Kevin Hydes
Chair, World Green Building Council

Kevin Hydes is the Chair of the World Green Building Council which promotes the cause of green building globally. He spoke at the FuturArc Forum in Singapore where he captivated the audience with forthright rhetoric and eloquence. In this interview with FuturArc Chief Editor, Dr. Nirmal Kishnani, he speaks of the challenges facing the world at large and the role that advocacy and education can play in greening the design-construction community.

NK: Much is said about the ‘tipping point’ in climate change. Are we in time to reverse this?
KH: I was at a conference recently where I saw new information and fresh data that said, actually, it’s not too late to avoid catastrophic results. Certainly there are changes in the atmosphere that have been put into play as a result of the last 50 years of human activity—when I started practising as an engineer in the UK, the standard atmosphere was 350 parts of CO2; today it’s over 400. We can stop the acceleration and degradation from becoming calamities if we change our behaviour now. I think it’s unquestionable that we should act responsibly on green buildings. We have time.

NK: Are we moving fast enough though? There are some 1,000 LEED-rated buildings in the US at last count. Compare that with what has been built since the tool was first launched eight years ago, is it enough?
KH: We’ve asked that same question over a period of years. A decent-sized building takes, on average, two years to design and build. LEED effectively came out in 2000. In the US, there may be only a 1,000 certified buildings but there are over 10,000 registered, which are being built. It is the law of exponential growth. The US Green Building Council has explicitly stated that its goal is to have, by 2010, 100,000 certified commercial buildings and a million homes. We set those targets when I was chairman of the board and today, we are still committed to them. What’s happening in every city is that LEED is becoming mandated into the standards. Soon it will be the norm, not the exception.

Similar activities are happening in other countries; we are seeing the institutionalisation of standards. But we need to continue to give incentives to the market to pull itself up further using these rating systems. I think we need both sticks and carrots to shift the whole system. Then we get into the discussion of continuous improvement because once we start to move the system, we have to quickly step in, adapt it, and train ourselves further. Every architect, engineer, contractor, manufacturer, client, financial-institution, publication agency—all actors in the building industry—needs to go through this retraining and re-understanding.

I’m genuinely optimistic. It’s like when you first roll a snowball, it’s just an inch in diameter. By the time you get to the bottom of the hill, it’s the size of a mansion. I think that’s what’s going on with this green building movement. Many of these countries now see exponential growth; people are getting retrained, buildings are being registered.

NK: We hear of the ‘power of zero’, zero emissions as the ultimate goal. What purpose does it serve if within the context of existing market forces—particularly in Asia—few developments are able achieve this? Should we be aiming for low-energy instead?
KH: Green is only one step on the path to sustainability. Green is not sustainable yet. One can argue that a sustainable building is one that has zero environmental impact. Every country in the world that I’ve visited is making an attempt to build its own net-zero energy building. In China, we’ve got net-zero buildings built; in the US, we’ve got net-zero; and in Europe as well. I know there’s a zero-energy building that’s on its way in Putrajaya (Malaysia). These are examples of how we can do it. And just like green buildings, we need that first one, two or three, so that we can have the tens, hundreds, thousands of people visit it; magazines like yours describe it in detail. You do need a physical building to learn from.

In the UK, by 2012 or 2013, every single house in the UK has to be carbon neutral; that’s zero energy basically. That’s five years away, not 50 years away. And that’s about 200,000 houses a year. Not as fast as the pace of building in Asia but that’s still a pretty decent size. A month ago, the British government said that every commercial building has got to be net-zero, carbon neutral, beginning 2020. So they have given the industry 12 years to learn how to do it. Then it becomes law. We see the same policies across Europe, throughout the US; definitely in leadership states like California. The Department of Energy in the US has a competition every two years called the Solar Decathlon in which university students from around the world design, build and erect net-zero energy homes. These are not mansions for rich people; these are pragmatic, practical design solutions for different climatic regions. The winner this year came from Germany.

The knowledge exists. We need to move towards mass replication, but we can’t do that until we’re done with experimentation. As the products become more familiar, they will become more available, less expensive, so the cost issue will be taken off the table quite quickly.

