City Hall is seriously looking into formulating a guideline on green building, said Mayor Datuk Yeo Boon Hai. He said the guideline is important towards saving energy on keeping buildings cooler.

“I would like the building industry professionals to study ways to better insulate buildings, to avoid excessive heat gain from the sun, to allow cross ventilation, to use more daylight instead of electrical lights and to reduce heat island effect in the city. For example, buildings can be vastly improved by adding good insulation materials to the roofs,” he said when officiating the Malaysian Green Building Confederation (MGBC) seminar, 2016 Waste Management and Green Roof, here, Saturday.

“So, we are now looking seriously into formulating a guideline to insulate the building and save energy on keeping the building cooler,” he said.

“Green building is energy efficient. If you properly insulate your building according to the green building index, we could save 20 to 30 per cent of energy,” added Yeo.

Yeo also said he would like the building industry professionals to look into water efficient building.

“This can be a cheap and simple process, ranging from rainwater harvesting to grey water recycling and also water efficient fittings,” he said.

“These two efficiencies – energy and water efficiency – if properly implemented can transform our beloved city into a truly green city.

“I have requested MGBC to work with City Hall to formulate guidelines to be adopted by the building industry,” he added.

Yeo further said City Hall would also review all the conditions and take up good recommendations by MGBC for implementation.

Earlier, Yeo said waste management was one of the most challenging issues faced by City Hall and it was taking up a lot of City Hall’s resources, both financially and on human resources, which amounted to around RM20 million annually.

“Waste management is not just about rubbish disposal, it is about changing mindset. We are all brought up to think in a linear mindset. We take from Mother Nature, we consume and we throw. But this linear model does not work anymore, it has come to a dead end. Our Mother Nature simply cannot sustain this way of exploitation. As population grows, our urbanised areas also keep expanding and our earth simply cannot afford this uncontrolled growth.

“We must now shift our mindset to the circular model…we only take from our urban areas, we consume and we recycle.

We take less and less from Mother Nature. In a circular economy, rubbish are secondary raw materials that can be recycled again and again.

“A simple daily example – we do not throw our kitchen waste into a plastic bag and leave it to City Hall to throw it away.

We turn our kitchen waste into composting for our home garden, which will provide organic veggies for our dinner again.

Our city rubbish landfill in Kayu Madang, Telipok is receiving around 800 tonnes daily from the city, and four other nearby district i.e. Penampang, Tuaran, Kota Belud and Putatan. This landfill of 115 acres is almost full and we have to source for another landfill soon.

“With concerted recycling efforts, we can prolong the life span of a landfill, thus preserving our land resources,” he said.

Also present was MGBC Sabah Capter Chairman Mok Juang Yu.

Source: http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=109785 / May 15, 2016

Image: Google