Building Green - The Government Forum

“UK and the Philippines: Working Towards the Development of BERDE – The National Green Building
Rating System”
Makati Shangri-La, Manila

Speech by Christopher Cruz de la Cruz, Chairman and President, PHILGBC

January 26, 2010

In the past one hundred years, building technology in this country ceased to move

forward. In the past one hundred years, we had continuously extracted from the

environment resources at a very rapid rate with the belief that nature will continually

provide us everything we need for us to enjoy life as we work, live, and play.

One hundred years ago, the population of the Philippines is roughly the population of

Metro Manila today. One hundred years ago, we roughly had ten times more than the

resources we have today.

With these in mind, we must recognize that we cannot continue what we have been

doing in the past one hundred years. We are to recognize that today, it is primordial for

us to reduce consumption and natural resource extraction. There is a great demand,

and need for us to ensure that we accelerate drastically the uptake of resource

efficiency measures. Today, we need to reduce the use of energy, the generation of air

and water pollution, efficiently manage solid waste and reduce carbon emissions.
At present, the property sector scales up its effort in incorporating green building as part

of their business development agenda. This is in response to a market that is becoming

sophisticated and demands innovation, particularly in the area of sustainability. The

market is responding positively to green building because of its promise of ecological

and economical benefits. In order to survive in today’s market, industry believes that

there is a clear and present need to transform the way buildings are designed, built, and

operated.

Today we are shoulder to shoulder, with the champions in government who early

enough recognized the need to move forward sustainably. We will gather their insight

on how they believe the sustainability effort should be directed.

With the mandate to provide basic services, government has been a major and

consistent contributor to the demand of new building stock. Buildings for new offices,

education, recreation and healthcare facilities are continually designed and built to keep

up with the demands of an ever increasing population. How will government use this

opportunity in promoting green building? Will it mandate all government projects to go

green? Is the government open to the utilization of third party certification tools to

assess the performance of government building projects?

With the industry going green, there will be less demand for new infrastructure. Less

waste will translate to fewer landfills. More energy efficient buildings may mean less

demand to build a new power plant. Green building will enable the government save

taxpayers’ money. Will this lead to tax incentives for greener buildings?
The Philippines needs to meet international agreements that mandate our industry to

achieve deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions at an acceptable level. This

involves significant investments on the part of the private sector. These investments

are needed to procure the necessary technologies to achieve high levels of efficiency in

energy. The technology is available now, but the question is – Is government providing

an investment atmosphere that will enable the private sector feel secure with their

investments? Are there enough financing mechanisms in the marketplace that will

enable industry to ably procure energy efficient technologies?

In the past decade, in an effort to seriously address the environmental challenges we

face, the government pushed forward with a series of environmental regulatory reform.

However, with the sustainability dialogue rapidly shifting to climate issues and

recognized that the building sector is major contributor to climate change - Is the

government ready to step in and focus its efforts in putting in place policies that shall

steer industry towards green building?

This Conference is a platform for meaningful dialogue between industry and

government. The importance of this discussion cannot be understated. Together, we

need to advocate, craft, and implement green building programs, policies and initiatives

to address the environmental challenges that lie ahead.

The public sector’s challenge lies in the creation of a policy mix that is both regulatory

and voluntary. We need a government that will set new mandatory minimums to

stimulate a lethargic market - for a market that hesitates or refuses to go green, despite

the imperatives of our time. On the other hand, we should also strive to work on a
healthy voluntary policy that is incentives based and recognition driven that is also

proven to increase demand for greener buildings.

Further, we need to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of existing regulations in

the building sector whether these support sustainable transformation. All these, we all

hope to achieve, starting today.

Furthermore, it is increasingly paramount, in the interest of trade, the need to address

the challenge of creating a common and consistent framework for green building

standards, programs and legislation across all national departments and agencies, and

local governments.

An effective green building framework that is ecologically and economically sound and

socially justified.

Today, the PHILGBC declares BERDE – the National Green Building Rating System -

now issued for comment. In the final stages of development we encourage you, our

stakeholders, to take part in the development of this market transformation tool.

Developed as a third party, consensus–driven, market-based sustainability tool, it may

be utilized and made part of public policy to rapidly accelerate the promotion and

development of greener buildings. Developed in partnership with the nation’s most

respectable corporations, professional and industry groups, academe and government;

the PHILGBC hopes that BERDE merits the government’s attention and that it is utilized
to ensure a common and consistent assessment and evaluation of green buildings

nationwide.

The road to sustainability is not easy, and the effects of climate change are increasingly

felt. There is an unprecedented need for the public and private sector to work together

in ensuring that our children will also enjoy this planet, as we have.

The Philippine Green Building Council welcomes you to be part of the transformation.