Buildings account for over 20% of Singapore’s emissions. Lowering their carbon footprint is hence a key strategy to achieve sustainability ambitions under “the Singapore Green Plan 2030”, and to fulfil international commitments on climate change.

The fourth edition of the Singapore Green Building Masterplan, entitled “Build Our Green Future Together”, was announced during the Ministry of National Development’s Committee of Supply debate on 4 March 2021. It is dedicated to creating an industry-leading green built environment to reduce carbon footprint and provide a healthy, livable and sustainable living environment for the public.

The masterplan’s “80-80-80 in 2030” targets are:

• Stepping up the pace to green 80% of buildings (by gross floor area) by 2030
• Having 80% of new developments (by gross floor area) to be Super Low Energy (SLE) buildings from 2030
• Achieving 80% improvement in energy efficiency for best-in-class green buildings by 2030

Smart buildings are the positive catalyst towards green and sustainability, which is a new-generation building incorporating BIM, GIS, Internet of Things, cloud computing, and other technologies. It saves resources and improves energy efficiency while reducing environmental pollution and it also plays an important role in alleviating the current energy shortage. It would be meaningless to have green and smart buildings without merging green and smart technologies.

Smart buildings provide an outstanding application scenario for all users through digital technology and continue to exceed their expectations. As described in SmartSocre White Paper 2021, ‘the four outcomes that users care about are: an inspirational experience, a sustainable building, a cost-efficient building and future-proof by design’. Smart buildings can realize new services, solutions and revenue streams by integrating them into a platform and benefiting from continuous system optimization through data collection and analysis.

Returning for its 5th year, and in collaboration with REDAS, the RICS Smart Buildings Conference comes at an opportune time as we step into new ways of working. As countries’ gates reopen with economic rebound, buildings are standing out again, paving the way to more robust discussions and strategies towards sustainability. With leading voices from the smart buildings world delivered over truly thought-leading sessions, join your fellow professionals as we discuss Singapore’s intelligent infrastructure journey as it continues to make strides from smart to green.