GBI celebrates 10th Anniversary with launch of book

In conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the Green Building Index (GBI), the “Greening Malaysia” book was launched on 4 July 2019 at the Kuala Lumpur Architecture Festival 2019 (KLAF 2019).

GBI is Malaysia’s green building rating tool developed by the Association of Consulting Engineers Malaysia (ACEM) and PAM in 2009. In these 10 years, some 500 buildings—with more than 225 million square feet of gross floor area—have been GBI-certified and nearly the same amount are currently undergoing construction.

By featuring these 500 GBI-certified projects in Malaysia and highlighting the total accumulated energy, water and waste savings to date, the book aims to create awareness on environmental issues among professionals in the built industry and the public.

The second section of the book takes a closer look at 15 building case studies, while the third part showcases the works of individual architects, engineers, designers, community organisers, academics and planners who have been working to move the discourse on sustainability forwards. The book was edited by Mitchell Gelber with Ar Boon Chee Wee and Ar Serina Hijjas, with photography by Lin Ho.

“‘Greening Malaysia’ comes at the right moment as efforts, both big and small, have to be made now to motivate us to be more energy efficient and energy self-sufficient,” said Yeo Bee Yin, Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change, in her keynote address at the launch. “These 500 GBI-certified buildings had managed to reduce 1.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) which is equivalent to removing 243,000 cars from the roads or [having] a forest 22 times that of the land size of Kuala Lumpur.”

This is significant as buildings and transportation account for 30 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions. “More than 50 per cent of electricity usage is consumed in a building,” Yeo added. “By redesigning and retrofitting existing buildings, this will reduce CO2 emissions and energy usage further, thus saving money on electricity bills.”

The minister added that the draft of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act (EECA) has been approved by the Cabinet about a month ago and is expected to be tabled by the end of 2019 or next year.  Also present during the launch were PAM president Tay, PAM past president (2009-2011) Boon and ACEM president Datuk Mohd Adnan Mohd Nor. — Construction+ Online