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A BRITISH politician once remarked that a wind turbine should be put on top of an airport building not because it could produce much power, but because it would make the building look 'green'.
The incident, says the Malaysian ecologist and architect Ken Yeang, is typical of 'greenwashing', where eco-friendly gadgets are there for the cachet they bring rather than the environmental good they do.
Dr Yeang, 61, who has spent most of his 35-year career pinning down what exactly it takes to create ecologically sensitive buildings, reckons he knows only a couple of dozen designers worldwide who are clued-up on the subject.
A general lack of understanding means he comes across misconceptions 'all the time'.
Dr Yeang, who will be in Singapore later this month for a sustainability conference organised by lifestyle company The Annix Group, thinks building owners and architects like to flash figures on energy consumption and recycling rates to prove that their buildings are environmentally friendly.
'The belief is that if you stuff a building with enough eco-technology, gadgets and low-energy or zero-energy systems, you have a green building,' he says.
'The second misperception is that if your building is rated or accredited with a high score, for example Singapore's Green Mark Platinum rating, it is automatically a green building.'
The real thing is something far broader, and takes in much more than a building's energy-saving credentials.
'Green design is trying to integrate everything that we make and do as human beings with the natural environment in a seamless and benign way.'
A truly green skyscraper, for example, needs to be located near a transportation hub. If the hundreds of people using the building travel there in cars, the energy consumed would negate the energy saved by the building's green features.
'Skyscrapers are high-energy buildings,' he says. 'Their existence is only justified if the intensification of land use is carried out in relation to transportation systems.'
A green building should also have linked - not isolated - patches of vegetation allowing wildlife to interact and migrate and enhance biodiversity. Vegetation should be protected from winds that can buffet a tall building at speeds of up to 30 to 40 metres per second.
Additionally, green design requires proper water management, which goes beyond harvesting and recycling water.
'Most buildings have drains, so that water that falls on land goes on the pavement, into the drains, the rivers, the sea and then it's gone.
'But, before we put the buildings there, the water that fell went back into the land. You need to let the water recharge the aquifers.'
This can be done with so-called bioswales - or vegetated channels that retard the flow of run-off - as well as retention basins or artificial lakes.
Ideally, the buildings should be assembled in a way that allows their components to be disassembled easily so that they can be re-used. Walls, for example, could be clipped and bolted rather than topped off with plaster.
'What happens to the building at the end of its useful life? The building should not become waste. Waste is a human invention. In nature the waste of one organism becomes food for another - everything is recycled.'
Given such high standards, Dr Yeang is curiously forgiving of existing green rating systems that fall some way short of his ideals.
The Building and Construction Authority's Green Mark scheme, for instance, grades new non-residential buildings and awards 99 out of a possible 160 points to energy usage, with a further 32 points allocated for measures such as sustainable construction, greenery and access to public transport. The rest of the points are allocated for items such as water efficiency and indoor air quality.
A total score of 90 and above is enough to qualify for the highest platinum rating, which allows a developer to construct more saleable space.
Within Singapore, only 31 out of 307 rated buildings have achieved a platinum score and these include Citigroup's global operations and technology hub in Changi Business Park and the upcoming 272-unit condominium Sophia Residences.
Although Dr Yeang thinks the Green Mark system is one of the better rating systems in the region, he notes that its top mark is easy to obtain.
He believes the true value of accreditation systems 'is in proselytising the idea of a green building to a larger community'. When enough people are converted, the question about where next to go naturally arises.
In the United States, which uses a rating system called the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), architects have started talking about designing buildings that go beyond the requirements of LEED and 'give back' to nature, as well as inspire users.
'That is like a series of progressions. The first step is to have a certification system, and then there should be systems that go beyond Green Mark,' Dr Yeang adds.
'In an ideal world, all buildings should be modelled on the dynamics of nature - to generate energy from the sun and wind, to be increasingly efficient with their use of energy, and support an increasingly diverse ecological system.'
But even the best of green design can be undermined by poor quality construction - especially in developing countries where the demand for faster and cheaper construction is constant.
In affluent Singapore, money may not be as big an issue but it can still dominate.
Developers and building owners, for example, still cite high costs as a reason for constructing less environmentally benign buildings. This was an issue that the Government tried to tackle earlier this year by giving incentives to developers whose buildings achieve the highest Green Mark rating, and also offering to co-fund the retrofitting of existing buildings.
Dr Yeang thinks the issue of cost really boils down to priorities.
He points an accusing finger at this reporter's chair: a sleek black Italian number in the conference room of the Singapore Institute of Architects' office.
'How much do you think that chair cost? At least $1,000 to $2,000. Why do you need to sit in a $2,000 chair... sit on a cheaper chair and spend the money on (green) technology.'
Similarly, the granite flooring in a fancy hotel can cost millions. He questions why money is spent on granite, when cheaper tiles could be used and the money saved used to make the building more sustainable.
Green buildings, he stresses, need not be that expensive.
'It has to do with value engineering - where you put your money.'
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