It is part of an initiative jointly organised by the National Environment Agency, North West Community Development Council and Singapore Environment Council to encourage households to certify their homes.
Nur Afifah Ariffin, Channel NewsAsia 3 Oct 15;
SINGAPORE: New changes have been introduced to the existing Green Homes @ North West programme to encourage households to take small progressive steps towards becoming a certified ideal Green Home.
It is part of an initiative jointly organised by the National Environment Agency (NEA), North West Community Development Council (CDC), and Singapore Environment Council (SEC).
This includes two new criteria and a three-tier ranking awarded to home owners who fulfil the various criteria of a Green Home. The new criteria calls for home owners to allow natural ventilation in common living spaces, as well as choosing a television with a five-tick energy efficiency rating.
The previous five criteria included owning electrical appliances with the three-tick rating on the new energy label, using an instantaneous water heater and having a recyclable collection corner.
Households which fulfil any three of the seven criteria will be awarded Silver and four criteria for Gold, while those that fulfil all seven criteria will be awarded Platinum. The launch of the enhanced Green Homes @ North West was attended by MPs from the various constituencies in the North West district on Saturday (Oct 3).
They are Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, Acting Education Minister (Higher Education and Skills) Ong Ye Kung, Mayor of North West District Teo Ho Pin, Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs Amrin Amin, as well as fellow MPs from the North West District, Dr Lee Bee Wah, Mr Vikram Nair, and Mr Henry Kwek.
Since November 2013, the existing programme has reached out to home owners of 19,000 Build-to-Order (BTO) units in the district. It now aims to target some 40,000 owners of new and existing housing units.
"Environmental ownership is one of the key efforts in terms of promoting green Singapore, and also the world,” said Dr Teo. “We live in a world with limited resources and all of us can play a part to make it sustainable. One of the most sustainable habits is actually to go Green Living lifestyle. We hope that through all these green living habits, our residents can adopt a green living lifestyle and from there adopt Green Living in North West."
Dr Teo added: "In the past, we had five criteria. So we thought that by increasing the criteria, first we can provide some challenges to our residents to keep their homes green. At the same time also, we can encourage more of them to participate in Green Home @ North West. The whole idea is to encourage ownership among our home owners to actually adopt green living habits."
- CNA/ek