NK: How would you characterise what is happening in Europe and North America? Would it be fair to say that the mantra of the marketplace is less a force in Europe where the drivers are largely regulatory? In which direction is Asia likely to veer?
KH: The choice of carrot versus stick depends on culture. Europe has highly regulated systems; EU is interested in green labelling but through regulatory policy, not incentive. But now we’re seeing interest in market-driven solutions as well. Lately, as green building councils start to emerge in Europe, people were asking why they are needed. That was answered by the industry: “We don’t always want to be pushed by the government; we want to lead.” The industry needs to lead, whatever the context, because when it establishes leadership in society, it creates a differentiator in the competitive marketplace. So green building councils are now emerging. Most countries in Europe will have a GBC within the next 24 months. Even in the face of strong regulations, there’s a coalition between government, academia and industry, which is what the GBC model is based on. The government doesn’t need to push the industry, kicking and screaming. They work in partnership, and let the market forces really pull us to the next level.

In Asia, we see regulatory imposition tipping at the backend of the market, instead of at the front. In Singapore, for instance, the Green Mark will be a mandatory standard for all buildings. In Japan, CASBEE is instituted through the city’s regulations; in Yokohama, Kobe or Kyoto, all the major cities tune in to the system.

Across Asia, the countries that I’ve visited also have an interest in the influence of academia, much more so than in Europe or in North America. Their governments rely on academic voices for a clearer sense of what should be done. But without industry to implement, that’s all it is—it’s a voice with a regulation but without momentum, without sustenance. It’s the market that commissions buildings.

NK: India has adopted LEED, Singapore has the Green Mark and Taiwan has EEWH. Do we know if these rating tools make a difference to the building in use? They seem directed at decisions made at the drawing board; during actual operation of rated buildings, what happens? There are too many buildings with too many bicycle racks that are never used...
KH: That’s a question that all the rating tool developers—many of which have been members of World GBC— are focusing on. To get the snowball to move down the hill, most assessment tool developers took the position that they need to change the mindset of the design professionals first. But not everything that we imagine at the drawing board ends up being operated the way it was intended; there is often some deviation. So every single assessment tool around the world is in continuous development on the feedback from the building itself, with direct measures and values that come out of ongoing operations. Organisations, as they look back at the first generation or second generation rated buildings, are learning an awful lot more about what is it that, over time, will result in more environmental pullback. The Japanese CASBEE, for instance, has already been into two life cycles, two calculators were released late last year. We’re seeing this as part of an ongoing evolution; it’s shifted from rating systems as being a single event to rating systems becoming a journey.

NK: Within the Asia-Pacific region, what makes you optimistic about how things are moving?
KH: In Beijing, the 4th annual green building summit was well-attended—3,000 people or more. The China Green Building Council was launched—fully supported and endorsed by the Ministry of Construction—with the industry, the largest developers and the largest contractors, the brightest minds from all sectors at the same table. They were given a very clear mandate by the Chinese government on what needs to be done to retrain the industry, to deliver the certification vigorously, to create quality control and to make things explicit.

Minister Xiu should be acknowledged. He’s a visionary and he’s a leader. It is all about performance, not hypothetical green buildings. A green building in the north is a different building than a green building in the south. A green building in the city is different, perhaps, from the green building in the rural condition. It’s about green buildings that really work and really deliver in the different regions around China. And as you know, China builds one America every three years.

In Singapore, I met the Minister for National Development, Mr. Mah Bow Tan. We had a meeting with 280 of the developers in Singapore, many of which were working throughout the Asia-Pacific. They gathered to listen to the Minister talk about the developments in Singapore, and implementing the Green Mark mandate. Two developers in Singapore gave me credible reason to be hopeful. Between the two of the developers, they’re responsible for the certification of over half of the Green Mark buildings in Singapore. So they’re really leading by example.

In India I met the head of the Indian Green Building Council, Dr. Prem Jain; an engineer and an architect who is asking India to deliver a billion square feet and re-certify buildings by 2010. He’s put it on the line. He’s asked the industry to respond; he’s asked architects, engineers, the manufacturers and contractors to meet the challenge. My personal prediction is it’ll go well beyond the billion square feet of certified space by 2010; there is already a lot of activity in motion.

I’m always amazed by the leadership in Green Building Council of Australia. Property developers in US and Canada fly to Australia to understand what they do in the corporate sector, which is the exemplar to the world. Whether they’re small regional players, whether they’re big internationals, whether they’re Asia-Pacific centric, they’re all, I think, demonstrating and setting standards.

NK: Can you be equally candid in describing what gives you cause for despair…
KH: I’m an optimist. If we see the “glass half full”, we can change things. The idea of aspirational goals is absolutely critical for changing the future. So I don’t despair. But I have concerns. There are a hundred million people in this construction industry globally. It’s a $4.6 trillion industry; half of the buildings will be built in Asia. It is this sheer size of the volume of the market that is a challenge.

