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Abstract Building refurbishment is a key in promoting environmentally sustainable development due to its potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption associated with existing buildings. The general metrics for assessing the impacts of refurbishment have not been established for existing buildings in most of the countries. In Malaysia, there is currently no single environmental assessment scheme for building refurbishment. The existing environmental assessment schemes are not sufficiently robust, as they do not include factors such as quality of services and economics. It is essential to have a customised suite of sustainability schemes specifically designed for the Malaysian context to facilitate best practice for non-domestic refurbishment assessment. A comprehensive Delphi process was developed to assist in the identification of suitable assessment schemes for use in non-domestic buildings. Three successive rounds of surveys were conducted with ten Delphi experts with expertise in sustainability and green assessment. The study revealed that energy related factors such as air-conditioning were ranked as the most important assessment theme for refurbishment, followed by indoor environmental quality and water assessment. The findings of this research will be used to develop a weighting system by using the analytic hierarchy process in the next research stage, leading to a complete refurbishment environmental assessment scheme. Highlights • Refurbishing of non-domestic buildings could achieve sustainability. • There is lacking of an individual refurbishment scheme in various regions. • Energy ranked the highest, followed by indoor environmental quality and water. • Quality of services and economic are important for refurbishment practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need to optimise the performance of buildings has increased consequently due to the expansive supply of facilities in higher education building (HEB). Hence, a proper performance assessment as a proactive measure may help university building in achieving performance optimization. However, the current maintenance programs or performance evaluation in the HEB is a systemic and cyclic process where maintenance is considered as an operational issue and not as opposed to a strategic issue. Hence, this paper proposed a Building Performance Risk Rating Tool (BPRT) as an improved measure for building performance evaluation by addressing the users' risk in health and safety aspects. The BPRT was developed from the result of a rating index using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. A total of 12 facilities management (FM) experts and practitioners were involved in the rating process. The subjective weightings were analysed by using the AHP computer software programme, the Expert Choice 11 . The result of the AHP had successfully assigned weighting scores to all performance-risk indicators, with five indicators ranked as the most critical indicators; structural stability (14.9%), fire prevention services (9.1%), building-related illnesses (7.4%), emergency exits (6.8%), and electrical services (6.3%). The final indication to the assessed building using the BPRT provided a rating classification in terms of the following: “ Excellent”, “Good”, “Medium”, “Low ”, or “ Poor ”, which suggested further actions to improve the performance of the building, as well as to mitigate the users’ health and safety risks. Hence, the establishment of the BPRT was successfully employed as an aid of improvement towards the current performance assessment of HEB by emerging the concept of building performance and risk into a numerical strategic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in global warming, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions has gained attention in various regions. In Malaysia, the government announced a voluntary commitment to reduce 40% of CO 2 emissions by 2020 and to refurbish 100 government buildings. Existing buildings make a large contribution to energy consumption and CO 2 emissions, therefore refurbishing existing buildings is an essential strategy to achieve the commitment. There is no single assessment scheme for building refurbishment in Malaysia and hence, this study aims to develop a comprehensive list of assessment themes and sub-themes for building refurbishment purposes. It examines and compares 10 assessment schemes from various countries: BREEAM, LEED, CASBEE, BEAM Plus, GBLS, Green Star, HQE, Green Mark, GBI and MyCrest. The findings revealed fourteen themes that were considered for assessment: management , sustainable site , transport , indoor environmental quality ( IEQ ), water , waste , material , energy , pollution , innovation , economic , social , culture and quality of services . Energy and IEQ are dominant themes in all assessment schemes. Most of the schemes are considered relatively weak in evaluating economic and social aspects, in comparison to environmental aspects. The assessment of quality of services is overlooked in most of the schemes, including GBI and MyCrest in Malaysia. Outcomes from this paper will form the baseline for a new environmental assessment scheme that aimed at non-domestic building refurbishments in Malaysia. A new model is proposed for the development of an environmental assessment scheme in the further stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Malaysia, the coverage of kindergarten education has improved dramatically in recent times, although many kindergartens are located in buildings that were not originally designed for that purpose. Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is considered to be one of the most important factors affecting the physical development of children. Hence, it is essential to evaluate the indoor conditions of those kindergartens which are based in buildings that have been refurbished and adapted from their original purpose. It is posited that such refurbished environments provide sub-optimal IEQ for kindergarten use, which is reflected in user perception and satisfaction. This study presents the results of the IEQ investigations conducted in refurbished kindergarten buildings in Malaysia with the focus on identifying occupants' satisfaction with the various IEQ factors. The researchers aim to utilize the results of this work to develop a benchmark for analogous studies. 240 refurbished kindergarten buildings in Malaysia were studied to evaluate occupants' perceptions and levels of satisfaction. The results indicate that the occupants found Air Movement, Ventilation, and Freshness to be of a poor quality due to the high occupancy density. Noise was the least satisfactory IEQ factor due to the closeness of the kindergartens to main roads (external noise), as well as the small size of classrooms (internal noise). It was found that Colour and Attractiveness are the most important IEQ factors from the occupants' viewpoint. This study provides a practical benchmark for the conversion of buildings' usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]