condominiums and recreation centers. Undeniably, the use of green building as a design solution has significant contributions to the field of architecture in the Philippines.

The Philippines is a tropical country. With the country’s current condition, it was not spared from the tremendous effects of climate change and global warming. Significant increase in temperature is being experienced in the Philippines, most especially in urban areas where buildings have crowded the cities. Tony Arnel, the Chairman of the World Green Building Council said, “The building sector, which consumes as much as 40 percent of the world’s energy, 12 percent of its water and contributes 40 percent of the waste sent to landfill, is a major part of this problem. However, the building sector can be an even bigger part of the solution.” This is the reason why the concept of green building is introduced.

Many researchers prove that green building or the so-called sustainable architecture has a significant contribution to the environment, particularly in the protection and preservation of our natural resources. However, it is also interesting to know why until now, with all those positive feedbacks, still few embrace the concept of green building in the Philippines. It is also important to take note of green building’s feasibility when it comes to production cost and availability and resources. Moreover, green building’s negative impacts, if there are any are not highlighted in most researches. Some developers like DMCI have already started incorporating sustainable architecture in some parts of their building designs to provide natural insulation and heat reduction.

In early 2006, a group of environmental advocates and business leaders convened to form the Philippine Green Building Council or the PHILGBC with the realization that an organization is needed to promote greener buildings and coordinate efforts to sustainability. PHILGBC is taking the lead in ensuring an ecologically and economically sustainable industry with the development of a local rating green building rating system, aptly named Building for Ecologically Responsive Design Excellence (BERDE), and with its conference series, Building

Green, which is an avenue for showcasing sustainability and green technologies and practices to the industry. 

The Philippine Green Building Council is a national not-for-profit organization that promotes the sharing of knowledge on green practices to the property industry to ensure a sustainable environment. The Council is an alliance of building and construction industry leaders from both the public and private sectors that shall be the non-partisan venue to develop a nationally accepted and recognized green building rating standard. This alone proves that there is already an improvement here in the Philippines but then again, why is it still not widely accepted?

The purpose of this study is to carefully examine the development of green building here in the Philippines. It also looks into the different factors as to why the concept of green building is not yet widely accepted and/or implemented here in the Philippines. This will enable the Philippine developers to be more knowledgeable about green building. It will show the pros and cons of this concept. Also, after the presentation of the reasons why it is not widely accepted here, certain recommendations will be made to further help the developers find solutions or alternatives.

The study will focus on BERDE news and PHILGBC data. Since these two, charts or records any improvement on green building, it is a good and reliable reference for data for the research. The prediction is that, not even 20 buildings constructed or still constructing is utilizing the concepts of green building here in the Philippines. The second hypothesis is that, the number one reason why it is not being utilized in the Philippines is that developers cannot afford the materials to be used or are not willing to provide the amount of money to buy the materials. The last hypothesis is that there is a lack in materials that are directly accessible within the country.

Group 6

Dela Cruz, James Gallardo, EdwardCortado, JoanLokenab, IrmaTumbaga, AimerUmhao, Kline

References

Crawford, R.H., Czerniakowski, I. & Fuller R.J. (2011). A comprehensive model for streamlining low-energy building design. Energy and Buildings, 43(7). 1748-1756.

Mahdavi, A., Dopplebauer, E.M. (2010). A performance comparison of passive and low-energyBuildings. Energy and Buildings, 42(8). 1314-1319.

Marszal, A.J., Heiselberg, P., Jensen, R.L. & Norgaard, J. (2012). On-site or off-site renewableenergy supply options? Life cycle cost analysis of a Net Zero Energy Building inDenmark.Renewable Energy,44. 154-165.

Philippine Green Building Council. Retrieved on May14, 2014 from http://kmcmaggroup.com/about-us/company-overview/memberships/pgbc/

Samer M. (2013). Towards the implementation of the green building concept in agriculturalbuildings: a literature review. Agric Eng Int: CIGR Journal, 15(2). 25-26.