Sustainable construction for mixed development projects in the Malaysian construction industry

Abstract

Malaysia is in a need of commitment to pursue development in a more sustainable manner from the start, rather than a more conventional and costly model to ‘grow first, clean up later’ in ensuring that Malaysia’s precious environment and natural endowment are conserved and protected for present and future generations. Although the issue on environment protection was introduced in Malaysia since 1960s, it is only recent that the sustainable construction has become the center of attention amongst construction stakeholders in Malaysia. The aim of this study is to appraise sustainable construction for mixed development projects in the Malaysian construction industry by identifying the sustainable construction projects principles and implementation in delivering mixed development projects, examining current practice of sustainable construction in the Malaysian mixed development projects, assessing the problems of sustainable construction in the Malaysian mixed development projects and investigating critical success factors that contribute to sustainable construction in Malaysian mixed development projects via literature review and questionnaire survey on 130 respondents consisting of Project Managers, Site Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Quantity Surveyors, Safety Officers, Land Surveyors and subcontractors. The results analysed through Statistical Package for Social and Science (SPSS) Version 22.0 demonstrate that the sustainable construction principles are good project manage is a vital overarching aspect in delivering mixed development projects, both in long tern and short term and building should not use a disproportionate amount of resources, including money, energy, water, materials and land during construction, use or disposal. The current practice of sustainable construction are practice is not in compliance with different governmental sustainability legislations, including environmental requirement and social responsibility to improve business competitiveness and projects do not possesses whole life value through green design and the promotion of best practice construction procurement. While problems for implementation are sustainable construction projects are expensive, high cost in purchasing technology, the learning curve cost and employing skilled labor and unwillingness to change to sustainable construction in delivering mixed development projects and most critical success factors are initial investment, support from project stakeholder and policy implementation efforts. The findings of this study is very substantial as it is apart of the agenda for sustainable development overseen by Malaysia via the needs to adopt the sustainable consumption and its production concept and to discuss their influence on the directions and practices in the construction industry.