Non-green Buildings Research Articles

Determining the Effectiveness of Green Building Certifications in Terms of Impacts on Sustainability: a Case Study from Australia

Green building is a process of designing a structure in a way that its lifecycle, use, construction, and demolition are allincluded in the project, so that all areas of sustainability are balanced and maintained. This research on Green BuildingCertifications focuses on assessing the impact of green buildings over non-green buildings and thus to understand its effectiveness on overall sustainability. The research uses data from two selected States in Australia, namely Victoria and New South Wales (NSW). Both primary and secondary data were used to understand the impact of green building certifications through comparative, descriptive and inferential analysis.These results demonstrated a 54% increase in meeting environmental standards; 57% and 66% in saving of water per m2 of the floor area of the buildings in NSW and Victoria, respectively; as well as up to 85% decrease in energy use between green buildings compared to non-green buildings over a 12-year span.

Indoor Environmental Quality Effect Analysis in Green and Non-green Office Building to Staff’s Performance and Satisfaction in Surabaya

The energy efficiency in an office building can decrease the company’s operational cost. Even so, the operational cost for staff is still larger than the cost for energy. It is important to reassure that the impact given by the building’s indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is positive to staff. This research focusses on two office building in Surabaya, one of them is designed using the green principles and calculations, and the other is not. The building’s IEQ aspects being inspected includes indoor air quality, thermal, lighting, acoustics and layout. A questionnaire survey was held to obtain the reaction from the full time staff regarding the building’s IEQ performance, their satisfaction to it and their self-assessed performance. There are IEQ aspects that affects staff’s performance and satisfaction significantly. The IEQ mean score differs significantly in green and non-green building, but the mean difference in satisfaction and performance were found not significant.

The Evaluation of Green Building’s Feasibility: Comparative Analysis across Different Geological Conditions

Green building materials have nontoxic properties and are made from recycled materials. This means they are, in most cases, created from renewable resources in comparison to non-renewable resources. This research aims to further improve the justification of green buildings and their materials. This is undertaken to determine the validity of such construction techniques. This research utilizes both qualitative and quantitative methods through five Australian case studies. The case studies, which are based on new and redeveloped structures, are selected via different geological locations and are evaluated via logical argumentation along with correlation research. Further, the research will address the problem by identifying a variety of green building materials that can be used to substitute non-green building materials. With careful comparisons among the five buildings, the green signs and implementation advantages and disadvantages will be evaluated. The result of this comparison will assist in improving the current education around the topic of green building and benefit the overall response to positive change within the construction industry. Although green building initiatives are not difficult to apply, they can be cost efficient. To maximize their cost efficiency, these initiatives need to be fully adopted. This includes the adaptation of specific building orientation, design, and sealing off penetrations to greatly improve passive heating and cooling. Further, the use of rainwater tanks also assists with energy efficiency by reducing the amount of mains water used. The utilization of natural lighting along with an advanced solar power system would further reduce the overall energy usage.

Construction Cost Decomposition of Residential Building Energy Retrofit

Buildings are responsible for significant energy consumption and carbon emissions. Green buildings, which incorporate advanced building technologies, offer a solution to reducing energy use. However, high costs associated with green building development present a barrier to widespread adoption. Retrofit projects, involving remodeling, renovation, and redevelopment of existing buildings, offer a viable solution. While prior studies have examined the cost analysis of green and non-green buildings, there is a lack of evidence comparing new and retrofit projects. This study aims to address this gap by providing empirical evidence for the cost decomposition and benefits of new and retrofit projects. Data on energy use, building technology, and costs from 235 certified green homes in the United States were collected, and cost benefits were evaluated. Results show that retrofit projects cost, on average, $1270.5/m2 ($118.0/ft2), which is 30% less than new projects. Land acquisition and development account for 35% of retrofit costs, six times greater than new projects. Excluding land costs, retrofit projects cost, on average, $733.88/m2 ($68.2/ft2), 49% less than new projects. Retrofit projects use similar building technologies as new projects and produce larger energy savings. The cost-benefit values generated by retrofit projects are 86% greater than new projects when considering land costs and 142% greater without considering land costs. These findings contribute to cost management for complex building projects and energy policy for sustainable development. Retrofitting offers great potential to promote the green building movement and suggests effective subsidy programs as a public policy implication.

