KH Tan’s eureka moment
Since the start of 2012, KH Tan has dedicated more than half his time to philanthropic work. These days, he spends only about 20% of his time on marketing luxury bungalows or Good Class Bungalows (GCBs). The twin causes he supports are education and medical research.
“I knew sustainability was important,” says the founder and managing director of Newsman Realty, who has built an illustrious career as a realtor focusing on the GCB segment. “But I told myself that I was too busy, and I would only work on it [sustainability efforts] when I turned 60.”
Things changed abruptly one February morning this year. Tan was doing his daily walk and meditation at Singapore Botanic Gardens at around 5am, something he has been doing for more than a decade. And he suddenly felt a change in the energy of the environment. “It was telling me that it needed help as it could not breathe,” says Tan.
That jolted him into action: Within 10 seconds, he decided to incorporate a company focusing on sustainability. By the time Tan reached his office at 10am that same morning, his new firm, KK Sustainable Design, was already incorporated.
Alter ego
The company’s name is based on his alter ego. According to Tan, he is KK for about four to six months in a year, during which he is more exuberant, and it is evident to his friends and clients as well. Sometimes when they notice that he is especially cheerful and energetic, they would ask him, “Is KK back?”, relates Tan. As KH, he is up before dawn — typically between 4am and 4.30am — but as KK, he is up and about by 2.30am to 3am.
Tan roped in several professors from National University of Singapore (NUS) School of Design and Environment as his advisers at KK Sustainable Design. Tan even asked his friend Alexandros Washburn, founding director of Center for Coastal Resilience and Urban Xcellence at Stevens Institute of Technology, to come on board as his adviser. Washburn immediately agreed.
As the former chief urban designer of New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Washburn was involved in The High Line (transformation of a historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West
Side), which opened in 2009 as a hybrid public park space. He was also instrumental in the revitalisation of Hudson Yards into a new neighbourhood of office towers, high-end condos and a luxury mall.
Given his unique experience, Washburn was given a grant by the Rockefeller Foundation to write the book, The Nature of Urban Design: a New York perspective on Resil
ience. Washburn knows Singapore well, and was a visiting fellow at URA Centre for Liveable Cities. “We walked together many times through Gardens by the Bay, discussing nature and the city,” relates Tan. “While he brings a little bit of New York City with him, he says he always takes back more of Singapore in what he learns.”
Likewise, Tan has benefitted from his regular discourse with Washburn. “In Singapore, the government has also realised the importance of sustainability, with its recent announcement of the Singapore Green Plan 2030,” he says. “My aim for the new company is to actively support the government’s moves towards sustainability in Singapore, as well as the wider region.”
Another adviser whom Tan has engaged at KK Sustainable Design is Esther Gai Jiazi, Asia Pacific programmes head (Net Zero) at World Green Building Council and the founder of Joy of Sustainability. She has spent more than a decade as a sustainable design expert and has strong technical knowledge in sustainability and positive psychology. Gai and her team are said to have completed many firstof-its-kind sustainability projects, including net-zero buildings, unique green buildings and eco cities.
Towards a ‘net-zero GCB’
A net-zero or zero-energy building is one where the total amount of energy used by the building is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site, that is, there is net-zero energy consumption. This can be facilitated through the use of technology such as solar panels, a hybrid cooling system or high-efficiency windows, or the planting of trees.
For a start, KK Sustainable Design will focus on design and development of net-zero GCBs. This is because Tan has specialised in marketing GCBs for the past 20 years. Many of his GCB clients are CEOs or chairmen of major corporations and business tycoons. “If they believe in sustainable living, they can influence their entire corporation to go green,” says Tan. “That is meaningful.”
Many a time, Tan had felt conflicted when an owner wants to tear down and redevelop a GCB, especially one that is barely 10 years old. He felt that by having brokered the sale of these properties, he may have been just as culpable to this wastage.
He intends to make up for that through his sustainability efforts now. By ensuring that the GCB projects that he is involved from now on are net-zero buildings, he hopes to educate GCB owners on the importance of sustainability. And that will help him start an important conversation with them, he reasons.
The first net-zero GCB that Tan is involved in is one that is sitting on a 15,479 sq ft freehold site at Chee Hoon Avenue, off University Road. Tan is in the process of selecting an architect to design the GCB. He is also engag