Green cleaning: an essential aspect of Malaysian green buildings

Abstract

This paper discusses the importance of green cleaning for green buildings during the operations and maintenance stage. The investment on green buildings is often driven by the aim to reduce energy consumption. However, many tend to overlook the importance of the operations and maintenance aspect of the building, particularly the green cleaning aspect. Green cleaning is a major contributor to Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) where IEQ is one of the important criteria that should be considered during the assessment of green building performance. In Malaysia, there is no specific regulation set for green cleaning. Green Building Index (GBI) tools itself does not specifically highlighting green cleaning in their assessment tool. Thus, based on literature review, this paper discusses the benefits of implementing green cleaning and how green cleaning can contribute to achieving better green building performance.