One more time, green building development is stated as an inevitable trend and a wise choice of Vietnam’s architecture by Ho Chi Minh city Department of Construction.
“Green building” is defined as a building whose life cycle from the first stage of site selection, design, construction, operation into stages of refurbishment and reuse all have met requirements: rational use and saving of resources, energy, water and materials to minimize negative impacts on surrounding environment and human health, landscape conservation and natural ecology in order to create the best living condition for human.
Moreover, “green building” issue is widely discussed worldwide from the end of 20th century when environment has increasingly become worse along with a series of extreme weather and abnormal phenomena, which are beyond human’s control. Accordingly, several countries were unanimous to have a meeting at The Earth Summit on “Environment and Development” at Rio de Jaeiro, Brazil in 1992 and made the declaration of “Environment and development program for the 21st century” – “Agenda 21”. Since then, the green building movement has been widely developed, aiming to the same objective of solving those difficulties and seeking a long-term solution of a sustainable life for human beings.
According to the research results and building standards of many countries throughout the world, the long-term benefits of green buildings have been clearly demonstrated.
Currently in Vietnam, there is a rating tool system to assess green buildings named LOTUS, which is researched, analysed and developed on the base of numerous international rating tools (UK, USA, Australia, Singapore, etc) in order to define criteria in accordance with Vietnam building code together with other environmental features and our natural and climatic conditions. Up to now, 3 first buildings have been certified by LOTUS at different level including Moc Bai JSC Office and Factory, BigC Green Square, Pouchen Kindergarten as well as Green One UN House and other BigC Supermarkets in provinces national wide in the coming time. Besides, VietinBank and Maineti have also registered for LOTUS certification.
Certificated as a green building, the headquarter of Vietnam Intel Products Ltd is invested with 1 billion dollars. Early in 2012, the company launched some energy and water saving projects with the investment of 1.9 billion dollars to install modern faucets with auto-control sensors to save water and use recycled water for irrigation and toilet flushing. Besides, a system to adjust energy efficiency and increase the central cooling temperature from 5.6 to 6.1oC to save energy together with a solar PV system are installed. Therefore, in 2012 the total savings are 2,158,535 KWh of electricity and 63,399m3 of water, which is equivalent to over 1,3 billion VND.
It is essential to receive the encouragement and support from the government towards the green building development. For instance, Ministry of Construction announced 10 buildings awarded as “Energy- efficient buildings” for the first time on 28th March, 2013. Additionally, Vietnam Association of Architects also organized “Green Architecture” competition based on their own proposed criteria and finally announced some green buildings.
We strongly believe the green building model will be widely replicated in Vietnam aligned with our gradual development in the upcoming time. In fact, only by applying sustainable development measures can Vietnam take firm and long-term steps for our future growth.
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