environmentleft Abu Dhabi, United
Arab Emirates: Masdar City
was first imagined to be
a carbon neutral city. It is
now considered “carbon
reduced”. The first phase of
the project to be completed
is the Masdar Institute, which
is an engineering school.
The city and the school are
very environmentally friendly
when compared to other
schools and cities
below 11 Tampines
Concourse is the first
CarbonNeutral® development
in Singapore and Asia Pacific:
It emerged as winner in the
Sustainable Development
Category of the prestigious
FIABCI Prix d’Excellence
Awards 2012
CDL also strongly promotes the
use of electricity directly from the
power grid through a substation at the
construction stage whenever possible,
which also results in lower emissions
of GHGs, sulphur oxides, nitrogen
oxides and particulates.
CDL’s renewed corporate social
responsibility objectives in the
environmental, health and safety area
encompass ensuring the maintenance
of an international management
system for the environment and
achieving an industry leadership
position in green buildings in
Singapore. CarbonNeutral®
certification has made Tampines
Concourse the ideal office address
for like-minded businesses looking
to enhance their position as eco-
conscious companies.
The process of attaining
CarbonNeutral®development status
was facilitated by an Australia-based
firm, The CarbonNeutral Company, one
of the world’s leading carbon offset
and carbon management companies
with a proven track record of working
with 300 large organisations and200 carbon offset projects across six
continents. Underpinned by a
well-recognised standard known
as the CarbonNeutral Protocol,
every tonne of carbon sold by
The CarbonNeutral Company is
guaranteed. Buying offsets located in
developing countries reaps healthy
dividends in terms of supporting the
transition to clean, renewable energy
and avoiding the high-emissions path
of developed nations.
The carbon credits CDL has
purchased under this scheme supplies
funding to a number of projects in
Asia, such as the Dalian Landfill Gas
Project and the Tieling Coal Mine
Methane, both in China. Without the
injection of carbon finance, these
projects would be unviable. Beyond
creating obvious climate benefits,
these proposals also bring about
social benefits, such as employment
and training opportunities, as well as
improving the quality of life
of the local community. agmade to introduce inventive building
materials such as “green” concrete,
a structural component comprising
materials like copper slag, recycled
concrete aggregates, and ground
granulated blast furnace slag – all
in a bid to cut down significantly on
carbon-dioxide emissions. As a result,
the 10,000-square-metre Tampines
Concourse is estimated to reap overall
energy savings of 620,000 kWh
per year, which is equivalent to an
estimated reduction of an impressive
325 tCO e annually.