Jinny Koh, Today Online 5 Jun 08;
THEY may be nice to look at but a study has shown that trees can also help to save a building’s energy consumption and costs by bringing temperature levels down by as much as 4.7°C.
Conducted by JTC Corporation and the National University of Singapore, the study showed that trees and rooftop greenery can lower temperatures of buildings by about 1.4:°C to 4.7°C, which can lead to energy savings of between10 and 26 per cent, mainly from air-conditioners.
One way to achieve this cooling effect is through strategic landscaping. This includes planting greenery on the roofs of buildings or planting trees with dense foliage along the roads surrounding the industrial estates.
As a follow-up to this study, JTC will run detailed simulations to determine how best to plant trees to achieve optimum shade cover and energy savings, said Mrs Ow Foong Pheng, chief executive officer for JTC Corporation during a tree-planting ceremony to mark World Environment Day at the Tuas Biomedical Park yesterday.
JTC will also be leading a pilot project at Tuas View, where such strategic landscaping ideas will be applied on vacant plots of land for future tenants.
Dr :A Gaetan Angoh, managing director for Schering-Plough, who was present at the ceremony, is all for strategic landscaping. “We always support landscaping and greening of buildings, even for our own site, as a way to beautify the place, and if energy can be saved, that is even better,” he said.
His company, which produces a wide range of pharmaceuticals, will be commissioning the building of an energy saving facility next month. The tri-generation plant is designed to produce electricity and in the process, converts waste heat to produce steam and chilled water.
The facility, which reportedly will be Singapore’s largest when completed, will not only be26 per cent more energy efficient but will also reduce the company’s carbon dioxide emissions by 24 per cent.
The power of tree
Straits Times 5 Jun 08
Doing their part for the environment, (from left) chief executive of JTC Corporation Ow Foong Pheng, site director of Glaxo Wellcome Manufacturing Chris Dobson and vice-president of Singapore operations for Genentech Singapore Jim Miller planted a sapling at the Tuas Biomedical Park yesterday to mark World Environment Day today.
Getting people to help tackle greenhouse gas emissions by planting trees and using less energy is this year's World Environment Day goal.
Mrs Ow said that a joint study with the National University of Singapore had found that the shade from trees and rooftop gardens could lead to cooler buildings and energy savings of 10 to 26 per cent.
