Budget debate: $30m grant for building owners to adopt technologies for facilities management

SINGAPORE - Building owners and developers will later this year be able to tap a $30 million grant to help pay for adopting technologies as part of facilities management as well as the retrofitting costs.

They will need to work with facilities management firms to install smart infrastructure such as sensors and intelligent building management systems, for instance.

This comes as adoption of facilities management services remain nascent, especially for existing buildings given the high retrofitting costs, said Minister of State for National Development Tan Kiat How at his ministry's budget debate on Tuesday (March 8).

He noted that more than 50 per cent of buildings in Singapore will be above 30 years old by 2025.

"Given the twin pressures of ageing buildings and rising manpower costs, we will need to press on with our efforts to transform the FM industry," he added.

There is a need to do more to encourage the adoption of new technologies, he said in response to Ms Cheryl Chan (East Coast GRC), who had asked what steps will be taken to accelerate facilities management transformation.

The grant will be available from the second half of 2022, for a period of three years. It will support around 10 to 15 projects, with at least three buildings for each project.

The grant will fund up to 70 per cent of the costs of adopting the technologies for: integrated facilities management, which is the management of different services under one platform; and aggregated facilities management, which is aggregating such services across multiple buildings.

This includes the costs of consultancy services, physical equipment and software, manpower and other operating expenditure.

The use of such facilities management services is expected to result in cost savings in areas such as security, cleaning and energy management.

To qualify for the grant, building owners will need to rework their procurement practices and processes to integrate at least three facilities management services, for at least three buildings in their portfolio.

Mr Tan noted how CBRE - a firm that provides facilities management services to office buildings, industrial spaces and laboratories - had worked with industrial developer JTC to save about 15 per cent in operational costs in the maintenance of its buildings.

CBRE's senior managing director of global workplace solutions, Mr Loh Wei Loon, said: "The grant will support our employees in their own skills development, and provide key job opportunities for highly skilled talent to join and embark on an exciting growth journey."