Green vs. sustainability performance assessment: a case study of an office building in Putrajaya, Malaysia

Abstract

Building performance assessment systems (BPASs) are emerging rapidly in many countries with different emphasis and scope of assessment. This paper seeks to find out whether a building design which scores high when assessed by an environmental-focused BPAS would also produce high scores if assessed by a BPAS which is based on a balanced and holistic concept of sustainability. Two BPASs were applied on a case study office building in Putrajaya, Malaysia, namely: 1) Singapore’s Green Mark Scheme, an existing environmental-focused BPAS actually used to rate the green performance of the case study building in reality; and 2) Malaysia Office Building Sustainability Assessment (MOBSA) framework, developed by the author in a three-year research as a means to assess the sustainability performance (environmentally, socially and economically) of office buildings in Malaysia. The study found that the building achieved a very high overall score in terms of its environmental design performance but scored lower when social- and economic-related criteria at the scale broader than the building itself were also taken into consideration and appropriately weighted. It appears that a more comprehensive BPAS, embracing the whole concept or three dimensions of sustainability, is crucial to be introduced and implemented in Malaysia, in priority to, or alongside with, single-dimensional BPASs.