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The former United States Vice-President, and environmental activist, Al Gore’s 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”, was a clarion call to fight global warming. His apocalyptic words“humanity is sitting on a time bomb” grabbed the world’s attention. The car industry jolted into action and responded by developing more hybrid and electric vehicles that have become increasingly popular worldwide. International public awareness of climate change increased significantly and the environmental movement was re-energized overnight.
STORY BY Anita Othman.
Though he did not delve into the topic of environmentally friendly buildings, buildings contribute up to one-third of green-house gas emissions and use more than 40% of global energy, according to a 2009 report of the United Nations Environment Program on ‘Buildings and Climate Change’. Failure to design energy-efficient and low-carbon emitting solutions into a building from the start, means that a building will be environmentally unfriendly for decades. It becomes clear that only a well-designed building can be a a sustainable building. But is what is a sustainable building? According to the International Financial Corporation, the World Bank’s financing arm, a “green building” or “sustainable building” combines design and technology, usually using renewable energy systems, to meet the needs of the occupants with very low or even zero carbon emissions.
While standards and green building codes vary from country to country, some terms have become widely understood across the world. ‘Passive houses’ for example, are houses that maintain a comfortable interior climate without active heating and cooling systems. Their additional energy requirements may be completely covered using renewable energy sources. Zero-energy buildings on the other hand, are buildings where energy provided by on-site renewable energy sources is equal to the energy used by the building. In addition, energy can be stored on site, in batteries or thermal storage. Zero energy buildings still need to be connected to the main electricity grid, due to fluctuations in energy demand, especially as some buildings will produce more energy in the summer and use more in the winter. One such example is the Malaysia Energy Centre’s (Pusat Tenaga Malaysia) headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.
Completed in 2007, it is perhaps the world’s first carbon neutral and zero net energy commercial-scale office building. Some of its key features include the use of ‘Daylighting’ - the practice of placing windows or other openings and reflective surfaces so that during the day natural light provides effective internal lighting. It also makes use of a ‘Building Envelope’ which is physical separator between the interior and the exterior environments of a building. It serves as the outer shell to help maintain the indoor environment and facilitate its climate control.