THE IMPACT OF GREEN BUILDING CONTRACTS ON THE TRANSFORMATION OF CONSTRUCTION LAW

Abstract

The Green Building movement has garnered considerable speed in Singapore’s construction industry, representing an unprecedented shift towards the creation of a sustainable built environment. With this development comes the need for traditional building contracts to address the unique objectives of green building projects. However, will these objectives markedly alter the contract provisions to such an extent that Singapore’s construction law is transformed in its entirety? There is currently a very limited amount of literature on this issue in a local context, as well as a virtual shortage of local litigation to provide precedent. This dissertation thus aims to understand the magnitude of transformation that green building contracts would bring to construction law and practice on a global scale, and then to apply this understanding in a local context. It will first study the emerging trends in green building contracts, based on commentaries by industry experts, to draw a comparison between traditional contract provisions and those specifically required by green building projects. Then, the dissertation will provide an evaluation of the degree of transformation these green building contract provisions elicit on the fabric of contract law and practice for construction. Data was primarily collected from legal journals, documents and relevant articles pertaining to green building contracts, with a purposeful omission of legal cases in its scope. What this dissertation found was that whilst the green building movement in Singapore would undoubtedly lead to remarkable changes in design and construction technology, this does not necessitate a proportional change in the framework of contract law.