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Additional GFA based on BEAM Plus
ratings – a win-win situation?
A better system is to maintain overall cap at
10% but award a smaller amount of additional
useable GFA (within the 10% cap) to projects
with exemplary performance. The benefits
of such a system is that it effectively aligns
incentives between developers and end-
users: by allowing buildings with exemplary
performance to develop larger floor useable
areas the developers (who bear the cost of
higher rating) could obviously enjoy direct
financial benefits, while the end-users also
benefit from the additional useable floor
area (instead of wider corridors and lobbies).
Building bulk is also not affected by this
method, since the overall cap is maintained
at 10%.
Pushing for performance verification
With such a large incentive at stake, it
is reasonable to expect some level of
performance verification. Some stakeholders
are worried that such performance
verification places an unreasonable liability
on designers of the building. The authors
disagree with such a view, since the
increased liability is likely to lead to better
performance and less “greenwash”.