There is a direct synergy between financial return and moving to renewable energy..

There are now several recognised PPVC project success stories in Singapore, including the.Crowne Plaza hotel at Changi Airport.

Brownstone condominiums.However, BCA also notes that PPVC currently attracts a cost premium of just under 8% compared to.reinforced concrete construction.

, driven by a range of factors including comparatively low supply and demand.. Singapore has shown a great commitment to achieving the advantages of DfMA but PPVC has been more successful on some projects (and some types of project) than others.A local mindset has been established that equates PPVC with Design for Manufacture and Assembly at the expense of alternatives.

This is starting to change with the government and private sector looking at other DfMA solutions such as panelised lightweight construction and CLT (cross-laminated timber), both of which have been successfully used in Singapore.

However, local industry discussion of DfMA remains dominated by the idea of standardised PPVC modules being stacked up to form finished buildings..I don’t think we can credibly argue that capitalism has not been a key enabler in the rapid technological advancements of the last two to three hundred years.

And when we talk about capitalism, we cannot ignore the name Adam Smith.The problem I have with the way we’ve taken Smith’s thoughts and works is that it is piecemeal and skewed – we’ve latched onto some of his insights without exploring them more widely.

He was one of the first theorists to develop the idea of the economy of scale.How making things bigger, growing operations tends toward greater economic efficiency.