Arientha Primanita

Solar panels on the roof of a building in Japan provide power, while slow-growing grass helps cool the facility. (Photo: Andy Nelson, The Christian Science Monitor)

Greening Jakarta's Concrete Jungle

Reusable shopping bags may be all the rage with trendy Jakartans these days, but experts say this small measure doesn’t come close to saving the capital from an impending ecological disaster. A major shift to “green buildings” is also needed.

Nirwono Joga, an urban planning expert from Trisakti University’s civil engineering department, said that the city’s high-rises — with their massive energy and water consumption — contributed significantly to the environmental problems found here.

“Jakarta is headed toward ecological suicide if nothing is done,” he said.

Building a Solution

Green buildings, Nirwono explained, would help the city become more energy efficient, thus reducing the amount of power consumed and, consequently, reducing damage to the environment.

The term “green,” he said, did not simply mean more gardens or more trees. “It’s more than that. It involves things like not importing materials to save on fuel and also not constructing buildings in areas designated as green spaces,” he said.

According to Nirwono, green buildings would employ a range of technology to reduce energy use by up to 30 percent compared with conventional buildings.

He said green building made use of “more efficient lights, more open ventilation to help airflow throughout the building and also recycling waste water for use in toilets or watering the plants.”

“With that, not only will people save money, they will also help save the environment.”

Nirwono urged the city administration to lead by example by implementing the green concept in government buildings and encouraging residents to take up the challenge.

Green Blueprints

The Jakarta administration has been working with the Green Building Council of Indonesia, a nonprofit organization that promotes green development throughout the country, to come up with a citywide green building program.

Bintang A Nugroho, director of public affairs at the council, said work had begun earlier this year to help formulate a set of green building standards, slated to be ready sometime next year.

While the city administration would work on issuing and enforcing the code, the council would regulate the certification in which structures are rated according to their compliance to the new standards.

“The building will be certified green if it meets the development requirements drawn up by the city administration. The evaluation will be based on that,” Bintang said of the plan.

He said all buildings would need to be checked before certification was endorsed, and a monitoring team would be tasked with inspecting all documents as well as performing field inspections.

A comprehensive list of requirements has been drawn up to encourage building owners and management to reach the ideal green building rating.

Bintang said sustainability, transportation, energy use, aesthetics, water conservation, indoor air quality and building materials would all be taken into account for certification.

“However, it will be hard and take a long time for all these aspects to be integrated in the city’s buildings. We need to take gradual steps and make this a long-term plan and target,” he said, adding that the city administration’s current priority was in the energy efficiency.

Bintang said the Green Building Council had three main areas to evaluate: new construction, existing buildings and commercial interiors, which would cover a room or office located in an uncertified building.

He said that 30 countries had already joined the World Green Building Council, although standards varied according to the region. Presently, 21 companies here have committed to make their buildings more green.

“The point of green building is all about restricting energy use. If at all possible, buildings should operate at zero energy,” Bintang added.

Leading by Example

Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo said on Thursday that discussions about formulating green standards were expected to be completed this year, with a view to implementation in 2010.

The city administration has also reportedly allocated Rp 163.05 billion ($17.1 million) from its 2010 regional budget draft for its own green building pilot projects. The funds will be used to build a new, green city council building and to renovate city hall.

“They will be a reference point for building development according to the green criteria in Jakarta,” Fauzi said, adding that this green drive would be continued in other major city projects.

The new city council building is expected to include state-of-the-art energy and water management, waste water recycling and solar panels.

Fauzi said his administration also planned to provide incentives for buildings to meet the new green criteria, such as reductions in fees and the easing of building permits.

Hari Sasongko Kushadi, head of the city’s building monitoring and control agency, told the Jakarta Globe this week that his agency was still discussing the new standards.

Hari said the discussions might still take a long time since every aspect needed to be carefully considered. The city, he said, also needed to discuss the plans with building associations, the public works agency and environment department to set the best guidelines for Jakarta.

“Hopefully we will have completed formulating it early in 2010,” he said of the plan.

Hari said the green building concept would mean incorporating eco-friendly ideas from the early planning and development stages, right through to covering the operational aspects of buildings.

He said that although the ideas were simple, they required a fundamental change in people’s thinking. “Water and electricity must be used as needed — not as wanted,” he said.

But Will It Work?

Slamet Daroyni, the director of urban environment at the Indonesia Green Institute, said he appreciated the city’s plan to launch the green building program, however he had doubts about its implementation.

He said that the administration tended to work on problems halfheartedly, whereas it would take an integrated solution to save the capital’s environment.

Slamet warned that due to mismanagement, ecological disasters such as flooding, water shortages and air pollution would only increase, largely because the administrators were too focused on economic rather than environmental concerns.

“The basic effort to save Jakarta from these disasters is by maintaining the city’s spatial balance,” he said.



This story is the fourth in a five-day series on some of Jakarta’s most serious problems. Tomorrow, we look at land acquisition issues.

Your View

See Result