A CARBON NEUTRAL SKYSCRAPER

Commercial / 1st Quarter 2021

A CARBON NEUTRAL SKYSCRAPER

by Praveen Nair

April 20, 2021

The Arthaland Century Pacific Tower (ACPT) is the world’s first building to receive the EDGE Zero Carbon certification [1]. This certification is an international standard developed by the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, that requires stringent measures for energy efficiency—the building’s energy consumption must be offset by renewable forms of energy. In addition to EDGE (Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies), ACPT has also received the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum rating and BERDE (Building for Ecologically Responsive Design Excellence) five-star certification.

To qualify for the Zero Carbon certification, ACPT utilises 100 per cent of its electricity generated from the Pantabangan-Masiway hydroelectric power plant (PMHEP) complex [2]. This was a practical way of dealing with an inherent limit on how much energy tall buildings can produce on-site with renewables. The 30-storey ACPT’s total building area of 34,295 square metres is nearly 15 times more than its land area of only 2,232 square metres. An initial study concluded that it was not sufficient to arrange solar panels horizontally on its roof as it produced a meagre output of 0.5 per cent of the total energy consumption [1].

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1 de la Cruz A. G. (2020, Dec 15) This is the world’s first EDGE Zero Carbon Building. Retrieved from: https://www.asiapropertyawards.com/en/this-is-the-worlds-first-edge-zero-carbonbuilding/on 30 Dec 2020

2 EDGE (n.d.) Arthaland Century Pacific Tower. Retrieved from: https://edgebuildings.com/project-studies/arthaland-century-pacific-tower/ on 30 Dec 2020

3 BusinessWorld (n.d.) Arthaland’s BGC tower attracts multinational firms. Retrieved from: https://www.bworldonline.com/arthalands-bgc-tower-attracts-multinational-firms/ on 30 Dec 2020

4 Email interview with Arthaland.

5 Ibid.

6 WGBC. (n.d.) World Green Building Council launches #ActOnClimate as campaign focus for World Green Building Week 2020. Retrieved from: https://www.worldgbc.org/news-media/world-green-building-council-launches-actonclimate-campaign-focus-world-green-building on 15 Jan 2020

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