Sustainable building standards differ around the world due to differing development philosophies and local idiosyncrasies, hindering international comparative studies. In this study, the CASBEE standard used in Japan and the GBI used in Malaysia are compared. Using CASBEE as a baseline, items in each standard are matched, compared, and then filtered to only include those affecting end users. Differing levels in these items in both sustainable building standards are matched and are included in a survey of home buyer preferences. This allows for a single survey to be used to study sustainable housing preferences in both Japan and Malaysia

Mohd. Amir, Ahmad Syahid

Tareq, Mohammad Ali

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Institutional Repository

International Conference on Sustainability Initiatives (ICSI) 2015 in conjunction with 8th ASEAN Environmental Engineering Conference (AEEC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 24-25 August 2015  – 1 –   Apples to Oranges: Harmonising Home Buyer Preferences in Japan and Malaysia through Standards Comparison  A. Syahid1* , M. A. Tareq1   1 Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology, University Technology Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia syidid@gmail.com    SUMMARY: Sustainable building standards differ around the world due to differing development philosophies and local idiosyncrasies, hindering international comparative studies. In this study, the CASBEE standard used in Japan and the GBI used in Malaysia are compared. Using CASBEE as a baseline, items in each standard are matched, compared, and then filtered to only include those affecting end users. Differing levels in these items in both sustainable building standards are matched and are included in a survey of home buyer preferences. This allows for a single survey to be used to study sustainable housing preferences in both Japan and Malaysia.  Keywords—Home Buyer Preferences; Japan; Malaysia; Sustainable Housing;     INTRODUCTION Sustainable building standards have enjoyed a contemporary renaissance, as a developing country Malaysia joined the sustainable building fray by introducing their own sustainable building standards. Malaysia’s Green Building Index (GBI) was introduced in May 2009 [1] to much fanfare from the private and public sectors. Malaysia’s sustainable building efforts are, in comparison to developed countries like Japan, are piecemeal [2] and its nascence prevents any prediction of long term successes. Therefore, it is imperative that we learn from the implementation successes of senior sustainable building standards [3] and study the applicability of such efforts within the Malaysian context. The factor often highlighted as a critical success factor in Malaysian sustainable development is home buyer awareness [4] and demand [5]. However, it is not possible to compare home buyer attitudes directly between Japan and Malaysia. To this end, sustainable building standards can be used as an intermediary to measure such attitudes. There are fundamental differences between the GBI [6] and Japan’s sustainable building standard; the Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency (CASBEE) [7]. This study attempts to harmonise between the two standards and use the results of this to measure home buyer attitudes in Japan and Malaysia using a universal tool.   2. MATERIALS AND METHODS The research methodology employed in this study consists of drawing up the commonalities and differences between the GBI and CASBEE, filtering items that affect home buyers’ living quality [8] and comparing the levels present between these items across the two standards, to arrive at a common term between them. The first step is to list the items used to score sustainability in both standards. The GBI [6] splits these into six categories; energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, sustainable site planning and management, materials and resources, water efficiency, and innovation. CASBEE [7] splits sustainability measures between a building’s environmental quality, which includes indoor environment, quality of service, and outdoor environment on-site, and its environmental load, categorised into energy, resources and materials, and off-site environment measures. The individual categories are then matched between the two standards and any category that do not have a counterpart in the other standard is listed. For the purpose of this study, CASBEE is used as the yardstick to compare the GBI with. The categorised and matched sustainable building criteria are then tested for search, experience, and credence characteristics [8], [9] for end users. The individual levels prescribed within each item are compared across both standards to allow for comparable figures to be used to measure home buyer preferences in both Japan and Malaysia.  3. RESULTS The comparison between standards have shown that most sustainability criteria has its counterpart between both the GBI [6] and CASBEE [7]. However, some criteria cannot be matched. Because of the frequent natural environmental hazards in Japan, almost a non-issue in Malaysia, the durability and reliability of houses are assessed in CASBEE but not in the GBI. Inversely, the issue of construction waste management in Malaysia is acute enough [10] to warrant its heavy emphasis in the GBI [6], a non-issue in Japan [11].  