Are Green Spaces More Available and Accessible to Green Building Users? A Comparative Study in Texas

Green buildings (GBs) and green spaces (GSs) play a key foundational role as important drivers of urban Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There have been many studies on the spatial distribution of GBs and GSs, but relevant studies exploring the spatial relationship between GBs and GSs are lacking. The research questions were: whether GBs are more likely to access GSs than nongreen buildings (NGBs) and whether GBs with higher certification levels are more likely to access GSs. In this study, we used Texas and its four major cities (Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio) as case studies to compare the availability and accessibility of GSs to GBs (certified by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, LEED by U.S. Green Building Council) and NGBs. The study was conducted using spatial analysis tools in a geographic information system (GIS) to explore the spatial distribution of GBs and quantify the availability and accessibility of GSs in a comparison of GBs and NGBs and different GB certification levels. The study found that GBs in each city showed uneven distribution with multicore distribution. In addition, the availability and accessibility of GSs for GBs are lower than for NGBs, and the ability to obtain GSs does not increase with higher GB certification levels. This is because many GBs are located in areas far from the city center or in small cities around large cities where there are few GSs available, resulting in a mismatch in the distribution of GBs and GSs. The study also reviewed the certification manuals and found that LEED has regulated GSs at the city and community levels, yet has ignored them at the building level, and thus further suggests specific improvements. This study provides references and suggestions for adding GSs to the certification content, helping policymakers to optimize future efforts to improve GB certification programs and contributing to the eventual greater role of GBs and GSs together in urban SDGs.

OPTIMIZING BUSINESS PERFORMANCE IN PROPERTY MANAGEMENT WITH GREEN BUILDING EVIDENCE IN INDONESIA

Indonesia has not widely implemented green buildings although such buildings offer many benefits to their occupants and property management firms. In this respect, this study seeks to test the effect of green buildings on business performance. This research expands GBCI’s green building indicators with an indicator of continuous and design process to operationalize the green building variable. Meanwhile, the measurement of business performance refers to the balanced scorecard for sustainability (BSCS) concept that adds the environmental perspective into the conventional BSC. Surveying 126 manager respondents representing 89 green and non-green buildings, the study finds that green building implementation positively affects business performance. Thus, our hypothesis is empirically supported.

Mind over Mortar: Examining IEQ Scores and Financial Services Companies Performance

This paper investigates green buildings and organizational performance, using financial services companies (FSCs) located in green and non-green buildings. Returns of low, moderate, and high-risk investment products were used to underpin organizational performance. FSCs based in green buildings on average outperformed their competitors in non-green buildings. One statistically significant relationship (high-risk fund) was found when assessing returns and IEQ. Average green return ratios (AGRRi) determined the discount/premium of the incremental return per IEQ point of a FSC based in green building(s). However, there were individual FSCs located in non-green buildings that outperformed some of the FSCs based in green buildings.

Bridging BIM and LCSA to Greening Existing Buildings: From A Literature Review to Development of Conceptual Framework

Instead of looking into new building, this study shifted the focus to existing buildings considering the area has been less explored although the amount of energy released during the phase has significant influence towards sustainability impacts. Deriving from the situation, the purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of bridging BIM and the four-steps approach of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) as an assisting tool to improve the performances of existing non-green buildings. To achieve aforementioned aim, an extensive literature review to identify the nexus between the two areas is done, as well as possibilities and challenges surfaced pertaining to the idea. Literature review process consists of several approaches including literature searching, classifying, and analysis were conducted. Based on literature review, a research gap is identified, and an initial conceptual framework is developed. The framework entails several areas of research that highlight on integrating LCSA approach, sustainability indicators and BIM functions. Apart from that, several implementation considerations to integrate both areas have been identified too. The conceptual framework presented in this study will serve as a basis to further develop an implementation framework that integrates BIM and LCSA to greening existing buildings. The final implementation framework is expected to assist project stakeholders including project manager (or facility manager), building owner, and consultants in making decision towards improving existing buildings’ sustainable performance.

