CRITERIA WEIGHTING OF GREEN BUILDING INDEX MALAYSIA

The Green Building Rating System (GBRS) is an effective framework for
assessing building environmental performance into green building. Several GBRS are
in use today and are developing at all levels. In May 2009, Green Building Index
Malaysia (GBI) was launched as design guides and standards of green building in
Malaysia. GBRS is always dynamic, being adapt and adopt from other rating systems.
As a reflection of this dynamism, energy efficiency in building assessment appears as
the main criterion in most GBRSs, including GBI. A difficulty then arises when those
systems do not imply to be used across multiple countries and often they have features
with a significant local favor. GBRS must also represent the geographical location
and climatic condition of its original country. Therefore, this study undertakes
comparative analysis of international GBRS, which are LEED, BREEAM, CASBEE,
Green Star, and Green Mark with GBI. The analysis reveals that GBI closely adopted
the LEED rating award and its criteria, although both are used in a different
geographical zone and under different climatic conditions.
According to that particular result, furthermore, this research defines new
weighting criteria of GBI with respect to the local conditions in Malaysia by
analysing these criteria with questionnaires from various expert respondents using
Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. This research is focused on GBI Non
Residential New Construction building (GBI-NRNC). GBI is based on the six criteria,
which are “Energy Efficiency”, “Indoor Environment Quality”, “Sustainable Site
Planning & Management”, “Materials and Resources”, “Water Efficiency” and
“Innovation”. From the six criteria, current GBI-NRNC has more emphasis on Energy
Efficiency (EE). In AHP questionnaire, respondents rank the relative importance of
each criterion and sub criterion in pairwise comparison, with the scale of 1 to 9 and
then the criteria were weighted to meet the priority. The respondents chose which
criterion is reasonable to be the main criteria in green building assessment. The
analysis shows that based on respondents’ judgment, the current GBI are different
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from GBI survey result in their criteria and sub criteria weighting. GBI survey result
identified “Indoor Environmental Quality” as a main priority, while current GBI
identifies “Energy Efficiency”.
Finally, evaluation based on the project of “SIME office building” was carried
out. The evaluation of the building was conducted by using the rating system of the
current GBI and GBI survey result. Based on the current GBI, the project gains 61
points, thus will achieve “Certified” certification. On the other hand, the evaluations
based on GBI survey result, the project gains 70 points, and qualify for “Silver”
certification. The results were then validated by the certified GBI facilitators.