Using the search, experience, and credence characteristics [8], [9] of these criteria, the following sustainable building criteria are included to assess home buyer preferences for sustainable housing, shown in table 1. Table 1: Sustainable characteristics for assessing home buyer preferences GBI CASBEE Sound Insulation Noise & Acoustics   – 2 –   Indoor Air Quality Air Quality Community Services & Connectivity Local Characteristics & Outdoor Amenity Renewable Energy Advanced EE Performance Natural Energy Utilisation Building Thermal Load Water Efficiency Water Resources  For each of these items, a comparison is made between different levels prescribed in the GBI and CASBEE. Because of the differing measures used between these standards, such as the overall thermal transfer value (OTTV) that measures the heat transfer into the building through its envelope [12] used in the GBI [6], in contrast to the annual heating and cooling load measures, based on the Energy-saving Countermeasures of the Japan Housing Performance Standard [13] are used in CASBEE [7].  Based on these comparisons, the levels of attributes were decided as both common to both the Japanese and Malaysian standards and is relevant to home buyers in both countries, shown in table 2. Table 2: Attribute levels for cross-country survey Attribute Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Energy Savings None 20% (equivalent to CASBEE Grade 2) 40% (equivalent to CASBEE Grade 3) Renewable Energy Use (1kWh = 3.6MJ) None Nominal (≥1MJ/m2) Significant (≥15MJ/m2) Amenities Basic amenities (convenience store, eatery, & park) Basic amenities with ≥10% total area landscaping Basic amenities with ≥20% total area landscaping Interior Environment (Sound insulation & air quality) Standard soundproofing (STC 30) with basic ventilation (25 m3/ hour-person) Exterior soundproofing (STC 45) with enhanced ventilation (30 m3/ hour-person) Interior (STC 35) & exterior soundproofing (STC 45) with enhanced ventilation (35 m3/ hour-person)   4. DISCUSSION  Despite the divergences in sustainable building standards worldwide, it has been shown that many sustainability criteria originate from common bases [14]. This study has shown that despite the philosophical differences in measuring sustainability between the GBI and CASBEE standards, there exists enough commonality to bridge the two standards. Based on the comparison of the home buyer-centric sustainability criteria used in both the GBI and CASBEE, it is possible to form a common base to measure home buyer preferences in Japan and in Malaysia. The suitability of these criteria in each country should be tested to verify this claim.  REFERENCES [1] R. Rahardjati, M. F. Khamidi, and A. Idrus, “The Level of Importance of Criteria and Sub Criteria in Green Building Index Malaysia,” in International Conference on Sustainable Building and Infrastructure 2010, 2010. [2] A. A. Hezri and M. Nordin Hasan, “Towards sustainable development? The evolution of environmental policy in Malaysia,” Nat. Resour. Forum, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 37–50, Feb. 2006. [3] P. T. I. Lam, E. H. W. Chan, C. S. Poon, C. K. Chau, and K. P. Chun, “Factors affecting the implementation of green specifications in construction,” J. Environ. Manage., vol. 91, no. 3, pp. 654–661, 2010. [4] M. R. Esa, M. A. Marhani, R. Yaman, A. A. Hassan, N. H. Noor Rashid, and H. Adnan, “Obstacles in implementing green building projects in Malaysia,” Aust. J. Basic Appl. Sci., vol. 5, no. 12, pp. 1806–1812, 2011. [5] N. Zainul Abidin, N. ’Aini Yusof, and H. Awang, “A Foresight into Green Housing Industry in Malaysia,” Int. J. Environ. Ecol. Geol. Min. Eng., vol. 6, no. 7, pp. 55–63, 2012. [6] Greenbuildingindex, “GBI Assessment Criteria for Residential New Construction (RNC),” Greenbuildingindex, Kuala Lumpur, 2011. [7] Institute for Building and Energy Conservation, “CASBEE for New Construction,” IBEC, Tokyo, 2008. [8] M. Bleda and M. Valente, “Graded eco-labels: A demand-oriented approach to reduce pollution,” Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change, vol. 76, no. 4, pp. 512–524, May 2009. [9] C. K. Chau, M. S. Tse, and K. Y. Chung, “A choice experiment to estimate the effect of green experience on preferences and willingness-to-pay for green building attributes,” Build. Environ., vol. 45, no. 11, pp. 2553–2561, Nov. 2010. [10] E. Papargyropoulou, C. Preece, R. Padfield, and A. A. Abdullah, “Sustainable construction waste management in Malaysia: a contractor’s perspective,” in Management and Innovation for a Sustainable Built Environment MISBE 2011, 2011. [11] S. Hashimoto, H. Tanikawa, and Y. Moriguchi, “Where will large amounts of materials accumulated within the economy go? - A material flow analysis of construction minerals for Japan,” Waste Manag., vol. 27, no. 12, pp. 1725–1738, 2007. [12] J. Vijayalaxmi, “Concept of Overall Thermal Transfer Value (OTTV) in Design of Building Envelope to Achieve Energy Efficiency,” Int. J. Therm. Environ. Eng., vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 75–80, Dec. 2010. [13] K. Hashimoto, “Policy and Programs for Energy Efficient Houses and Buildings,” no. February. Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, & Tourism, Tokyo, 2013. [14] Z. M. Darus, N. A. Hashim, E. Salleh, C. H. Lim, A. K. A. Rashid, and S. N. A. Manan, “Development of rating system for Sustainable building in Malaysia,” WSEAS Trans. Environ. Dev., vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 260–272, 2009.  

Apples to oranges: harmonising home buyer preferences in Japan and Malaysia through standards comparison

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Apples to oranges: harmonising home buyer preferences in Japan and Malaysia through standards comparison

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