Evaluation of occupants’ satisfaction in green and non-green office buildings in Dar es Salaam-Tanzania

In recent years, sustainability practices in Africa have been promoted as the relatively most effective means of reducing adverse environmental impacts associated with buildings and occupants. Occupants' perception within buildings, whether green or non-green, is crucial for the understanding of building sustainability (energy performance) and comfort conditions. However, there has been a scanty research-based knowledge from empirical studies, particularly in Dar es Salaam. This study endeavoured to bridge that knowledge gap. The study evaluated the occupants' satisfaction rate of 2 certified green office buildings and 15 non-green office buildings and the extent to which they control indoor environmental performance. The study deployed a PoE questionnaire based on two types of scales, a bipolar and unipolar scale to measure the occupants' perception of the indoor environmental performance: temperature comfort, temperature sensation, noise, air movement, air freshness, air quality and satisfaction with the amount of natural light. A total of 532 occupants from the buildings set provided valid responses. The results show that overall occupants were quite satisfied in all buildings set. However, there are some differences regarding air movement, air quality, glare from artificial light, noise levels, and lighting control. Occupants of green buildings were more satisfied with lighting control; nonetheless, improved lighting control alone is insufficient to enhance occupants’ satisfaction in green buildings to a superior level than that of non-green buildings. This study can provide feedback to building owners, property managers, green building certification systems and can aid architects in designing climate-responsive buildings that encourage long-term occupant satisfaction.

Analisis Biaya Pemeliharaan Bangunan Gedung Dengan Konsep Green building Dan Bangunan Gedung Dengan Konsep Non Green building

The concept of green building must also consider the cost of building maintenance in the post-construction stage so as not to reduce the large company costs each year. Green building is defined as a high-performance building that is made environmentally friendly, economically beneficial and healthy for life and workplace. This study intends to analyze the cost of building maintenance using the concept of green building non-green building. The data used in this study is the data on the maintenance costs of green buildings and non-green buildings. This data was taken by surveying the building management directly. Based on the analysis, the difference in the cost of maintaining green buildings and non-green buildings is Rp 10,283.22/m2/year. Based on the calculation, the maintenance costs of green building and non-green building still conform the standards of the Minister of Public Works Regulation and the standard of the Minister of Finance Regulation.

Can Green Building Promote Pro-Environmental Behaviours? The Psychological Model and Design Strategy

A green building has a long lasting benefit through cultivating the occupants’ energy and resource-saving behaviours. To understand how green buildings can cultivate occupants’ pro-environment behaviours, the research applied the value–belief–norm model to investigate 17 pro-environmental behaviours which are related to a variety of green building design strategies. Two green and two non-green certified office buildings in the city of Shenzhen in China were surveyed, based on which structural equation modelling was established to confirm the relationship between personal values, environmental beliefs and norms that lead to pro-environment behaviours. Green and non-green building occupants showed significant differences in altruistic values, environmental awareness, personal norms, and pro-environmental behaviours. Green building users had more frequent pro-environmental behaviours than those in non-green buildings. The strategies that require fewer additional efforts were more likely to be adopted as pro-environmental behaviours, such as meeting daily needs within walking distance and adjusting sunshades, while the strategies that need extra physical efforts (taking stairs) or knowledge (garbage sorting) were less likely to be adopted as pro-environmental behaviours. This study pointed out important intervention opportunities and discussed the possible design implications for green building guidelines and programmes to cultivate green occupants and their corresponding pro-environmental behaviours.

