Green building management practices model for Malaysia Green Building

Abstract

Presently, there are serious environmental problems caused by natural and man-made sources. Climate change issues have become a global phenomenon, in particular greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, recognized as an important factor contributing to climate change. Previous research has revealed that the building sector is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions globally. The concept of green building emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and it was designed to reduce negative environmental effects and preserves natural resource. The review of the world green building standard shows that management of green building is a critical issue to attain sustainable development. Presently, Malaysia does not have a set of structured green building management key practices in its green building rating system. Therefore, the main objective of the current study was to ascertain appropriate management key practices to attain sustainable development in Malaysian green buildings. Data was collected in two phases and the respondents comprised of 35 Malaysian green building experts, facilitators and managers in phase one, and 89 respondents in phase two. Phase one involved an expert survey to identify the list of key practices to manage the green building and data were analysed by Relative Importance Index. In phase two, questionnaire survey was utilised to identify management key practices appropriate for Malaysian green buildings. Structural Equation Modeling-Partial Least Square was used to analyse the data. This study identified five management key practices, which play a critical role for green building performance, which include sustainable operation, sustainable procurement, environmental health, resource management and repair and maintenance management. However, only four management key practices effect on optimal performance of green buildings in Malaysia were identified which include environmental health, sustainable procurement, sustainable operation and resource management. The contribution of knowledge of this study is the development of a structural equation modeling green building management key practices for Malaysia.