$112 million more set aside for built environment research, innovation: Chee Hong Tat

SINGAPORE – Over the next five years, some $112 million will go towards research and innovation for the built environment, as well as commercialising solutions that can be deployed in Singapore and overseas, National Development Minister Chee Hong Tat said.

The funds will be set aside under the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2030 (RIE2030) plan, with focus areas including developing safer and more productive demolition techniques.

This is in addition to about $185 million that has been secured under the plan in the past year.

“As we rejuvenate more parts of our city, we need better ways to carry out demolition works more efficiently and safely, while minimising risks, disruptions, noise and other disamenities in dense built-up areas,” Chee said on Sept 2 at the International Built Environment Week (IBEW) 2026.

Developing smarter ways to maintain buildings is also important, he said.

“As our buildings age and their uses become more diverse, we need better tools to assess structural health, lifecycle costs and the remaining operational lifespan. These tools can help building owners anticipate maintenance needs, plan repairs in a timely manner,” he said.

Efforts to reduce operational and embodied carbon emissions will also be stepped up, as Singapore works towards achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, Chee said.

Finally, greater emphasis will be placed on helping promising innovations translate into real-world solutions.

“Ultimately, our investments in R&D must translate into tangible improvements in the way we design, build and manage the built environment,” he said.

To unlock more underground uses to optimise limited land resources, the Government will also work with the National Research Foundation to tap more funding to support innovation in Singapore’s long-term underground development goals, Chee said.

The first grant call for RIE2030 is expected to be launched later in 2026 to get more companies to co-develop new solutions, participate in pilot trials and adopt promising innovations in their projects, Chee said.

A greener built environment

Singapore’s efforts to build greener have also made steady progress, Chee said. The built environment sector accounts for over 20 per cent of the country’s carbon emissions.

Greening buildings is critical to reducing the country’s carbon footprint and achieving its targets by 2030 under the Green Building Masterplan, and the Singapore Green Plan 2030.

Under the targets, two-thirds of buildings, by gross floor area, are now green, while a third of new developments are super-low-energy buildings, Chee said, adding that “there is a bit of catching up to do here”.

Singapore’s target to attain 80 per cent improvement in energy efficiency for best-in-class green buildings by 2030 is now at 72 per cent, he added.

“These improvements translate into real benefits,” Chee noted.

Green Mark buildings in Singapore collectively save more than 4.6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually – equivalent to powering over a million four-room HDB flats – eliminating about 1.9 million tonnes of carbon emissions and generating cost savings of $1.6 billion a year, he said.

In a push towards a greener built environment, the Building and Construction Authority’s (BCA) Green Mark version 7 is the latest refresh of Singapore’s green building certification scheme.

Aimed at accelerating the decarbonisation of the built environment, it will focus on three areas – greening more of Singapore’s existing building stock, raising the bar for energy efficiency, and making the scheme more flexible and business-friendly.

A new BCA energy rating will be introduced to give building owners an alternative pathway to Green Mark certification purely on energy performance.

“This will enable more building owners to start their sustainability journey through energy improvement retrofits, and to progressively do more over time,” Chee said.

SLE70, a new super-low-energy tier, will also be launched to recognise those that achieve the highest levels of energy efficiency for green buildings, he said.

The Green Mark re-certification process will also be streamlined to enable owners of buildings of similar typology to bundle multiple buildings under a single application, Chee said.

Green Mark version 7 will also be aligned more closely with environmental, social and governance reporting frameworks and international sustainability standards.

“This will make it easier for certified building owners to access green financing opportunities and strengthen their competitiveness in a sustainability-conscious global economy,” Chee said.

New accreditation scheme for site supervision firms

From 2028, developers and builders will also be required to engage licensed firms to supervise building works for projects exceeding $75 million in value. These firms will help keep pace with the demands of increasingly complex projects and new technological developments, while ensuring quality and safety.

To support this shift, the Singapore Accreditation Council, in consultation with the BCA, will launch the site supervision firm accreditation scheme from September.

Firms that wish to be licensed under the new regime will first need to obtain accreditation.

This scheme will assess whether firms have the necessary governance structure, systems and processes in place to ensure quality control in site supervision, and effectively harness technology.

Site supervision firms that are looking to take on larger projects should start preparing early and obtain accreditation ahead of the new licensing requirements in 2028, Chee said.

To make buying advanced robotic hardware affordable for builders, a robot leasing support scheme will be launched to provide co-funding to robotics and automation solution providers, said Minister of State for National Development Alvin Tan.

He was speaking on the night of Sept 2 at the ConTech Summit 2026, an anchor event at IBEW 2026.

This is to enable them to lease proven machines, like concrete-levelling and tile-grouting robots, directly to construction firms, he said.

Funded through the built environment technology and capability grant, the scheme will co-fund up to 50 per cent for each robot. “This lowers the barrier to entry, putting robotic power directly into the hands of more builders to save time, reduces heavy physical strain on workers, and raises productivity,” Tan said.

Physical site inspections for temporary occupation permits (TOP) and certificates of statutory completion can be time-consuming and resource-heavy, as they require teams from different agencies walking the site at different times.

Through the launch of the whole-of-government virtual inspection initiative, Tan said project teams can now capture 360-degree virtual scans of a building.

“Agencies can then pull up that digital twin and carry out inspections remotely,” he said.

In pilot projects like Grand Dunman and HDB’s MacPherson Weave, this virtual inspection approach delivered up to 30 per cent in manpower savings and helped project teams receive their TOP approvals up to two months earlier, Tan added.