"Buildings - they are just aggregates of sand, grovel, bricks and concrete. Machines and equipment - they are but a lot of assemblage of metals. In itsfinal form, a building- equipped with provisions for occupant environmental comfort and safety - is a complex integrated system with many anticipated and unanticipated interactions, within and without, which contribute to and affect its distinctive energy performance. Only humans can make the difference and give life to it all; with less energy but at the desired level of comfort and amenity in harmony with sustained productivity. "
Energy efficiency in buildings need not be overemphasized. In ASEAN for instance, the commercial and residential sectors together accounted for 21 percent and 54 percent, respectively, of the overall energy and electricity demand of the region in 1991. Undoubtedly, aside from the increase in demand for buildings - which more often are designed with emphasis on aesthetics and increased level of amenity - due to the rapid economic growth in most countries of the region, the inefficiency in most existing building designs and operations represent the main reasons for the dramatic annual growth of the electricity demand, e.g. 13 percent and 11 percent in Thailand and Indonesia, respectively, during the last four years.
The growing electricity demand of the buildings in the region is posing a great burden to the electric utilities whose available capacities are becoming saturated and to the national governments which finance a major share of the power expansion programs. One of the problems faced by ASEAN is how to ensure adequate, stable and assured availability of electricity along with sustained economic growth and development.
,. The significance of energy in buildings became apparent in AEEMTRC through its two other programmes, the ASEAN Energy Database and the ASEAN
2020, from which the initial findings showed that by the year 2010, the electricity requirement in the ASEAN buildings would reach 300,000 GWh (6.4 times that of the 1988 level). As much as 27 percent of this projected requirement could be reduced if energy efficiency in buildings would be properly and responsibly implemented. This will translate to a power plant capacity reduction of 16 GW (or 21 percent less than the capacity needed by 2010) and to investment savings of roughly US$ 34 billion. Therefore, energy efficiency in buildings is one way to reduce both the high energy bills for the building owners, and the strains in the changing economy on the nations' electricity infrastructures.

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