Indoor environment quality and work performance in \u201cgreen\u201d office buildings in the Middle East

Globally, a primary concern is whether green office buildings perform as promised in terms of providing better indoor environment quality (IEQ) for employees, which may affect their satisfaction and work performance. In the Middle East, although there has been renewed interest in green building design, post occupancy evaluation of performance has never been conducted to-date, and evidence of actual occupant perception in green and non-green buildings is still ambiguous. Hence, we present the first study on IEQ performance in the Middle East. We show that Jordan can be taken as a representative example and systematically compare five “green” office buildings (representing 71% of all green-certified office buildings) against eight comparable conventional office buildings (CBs). Detailed bi-lingual survey data on perceived IEQ (n = 502) and work performance are accompanied by high-resolution continuous physical measurements of air temperature + relative humidity (n = 83) and CO2 concentrations (n = 21) with periodic measurements of mean radiant temperature and air speed, covering two typical summers and one typical winter. Results show both buildings types comply with design standards for indoor CO2 levels, while thermal comfort in green buildings is better than in CBs. However, CBs have a higher overall occupant satisfaction of IEQ. Work performance measured as absolute and relative absenteeism was slightly higher in CBs, with no significant differences in relative and absolute presenteeism between the two buildings types. These findings challenge the notion that green buildings improve occupant satisfaction and work performance over CBs and suggest the need for a better understanding of the performance-satisfaction gap.

Green Building, Green Behavior? An Analysis of Building Characteristics that Support Environmentally Responsible Behaviors

This study examines the environmentally responsible behaviors (ERBs) of undergraduates ( n = 575). ERBs were measured in an online survey and the influence of situational context on behavior was explored at two scales: 1) green versus non-green building and 2) building characteristics. The Positive Sustainable Built Environments model was used to analyze three building characteristics: Prime, Permit, and Invite. Prime refers to characteristics that prepare occupants to adopt ERBs via communicating a sustainable ethos or restoring attentional capacity (e.g., use of natural materials and views to nature). Permit refers to features that allow occupants to conserve resources (e.g., operable light switches). Invite pertains to features that explicitly encourage ERBs (e.g., signage prompting occupants to turn off lights). Regression results demonstrated that living in a green building had no significant impact on ERBs. However, the Prime and Invite building characteristics significantly predicted improved Energy, Water, and Materials conservation. Results yield implications for designers seeking to create sustainable buildings that promote ERBs.

The impact of building location on green certification price premiums: Evidence from three European countries

Green building certification has gained global prominence in the wake of the recent calls for ensuring the sustainable development of expanding urban areas. This trend rooted in the fact that buildings are among the main sources of energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Green certification therefore emerged in response to sustainability concerns throughout the building sector. Nonetheless, the significant costs required by green investments have elicited scholars’ attention, in an attempt to determine if the benefits of green certification outweigh its costs. This study uses a proprietary data-set of office building transactions from three major European countries - Finland, France, and Germany - in order to analyze the price premium of green certification over the 2010–2015 period. Considering the increasing demand for certification in the European Union (EU) after 2010, it is expected that green office buildings would sell at higher prices relative to non-green buildings. Empirical tests suggest that office buildings with green certification have a 19 percent higher price relative to non-certified buildings. Further, the study aims to assess whether the premium varies with the location of the green buildings within the urban area. Given the price premium brought by a central location - irrespective of green certification - it is expected that the price premium of green investments would incrementally increase in non-central locations. The distance variable is hand-constructed based on geocoding all properties in the dataset - empirical results indicate that the green certification price premium incrementally increases by 10.5 percent for 1-km distance from the city center. Further tests show that the distance effect becomes insignificant in both (i) large cities and (ii) cities of under 200,000 inhabitants. In these two contingencies, the price premium associated with central locations is reduced - which also diminishes the relevance of the green buildings’ location. The empirical results are robust to eliminating 2010 and 2011 from the sample and to employing a propensity score matching approach, aimed at increasing the similarity of the treatment and control groups. This paper adds to the rising literature on the topic of green buildings, as it is the first international study to assess the price impact of green certification as a function of office building location.

