It had been a long time not hearing about green building,
neither in a public discussion, or reading a public document. I don’t know
whether the green building concept is not for the country like Timor-Leste
which is struggling to cope with many basic priorities. But, thanks to UNDP who
brought up the green building concept into the public arena. It was this year
in March 2020 before COVID lockdown phenomena, UNDP organized a green building workshop,
and I was excited to attend the workshop.
The goal of the workshop was to mobilize individuals and organizations to discuss about the concept, and possibly UNDP, under its project scheme, would recruit a potential individual or group to design a green building prototype. The winner will get funding, and the prototype will then be built. I have been asking around to ex-participants of the workshop if UNDP has done with the prototype and what is the actual green building project? It would be interesting to see the outcome.
The workshop was a very good event to talk with engineers,
architects, professionals, and even private developers who are interested to
work on sustainable building technology in Timor-Leste. The concept was not new
to all the participants. Media bombards news about climate change and its
impacts to the society, and the world. The participants have been aware of the
importance of climate change mitigation, and adaptation from the angle of
built-environment. It was recognized that the building industry and its
embodied energy is one of the biggest that emit a lot of CO2 to the
environment.
Even though every discussion on the green building concept
started always from the global climate change context, some were discussing
more about how the green building concept can benefit the local before global.
For example, they discussed about how to tap existing local resources for cost
efficient and other multiple benefits coming out of this. However, the challenge of
adopting the green building concept into the very own local context requires a
lot of research and innovation. This kind of attitude is the most important
one. And I think future discussions should be local-focused, and that everyone
in the circle should weight the benefits of using green building concept in
making their building, or community.
In our Timor-Leste, it is difficult to define exactly where to start. However, bringing the concept into the public arena often time is enough, at least. I am sure that some of sustainable design professionals do have green principles already in mind when they make designs. The action might still be sporadic, and that a community of professions in the area need to make the concept widely recognized, and have well-structured, and even more ambitious one is to have TL’s own green building design principles. Minister of Public Works also attended the workshop, so it can start with public buildings, and public built-environment.
**Hope this gives you an inspiration.
