Green Building Masterplans

The launch of the BCA Green Mark scheme in 2005 formed the backbone of Singapore’s first Green Building Masterplan, which encouraged, enabled and engaged industry stakeholders in adopting new green buildings. The Green Building Masterplan, which was first rolled out in 2006, has also been continually updated since its inception. The first edition targeted new buildings, to encourage developers to embed sustainability as part of a building’s life cycle from the onset. As the Built Environment sector began to embrace the idea of sustainable buildings, BCA expanded its reach to target the greening of the larger stock of existing buildings and engage building occupants to change their energy consumption behaviour. The target is to have “at least 80% of buildings (by floor area) in Singapore to be green by 2030”.

BCA also launched the Super Low Energy (SLE) Building programme in 2018 to encourage firms to go beyond the existing Green Mark Platinum standards and push the envelope of environmental sustainability in Singapore. 

Singapore Green Building Masterplan (SGBMP)

BCA and the Singapore Green Building Council* have worked together to develop the next edition of the SGBMP together with industry stakeholders and the community. In 2020, we asked more than 5,000 people about their thoughts on green buildings and have considered the views in the final recommendations of the masterplan. The key findings and suggestions are summarised in the SGBMP Public Engagement Report and Infographic. We would like to thank everyone for their support and participation in the development of the masterplan.

The SGBMP captures our collective commitment to pursue more ambitious sustainability standards in our Built Environment. Launched in March 2021, the SGBMP is part of the Singapore Green Plan 2030.
* The Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC) enables sustainability across the building and construction value chain, championing capability development and innovative solutions that support industry transformation through their members, certification and outreach programmes. The repository of proven green building solutions helps to enable green procurement in the industry, profiling leading and innovative solutions that go towards building a greener, healthier built environment. Together with a growing pool of members across the built-environment value chain and industry-recognised Green Mark Accredited Professionals, SGBC addresses every touchpoint of the green building ecosystem. 

The SGBMP aims to deliver three key targets of “80-80-80 in 2030”.

1) Stepping up the pace to green 80% of our buildings by 2030

• The earlier editions of the Green Building Masterplan had set a target of greening 80% of Singapore’s buildings (by gross floor area, GFA) by 2030. As of end 2022, close to 55% of Singapore’s buildings have been greened.
• To step up the greening of buildings, BCA will identify all buildings in the building energy performance data that it publishes, starting with commercial buildings in October 2021. Owners of existing buildings will be able to benchmark their buildings’ energy performance against similar building types and take the necessary steps to improve energy performance.
• In order to future-proof our building stock, BCA has also raised the mandatory environmental sustainability standards for new buildings and existing buildings that undergo major retrofit. This includes raising minimum energy performance requirements and introducing mandatory sustainable construction practices. These steps will help lower the carbon footprint of our buildings. These changes has taken effect from 1 December 2021.
• BCA has updated the Green Mark scheme to raise energy performance standards and place greater emphasis on other important sustainability outcomes such as designing for maintainability, reducing embodied carbon across a building's life cycle, and creating healthier environments for building users. The Green Mark 2021 scheme is aligned with the United Nations' Sustainability Development Goals.
• To raise the energy performance of existing buildings, BCA launched an enhanced $63 million cash incentive scheme, Green Mark Incentive Scheme for Existing Buildings 2.0 (GMIS-EB 2.0), to help building owners lower the upfront capital cost of energy efficiency retrofits who achieve higher energy performance standards (i.e. Platinum, Super Low Energy, and Zero Energy) for their buildings. The scheme is available from 30 June 2022 till the available funds have been fully committed or by 31 March 2027 (whichever is earlier).

2) 80% of new developments by GFA to be Super Low Energy (SLE) buildings from 2030

• Since 2006, the public sector has been taking the lead on environmental sustainability by requiring new public sector buildings to attain Green Mark certification, including Green Mark Platinum for new buildings with air-conditioned area exceeding 5,000 sqm.
• Under the GreenGov.SG initiative, the Government will take the lead in bringing Super Low Energy buildings into the mainstream. All new and existing buildings (upon major retrofit) are to achieve Green Mark Platinum Super Low Energy standards or equivalent, where feasible. BCA will also be exploring further measures to drive adoption of Super Low Energy buildings in the private sector.
• BCA, together with industry associations and agencies, have developed a new Super Low Energy standard for residential buildings, as part of Green Mark 2021. This new standard will be awarded to best-in-class energy performing residential buildings that achieve at least 60% improvement in energy efficiency over 2005 levels and help us to achieve our 2^nd target for SGBMP.
• To drive SLE adoption in private developments, developers and building owners can enjoy a bonus GFA incentive for delivering higher-tier Construction Industry Transformation Map (ITM) outcomes in private sector developments under the Built Environment Transformation Gross Floor Area Incentive Scheme. Launched in Nov 2021, buildings that achieve Green Mark Platinum Super Low Energy with Maintainability Badge, alongside other productivity, digitalisation and quality outcomes can enjoy up to 3% bonus GFA allowed beyond the Master Plan Gross Plot Ratio (GPR) under this scheme.
• In addition, the sustainability standards set for projects developed on land sold under the Government Land Sales (GLS) programme sites have been enhanced to further drive energy efficiency and carbon reduction from June 2022.

3) Achieving 80% improvement in energy efficiency for best-in-class green buildings by 2030

• Today, best-in-class buildings are able to achieve over 70% improvement in energy efficiency over 2005 levels.

• BCA aims to raise this figure to 80% by 2030 through the Green Buildings Innovation Cluster (GBIC) programme. Established in 2014, GBIC supports the development and demonstration of innovative energy efficient technologies and solutions with high potential to be widely adopted.
• To push the boundaries of energy efficiency in buildings, BCA provides enhanced funding of $45 million for the GBIC programme. The enhanced programme, GBIC 2.0, targets key demand drivers, such as building owners and developers, and their value chains to co-create and accelerate solutions and commercialisation through industry partnerships. Research areas under GBIC 2.0 include developing alternative cooling technologies, data driven smart building solutions and next generation building ventilation. GBIC 2.0 is available for applications by industry and research communities from 2Q 2022. 

These initiatives will help us transit to a more sustainable, low-carbon Built Environment.  Let us continue to ‘Build Our Green Future Together’!