Integrating Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Sustainability to Greening Existing Building: Potentials in Malaysian Construction Industry

Apropos to numerous environmental issues highlighted globally and locally, Malaysia has now moving forward towards new agenda of greening the cities. A positive movement trend of new green building in the country can be seen as number of projects going into green rating application are increasing yearly. Nevertheless, sustainability impact is considered as significantly small since newly developed green building represent small percentage as compared to the existing non-green building. Therefore, the idea of greening the existing building through refurbishment emerged in order to achieve wider sustainability objectives. Apart from that, supported with recent evolvement of technology and digitalization in construction industry, in lieu with governments’ strategies to adopt Industry 4.0, Building Information Modelling (BIM) has also been acknowledged and used broadly as a solution to integrate and facilitate management of information throughout building lifecycles. Considering these two areas; sustainability and BIM are continuously gaining momentum these days, this paper attempts to explore BIM’s potentials as an enabler to help greening the existing non-green building. Literature review is conducted focus on reviewing BIM and sustainability present status in Malaysian construction industry, also their relationship including examining potential areas where BIM may contribute to enhance the buildings’ sustainability performances. Based on the reviews, there is a potential of bridging the two areas considering both has becoming a national construction industry agenda since the government released CITP2016-2020. To further concur the ideas, literature reviews has also proven that the ability of BIM to facilitate various functions has enable it to support several sustainability analyses such as energy, carbon emission, lighting, water, materials and waste, building and site, and costing analysis.

Effects of occupant behaviour on energy performance in buildings: a green and non-green building comparison

PurposeOccupants are one of the most impacting factors in the overall energy performance of buildings, according to literature. Occupants’ behaviours and actions may impact the overall use of energy in more than 50%. In order to quantify the impact that occupant behaviour has in the use of energy, this study simulated interactions between occupants and the systems present in two actual buildings. The main aim was to compare the deviations due to occupant behaviour with the actual conditions and energy use of the two buildings.Design/methodology/approachThe buildings used as a case study in this research were green buildings, rated according to the Australian Green Star certification system as a 6-star and a non-rated building. The two buildings are university buildings with similar characteristics, from Western Sydney University, in Sydney, Australia. A comparison was performed by means of building simulations among the use of energy in both buildings, aiming to understand if the green rating had any impact on the energy related to occupant behaviour. Therefore, to represent the actual buildings' conditions, the actual data related with climate, geometry, systems, internal loads, etc. were used as input variables in the simulation models of the green and the non-rated buildings. Both models were calibrated and validated, having as target the actual monitored use of electricity.FindingsOccupants were categorized according to their levels of energy use as follows: saving, real and intensive energy users. Building simulations were performed to each building, with varying parameters related with lighting, plug loads, windows/doors opening, shading and air conditioning set points. Results show that occupant behaviour may impact the buildings' energy performance in a range of 72% between the two extremes. There is no significant relationship between the green rating and the way occupants behave in terms of the energy use.Originality/valueThis study intends to show the impact of different categories of occupant behaviour in the overall energy performance of two university buildings, a non-rated and a green-rated building, having as reference an actual representation of the buildings. Additionally, the study aims to understand the main differences between a green-rated and a non-rated building when accounting with the previous categories.

