Sustainable construction and green building: the case of Malaysia

Abstract

The adoption of sustainable construction and green buildings has become an important issue in Malaysia in recent years and has been duly highlighted under the Malaysian Construction Industry Master Plan (2005–2015). This paper highlights current initiatives taken by the government and private sectors in Malaysia to encourage the adoption of sustainable development and green buildings. Leads by the Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia (CIDB), the government of Malaysia has establishment a technical committee and eco-label task force to create guideline for good practices in sustainable construction and green buildings and to develop eco-label accreditation scheme for construction materials. The challenges of the adoption are lack of skill and capacity, overlapping of roles among the government agencies, slow industry follows through on government programs, lack of research and innovation, and cost versus benefits in term of implementation of green technology. Finally, the way forward to accelerate the adoption are to establish green public procurement, to encourage Research and Development (R&D) in related field, to educate and change public perception and mindset, to adopt life cycle costing and Industrialised Building System (IBS) method of construction and to provide legislative and financial framework for sustainable development and green building.