PREFERENCES AND WILLINGNESS-TO-PAY FOR VERTICAL GREENERY SYSTEMS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Due to the rising numbers of developments in a land scarce and densely built environment like Singapore, it is crucial for the Singapore government to incorporate greenery into its landscape strategically. Considering this, the Singapore government has been encouraging the incorporation of skyrise greenery in buildings and targets to achieve 200 hectares of skyrise greenery by 2030. Despite the informed push to adopt Vertical Greenery Systems (VGS), the adoption of VGS is not as high as expected in Singapore. In addition, very few studies have explored the views of building stakeholders towards the adoption of VGS in Singapore, and the influence of different VGS benefits on their spending decisions to install VGS. Therefore, this research study conducted choice experiment to find out building stakeholders’ preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for VGS. It also seeks to investigate whether there is a relationship between different demographic background and their WTP for VGS. Based on the results, most of the building stakeholders agreed that VGS provide the benefits of reducing air temperature, removing air pollutants, reducing energy cooling demand, improving aesthetic appeal and reducing stress level. However, they were mostly willing to pay more for the benefits of reducing stress level, reducing energy cooling demand and improving aesthetic appeal as compared to reducing air temperature and removing air pollutants. Demographic background was found to have no strong relationship with their WTP for VGS.