The message has already been sent to most countries around the Asia-Pacific. Most government leaders and business leaders know there is a new paradigm that’s green, sustainability driven by climate change, or driven by corporate leadership or by national policy, or by lack of resources, or by lack of power—whatever the drivers are, there is a shift!

The opportunity in Asia is that you’re just doing so much. If I am an architect in Kuala Lumpur and I do 20 office buildings in the next 20 months, I should be creating a system for the work I do, designing the first one, learning from it for the second, then the third. We can’t wait six years for the building to be built, occupants to move in and then find out that something’s working, something’s not. We must create much quicker feedback loops into the process. Asia has the largest populations around the world, largest growing economies and the largest construction activities. It’s where we need to spend most of our collective effort globally, to support the Asian economies to move quicker towards green practices.

There are a hundred million people involved in construction, from the guy that digs the ditches to probably a few hundred thousand architects; there might be a million including non-registered architects and maybe an equal number of engineers. You have got to change those minds, and then you’ve got to get on with implementation. So it’s not just an educational programme; it’s an implementation programme. That really is where, quite frankly, the green building councils come into the picture. Their main role isn’t to regulate; it’s really to educate the industry, to create new implementation strategies. We’ve got to move with great speed. The challenge—I can’t use the word despair—is we’ve got to do this quickly. We have to measure accurately when a green building is doing well; making sure that it’s the right measurement, not just measuring some of its features.

This is not a 30-year programme; this is, by most measures, a 10-year window. So your first question on whether it’s too late—all the information says that it’s not too late; if we don’t want to change this behaviour in the next 10 years, it will be. We have a 10-year window to act on.

NK: There is little said about the process of Greening—we know ‘why’, but not enough is said about ‘how’. Could you break it down into a few simple steps?
KH: I’ll start with principles. First, every place is unique—this applies in the face of universal architecture and global standards, and in a way, the idea of style. Start every project with an understanding of the place. Second, look to the low technology, the vernacular solutions that work in any culture in society. They’re there for a reason, and we need to understand those reasons. We need to re-learn. Architects often learn this in their first year of architecture, but by the time they finish, they’ve forgotten them. Architects should go down the low-tech path first, look at the buildings from the outside-in, and then from inside-out. From the outside-in, it needs to be more natural, more respectful and more harmonious, accepting the basic elements—sun, air, water—in a way that helps the buildings.

Next, set a target. Every architect should start with a target: the target is zero energy; the target is 50 percent; the target is Green Mark platinum, etc. Use that target at every meeting, at every design discussion. That’s the beauty of these rating systems quite frankly; at the end of the day, they are simple checklists that could be used at every design meeting. “Okay, I will deal with the water, I will deal with the materials, I will deal with...” Go round the table and use it as a project management tool. And at the end, do certify it because the difference between intentions and results is often a big difference. Have the confidence to say: we’re going to target this, measure it at the end and see how it performs. If we don’t measure it, we’ll never know what we have to do next.

Remember to ask the question “How un-pluggable is the building?” Try to unplug the building from the grid. What would happen to it? The vernacular buildings will be fine, and the less vernacular will be ‘un-occupiable’. I think we’ll see increasing failures globally, inevitably of central systems. Ask the question if spaces need to be climate-controlled, and which ones can be open, maybe non-air conditioned. These are all fundamental questions.

Unlike the doctrine of the 1970s, which was all about reducing surface area, small windows and big lighting systems, we’ve come to learn or re-learn that volume is our friend. High spaces are better than not so high spaces; less ceiling is better than more ceiling so we can allow temperature in spaces to rise naturally, as opposed to fighting it. Volume is our friend.

We add the technology next. We look at the renewables, we look at the yield, and we find the appropriate use for renewables, we invest in new appropriate technology. This building should never cost us more. Cost counts. We have to take things away in order to put things in.

For every design decision, ask the 3 ‘Rs’—Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Every single system—structure, walls, mechanical systems—we can ask very specifically how we achieve each ‘R’.

The fourth R is to ‘rethink’. We can’t take the idea from the last job. We’ve got to rethink for every condition because things are changing daily. Technology will come down in price. Energy will always go up in price. Think about that. The architect needs to be a forecaster and anticipator of trends, not just making decisions based on today’s conditions.

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