For the past five years, changes to Macau's construction regulation have all been about permission — whether you may start, what you must file, which subsidy you can claim. The rules now moving through the Official Gazette are about cost: what your renovation costs to run, what it costs to clear away afterwards, and what the machines on your site may emit. All three land on the next fit-out budget.
1. From large events to every office and restaurant
The Environmental Protection Bureau has been building carbon reduction guidelines scenario by scenario. The first was the carbon reduction guideline for large events, issued in July 2025. To the Legislative Assembly the bureau's director explained the logic: catering and offices generate the day-to-day carbon dioxide, so 2026 would bring two more guidelines, for restaurants and for offices, issued to departments and posted online for public reference.
By August 2026 the position was confirmed. In reply to a written interpellation from legislator Leong Hong Sai, the director stated that the office and restaurant carbon guidelines would be drafted this year, and that the bureau had already published the large-event guideline and the Macau Green Building Guideline for building projects. The two new guidelines were reaffirmed in November 2026, in the reply to legislator Ho Iat Sang on green tourism. None of this is mandatory, but it shows which way fit-out specifications are heading.
2. Where the money and the emissions actually sit
The bureau's Macao Environmental Status Report 2025 and quarterly energy statistics give a precise picture for anyone budgeting a commercial unit.
- Power supply and land transport together account for more than 80 per cent of Macau's carbon emissions (bureau briefing to the Central District Community Services Consultative Committee, May 2026). The Long-term Decarbonisation Strategy, published at the end of 2023, targets a carbon peak before 2030, with those two sectors reaching near-zero emissions before 2050.
- Electricity consumption for 2025 was 6,263 GWh, up 0.4 per cent, with an annual peak load of 1,126 MW and an average selling price of MOP 1.245 per kWh, down 3 per cent (fourth quarter 2025 energy statistics).
- Commercial electricity use rose 1 per cent and commercial gas use rose 4 per cent in 2025; residential electricity use rose 1 per cent, public-sector electricity use 4 per cent and public-sector gas use 27 per cent.
- Solar photovoltaic grid-connected output rose 25 per cent to 3 GWh, and non-fossil generation in purchased electricity is targeted to reach 50 per cent in 2026 and at least 60 per cent by 2030.
What this means for an air-conditioning budget
Two of those lines point at the largest single item in a commercial electricity bill. The bureau's standing advice through its annual "Light Shirt, Save Energy" campaign is to set air conditioning to 25 degrees Celsius or above, or one degree above your usual setting — the cheapest energy saving available to a tenant with no capital to spend.
3. Construction waste: new rules from 1 April 2027
The most concrete item is Regulation No. 32/2026, published in the Official Gazette on 26 October 2026 and taking effect on 1 April 2027. It amends the construction waste management regime in force since 17 January 2021 — which already charges by quantity and quality of waste, and which the bureau credits with cutting Macau's construction waste by over half since 2020. The amendment tightens enforcement and recalculates the money.
- Waste haulage vehicles are barred from entering the Macau Incineration Centre and the Special and Hazardous Waste Treatment Plant (Article 6, paragraph 2), except for combustible or recyclable material and chemical waste.
- Deposit calculation is now formulaic (Article 15). A contractor paying monthly tipping fees must provide a security deposit for each construction site equal to the highest dumping fee set by the Chief Executive's dispatch multiplied by 2 per cent of the estimated earthworks volume.
- The tipping fee is charged on the nature, contents and weight of the waste (Article 12). Inert demolition material — soil, sand, gravel and clean concrete — is defined separately in Article 2.
- New fill depot rules (Article 11): no smoking or open flame, no travelling with the tipper body raised, no dropping or scattering waste on the roadway, tarpaulins off before weighing, and wheel washing before leaving.
- Applications now need a quantity statement (Article 14): the bill of quantities from the works budget or a declaration of the estimated earthworks volume, plus proof of the deposit.
Violating the entry ban, the prohibited-items list or the depot rules attracts a fine of MOP 1,000 (Article 19). In the five years since the regime took effect, the bureau identified only two cases of waste-carrying vehicles entering the incineration centre.
What it means for your quotation
Waste is now a line in your tender. Because the fee is charged on the nature and weight of the material, and the deposit is computed from a declared earthworks volume, a contractor who separates clean inert material at source will quote a different number. Ask for the waste estimate broken down by category, and for the deposit basis to be stated.
4. Site machinery: a new emission standard from 2028
The same Gazette issue carried Regulation No. 33/2026 on emission standards for non-road mobile diesel engine machinery, in force from 1 January 2028. It applies in particular to machinery at construction sites, the airport, the container terminal and construction waste fill depots. Penalties run from MOP 20,000 to 100,000 for machinery that fails the standard, and MOP 10,000 to 30,000 for breaching the monitoring provisions. For a shop fit-out this reaches you indirectly, through your contractor's plant and the hired generators; in a larger tender, ask which machinery will be used on site.
5. Four things to do before the next fit-out is signed
- Get the waste estimate broken down by category — inert, recyclable, chemical, general — and require the deposit basis to be stated, because from 1 April 2027 the formula is fixed by regulation.
- Ask for cooling and lighting efficiency to be written into the specification, not left to the contractor's default. The bureau's guidance is 25 degrees Celsius, the Macau Green Building Guideline covers building projects, and the Energy Sector Development Office publishes a building energy efficiency guideline.
- Check whether your tender is scored on environmental characteristics. From 1 September 2026 the Public Procurement Law requires a procuring entity awarding on the basis of an "overall most advantageous tender" to weigh environmental characteristics alongside price and quality. For public or subsidised work this is a scored criterion, not a courtesy.
- Budget for the 2027 organic waste recovery centre. The Environmental Status Report 2025 records that the centre is expected to open in 2027 with a scheme centred on recovering commercial and industrial food waste. If you run a restaurant, design the waste holding around that separation rather than retrofit it later.
Prof Team Engineering Co., Ltd. is registered with DSSCU for the execution of works (Registration No. 7003/2024, Certificate No. 1648/DIP/2025), covering renovation, MEP, kitchen, air-conditioning and environmental construction — the two disciplines this batch of rules touches. The waste and energy figures above belong in the design and the tender, not on site.