The Green Building: Issues, Approach and Implementation

Sustainable development is the new trend in the world due to the need of human’s responsibilities to the environment, and green building in construction industry is also a part of this. However, this area is still a new thing for developing countries as Vietnam. There are many people talking about the green or sustainability but it’s very difficult to understand it thoroughly, what is it really and how to implement in each case.

At present, the demand and force of developing a green building is high.

Basically, the concept and guidelines for green building are very good but there are some reasons and factors that affect the projects which are the following:

1.       The market

2.      Finance

3.      Politics

4.      The resource

5.      The techniques, technologies and system

6.      The real-life experience

           

The aim of the green building is to reduce the negative impact to the environment. In other word, it’s also to conserve the natural resource. In order to achieve this aims, the projects must be designed as well as it can maximize the energy saving and minimize the cost for construction by using less energy & water.

As the result, all stakeholders of the project need to understand thoroughly what the green is and how to implement it during the project life cycle – especially from the concept to design stages that will affect strongly the next stages.

Furthermore, one building can only be called the green once it is certificated by an independent third party with a rating system.

Nguyen Huynh Trung Hai made a case study which objectives were to:

So in this report, the objectives of this study are:

1.       identify what drives green projects

2.      understand the basis of popular green building rating systems – especially the BCA Green Mark system (Singapore)

3.      study barriers and benefits of green building project in Vietnam; and to suggest the solutions for the barriers.

4.      propose a framework to implement green building in Vietnam.

Conclusions

1. The Green building in Vietnam construction industry

Based on all issues and problems, it can be said that green building will be the trend and good strategy for all developers, consultants and others in Vietnam.  The benefits that can get with green buildings are as follows:

1. long-term economic

2. productivity

3. the marketing

Moreover, the biggest benefits are the good supporting for environment and health for people’s working and living.

For BCA Green Mark’s (Singapore) green building assessment, it can be considered as a good and suitable system to apply in Vietnam. In BCA, the main requirements and criteria for the building are:

1. Energy efficiency

2. Water efficiency

3. Environmental protection

4. Indoor environment quality

5. Other green feature

2. The challenges in implementing the Green building

          Aside from the benefits mentioned above, the implementation in every country might have different challenges. In Vietnam, it will become more difficult due to lack of the knowledge in terms of technique and technologies because of no previous green building like this.

           Among the challenges, the key issue is the higher cost for the green project. Moreover, at this time, the economy going down, so this issue is really serious and it’s very difficult to attract the investors and others who want to join in the green building. In general, some main barriers in green building are:

1. Lack of technical and technology

2. Initial cost

3. Real life experience and non-educated green for people    

           Therefore, project management and the whole project team should have good project plans to lead the project based on the owner and market needs.

3. What drives green projects?

From the case study and literature review, there are some main factors that will drive the Green building to success such as: the owner’s project requirements and motivation, use the concept of commission and integrated design process, effective execution.

Recommendations

1. For the green building in this report

After studying the theories and the case study with the problems, issues and how to implement the green building in Vietnam, the recommendations for effective green building are as follows:

i) In the developing country as Vietnam, the green building is the new knowledge for most of people. Moreover, within the economic condition, the higher cost will be the serious barrier to attract the developers and other. So the problem is what the way to solve this issue. The most effective solution is the support from the government and community in term of the money. They can be the good tax and special permit with short time approval to encourage the developers and others.

ii) Vietnamese construction law should have the basic requirements to catch up the environment issues as the global trend.

iii) The government and community have to find the way to popularize the green concept for all residence understanding it basically.

iv) With the tropical weather and environment, Vietnam has a lot of natural material such as bamboo, refined brick… with very cheap price, present everyplace and can be reused to avoid the impact to the environment. So we have to consider this in spite of using the import material.

v) Combine the concept of eco-design – more concern about the aspects of architectural design – and the technique, technologies – concern about the mechanical aspect -  will make the green building more effective.

vi) The developer should select the good project team with the green experience and local condition that will affect the project to avoid, reduce and eliminate the risk for the project.

vii) All participants who want to join in the green building should start to think about the green with the long-term benefits. Especially this will be the key for the developers who understand what they want and invest their money directly into the projects.

viii) All project team should study for their own knowledge of the green building.

Finally, the green building requires high quality. Moreover, with very complicated parties involved, the project management and project team should have a clear, concise organization, roles, duties and responsibilities to avoid confusions and conflicts. Otherwise, the overrun of time and cost will happen.

Abstract

Nowadays, the sustainable development is the necessary and urgent trend for the global environment. Acting as one of the main parts of economic, construction industry also take part in responsibility for protecting the environment through the building designed with low-impact to environment. With the green building, there are many benefits to the environment and as the result; it’s also good for human working and living in life. Because of  the limitation of time and scope, this report only try to explore the main issues in the implementation of green building assessment system – especially the BCA Green Mark – in construction environment in Vietnam. Maybe the BCA Green Mark implemented for the case in this study is not popular in the world as other such as LEED, BREEAM, CASBEE… but at least it can explore the typical issues in the green building. From that case, we can learn some helpful lessons and use them as the historical data and references for other green buildings.