Green Features Project Management: Value Added to Residential Property

Green buildings with green features are sustainable buildings and have less harmful effects on the natural environment, resource consumption and human health. Since the global warming issue has worsened and the number of housings is increasing, the role of green features in green housing has become highly important in creating a good sustainable living environment. However, to date, the level of developed green housing is still below the mainstream housing even though Green Buildings Index (GBI) has been implemented in Malaysia. The objectives of this study are to identify current green features that are applied in green housing, to quantify the construction costs of green features that are applied and to identify the factors that influence the acceptance levels of green housing. The scope of the study included collecting data from developers through five case studies of housing projects. Questionnaire and semi structured interviews and documents’ review were conducted to gather information from the respondents, of developers or architects, and 120 home buyers on green housing. The result shows that current green features that are mostly applied by housing developers are passive green features such as building orientation, window and daylight. From the perspectives of cost effectiveness and to meet the purpose of comfortable housing, developers will choose to apply passive green features. The construction cost of green feature window and daylight is the highest. The main factors that influence the acceptance level of green housing by home buyers is the comfort of green housing followed by the green housing pricing. Further, the research recommends looking into the details of the cost of savings in the long term for green features and developers’ opinions on the perception of the home buyers when it comes to factors that influence their acceptance level of green housing. It is recommended that an in-depth study be conducted on green features to study the problems and issues related to improve the green features design.