Top-down bottom-up strategic green building development framework: Case studies in Malaysia

Abstract

The development of green buildings has been able to draw considerable interest from society to achieve sustainable solutions. However, there is limited understanding of how green buildings affect behavioural change of industry towards green practices in developing countries such as Malaysia. As part of an intervention strategy to improve green practices in Malaysia, this study aims to investigate the behaviours and practices of industry and recommends strategies to improve the greening practices of building industries. The study was conducted using an explanatory sequential mixed method of six case studies for green and conventional buildings, 54 building stakeholders responded to a cross-sectional survey questionnaire and seven experts were purposefully interviewed to enable the triangulation of information. The findings show that knowledge of industry on green building implementation in terms of familiarity, awareness and perception is varies depending on their roles, expertise and the level of involvement in green practices. This paper demonstrates that the long-term economic benefits and government policies will be effective motivators towards encouraging behavioural change and organizational commitment to green practices, while perceived high costs are the greatest barrier to the implementation of green practices. In addition, a top-down-bottom-up strategic green building development framework is established based on the collating inputs of internal and external synergy approaches towards conceptualization of green building enhancement in Malaysia. This study contributes to the current body of knowledge concerning the insights of current industry behaviour and practices towards green approach in developing countries by evaluating green practices from several stakeholders’ perspectives.