Tenants’ office leasing motivators toward the tangible and symbolic aspects of office buildings: Between Green and Non-Green Buildings

Increasing interests in the sustainable development of the Australian building sector has resulted in a surge of green buildings across the country. Nonetheless, limited studies have been done to compare green and non-green building tenants’ leasing motivators. To address this gap, this study aims to examine tenants’ leasing motivators toward tangible and symbolic aspects of office buildings. To this, a questionnaire survey was conducted, and the obtained responses were analysed using the Mann-Whitney U test, followed by an examination on their effect sizes. The results show that green buildings tenants put more emphasis on certain tangible aspects of office buildings such as building sustainability ratings, building quality and energy efficiency. Likewise, green building tenants’ higher emphasis on several symbolic aspects of office buildings, including their attractiveness to future employees, was found. The results inform policymakers and building owners that understanding tenants’ leasing motivators and establish targeted strategy is important to provide adequate office spaces.

The Impact of Indoor Environmental Quality of Green Buildings on Occupants' Health and Satisfaction: A systematic review

Introduction: The main benefits of green buildings for energy and water conservation have been investigated and well recognized in previous studies. However, indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and human health benefits of green buildings have not been examined comprehensively. This study aimed to conduct a systematic review over the current status of green and non- green buildings on their occupants’ health and satisfaction. Method: A systematic search was conducted throughout the following databases: Science Direct, Google Scholar, and Springer. We reviewed 690 articles that examined the relationship between buildings and health. In total, after excluding the irrelevant titles and non-­English articles, 40 papers were included in the final analysis. Articles that evaluated IEQ factors and occupants’ health through surveys from 2005 to 2018 years were selected for investigation. Results: The most important result of this study was identification of important factors in IEQ, including building design, aesthetics, and ergonomics, which have been less evaluated in previous research. Contrary to our assumption, the results of several studies indicated a further decline in IEQ parameters in buildings with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED, USA) and Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM, Europe) certification. However, performance improvements were reported in green buildings located in Asia (especially Singapore and Taiwan). Conclusion: According to this systematic review, we cannot claim that occupants of the green buildings enjoy higher IEQ, satisfaction, or health, compared with the occupants of non-green buildings.

Tax Incentives for Green Industries: Determinants of Performance between Green Building Index (GBI) and Non-Green Building Index Firms in Malaysia

Industrialization, urbanization, and economic growth are among the major causes of environmental degradation. These factors are closely related to the construction sector. To curb the issue, the government has initiated tax incentives to encourage developers embracing green technology. Developers who entitled to these tax incentives should enjoy a considerable amount of tax savings, which can be employed for capital reinvestment. Consequently, this study aims to determine whether firms that specifically involve with the construction of green buildings and have received the tax incentives are more likely to achieve relatively better financial performance, as a result of tax benefits gained from the government assistance. For the empirical analyses, secondary data was employed. A total of 138 firm-year observations from 2015 until 2017 used to measure the firm’s characteristic of board size, asset tangibility, deferred tax balances, and leverage against financial performance. The Theory of the Growth of the Firm was used to interpret the relationship between the financial characteristics and firm performance. We obtain evidence that indicates there is no significant difference in the financial performance between the GBI and non-GBI firms. The deferred tax balance, a proxy of the investment tax allowances granted by the Malaysian government to the GBI firms, is shown to be ineffective in improving the financial performances of these firms. The finding of this study suggests that any form of tax assistance from the government for the construction sector has not benefitted its recipients and requires remodeling.

Indoor Environmental Quality Effect Analysis in Green and Non-Green Office Buildings to Staff’s Performance and Satisfaction in Surabaya

Energy efficiency in an office building can decrease the company’s operational cost. Even so, the operational cost for staff is still larger than the cost for energy. Thus, it is important to reassure that the impact given by the building’s indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is positive to staff. This research focusses on two office buildings in Surabaya, one of them is designed using the green principles and calculations, and the other is not. The building’s IEQ aspects being inspected includes indoor air quality, thermal, lighting, acoustics and layout. A questionnaire survey was held to obtain the reaction from the full time staff regarding the building’s IEQ performance, their satisfaction to it and their self-assessed performance. There are IEQ aspects that affects staff’s performance and satisfaction significantly. The IEQ mean score differs significantly in green and non-green buildings, but the mean difference in satisfaction and performance were found not significant.