A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BCA-GREEN MARK AND GREEN RATING SYSTEMS IN ASIA-PACIFIC

Abstract

Environmental sustainability had been widely publicised in recent decades. Building stakeholders are steadily embracing this agenda as part of their corporate strategy to optimize cost efficiency and gain a competitive advantage over their counterparts. Such fast-growing prominence had led to an array of policies, innovative technologies and a thriving green building industry in Singapore. The development of green rating systems is one outcome of this green movement. In Singapore, the Building and Construction Authority had developed the Green Mark (BCA-GM) for Non-Residential Buildings Version 4.1. Till date, it had undergone several revisions in an attempt to keep up with the rapidly changing green movement. However, the stringency of BCA-GM credits as compared to other rating systems in the Asia-Pacific region remained skeptical. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a comparative study between BCA-GM and 2 other rating systems – i.e. Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency (CASBEE) and Green Star to discover existing gaps in the former and to recognize areas where Singapore had superseded its counterparts. Credits from CASBEE and Green Star which BCA-GM failed to consider will be identified and further evaluated for its potential for tropicalisation. Subsequently, a case study will be conducted to affirm their benefits. The study revealed 3 areas requiring improvement, namely; the consideration of operational realities, minimizing the impacts of tenants operation on building performance and expanding the IEQ category. A total of 9 credits that addresses the above were put up as recommendations. Lastly, the limitation of this study and opportunities for future work were provided.