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PurposeThis paper aims to raise awareness on how a simple action by the occupant can significantly influence building energy efficiency, cost and CO2 emissions to the environment. Classrooms in schools are the primary energy consumers (45.4%) due to the use of artificial lighting, despite Malaysia's tropical climate being ideal for daylight exploitation. This paper focuses on assessing the workplane daylight distribution quality and quantity in baseline and existing conditions of a typical pre-school classroom in Kuala Lumpur as a model-based exploration strategy towards nearly Zero Energy Buildings.Design/methodology/approachThe adopted method is based on the calculation of average daylight factor (DF), daylight illuminance level (IL) and uniformity ratio (UR) parameters affected by the internal fixed drapes through computational and in situ measurements according to the requirements of the law and respective standards comprising the MS1525:2019, GBI and BREEAM.FindingsThe results show how user behaviour can turn a well-daylit area (Net Lettable Area>90%) into a poor-daylit area (NLA2 emissions of 25,362 kg for all pre-schools' classrooms in the country per day.Social implicationsThe paper develops the occupants' awareness on their contribution to climate change and global warming through the information and transparency provided.Originality/valueThe evidence indicates that a simple action by the occupant can significantly influence visual comfort, EE, cost and CO2 emissions to the environment.

The implementation of a green roof is best suited for urban areas, as it provides an array of environmental benefits toward mitigating and adapting to climate change, including reduced flood risk, greenhouse gas emissions, urban heat island effects, and air pollution. However, green roof research and maintenance awareness in Malaysia are comparatively scarce, largely due to the absence of local tropical green roof guidelines. Therefore, this paper aims to explore current green roof maintenance practices and challenges for non-residential buildings in Malaysia through case studies and in-depth interviews. These results were then compared with three international green roof guidelines, namely those of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyor, Singapore’s National Parks Board, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. The findings show that current green roof maintenance elements implemented in the case studies are insufficient and inadequate for Malaysia’s tropical climate conditions. The paper recommends nine (9) green roof maintenance elements specific for non-residential buildings in Malaysia and the tropical climate: plant selection, rainwater harvesting system, pest control, monitoring performance, accessibility, irrigation cleaning, waterproofing membrane maintenance, plants and growing medium, and maintenance of outdoor furniture. As this paper has only included data from Kuala Lumpur, this limits the generalizability of the findings to other buildings in Malaysia and a tropical climate. The implications of this study may provide further direction for researchers to consider a larger sample size and other cities in a tropical climate. This study will allow policymakers and building stakeholders to develop suitable green roof maintenance guidelines.

In recent decades, the percentage of women working outside their homes has ascended in many developing countries depicts the needs on the understanding of how women travel daily. Many claims, public transportation facilities, and infrastructure related to it do not consider the needs of women travelers but fit men's standards. As a result, many face difficulties became dependent on men for traveling or facing safety-related issues that deter them to use public transportation independently. Thus, this study is to identify factors of public transportation usage among women users in Kuala Lumpur. The study has able to identify three main attributes in public transportation usage factors that influence women users. Using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) researchers have found that situational attributes have a larger influence on public transportation frequency, in the use of public transportation and surrounding condition of the public transportation in the mode choice decisions of their travel preferences.

Purpose Malaysia’s building regulation is mainly based on the Uniform Building By-Laws (UBBL) 1984 which provides guidelines on the procedures for building plans approval and other means of development control. However, the application of these by-laws varies between local authorities, as they are gazetted by different state governments. The formulation of UBBL 1984 which was originally formulated to address the need for a standardized set of building regulations for the country is now perceived as inconsistent and complex. Therefore, this research attempts to examine the discrepancies between state by-laws, particularly Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and national UBBL 1984. Design/methodology/approach Critical review of the content of the UBBL (Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur) 1985 and national UBBL 1984 was carried out to pinpoint discrepancies between the two by-laws. Findings Differences between national UBBL and Kuala Lumpur By-laws fall into four main categories particularly terminology, prescriptive requirements, presence of terms and by-laws. Three editorial spelling and typing errors were also found in the national UBBL 1984. It is argued that the errors and differences lead to confusion and pose unnecessary regulatory burden to the construction industry which ultimately discourage people to disobey the rules. The identified discrepancies between these by-laws showed an urgent need to review the current building by-laws considering today’s technologies, norms and citizen needs. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of many fruitful contributions that examine discrepancies between by-laws that govern building control matters in Malaysia. Although centred on legislation in Malaysia, the findings are relevant for governments around the world working towards improving public service delivery.

Energy consumption to cool an indoor environment is a substantial part of total energy end-use, particularly in a tropical climate with high energy demand for cooling. To improve energy efficiency, cooling systems can be optimized using a variety of neutral indoor temperatures to maintain a balance between an occupant’s thermal comfort and cooling energy demand. This explanatory study investigated the thermal quality and cooling energy demand of a Platinum-certified office building in the tropical climate of Malaysia. The investigation aimed to suggest a balance between occupant thermal comfort and cooling energy demand. The thermal investigation includes an objective field measurement that implements environmental equipment to monitor thermal quality and a subjective occupant’s thermal feedback using a questionnaire survey. To calculate cooling energy demand, the total equivalent temperature difference method (TETD) is applied. The results suggested an occupant’s cooling sensation of around 24 °C, with no significant difference concerning age and gender. Cooling load calculation indicated a 36% energy reduction by increasing air temperature to 26 °C, for occupants to feel thermally comfortable in a tropical climate. These findings contribute to improving sustainable energy policies, sustainable construction, and thermal comfort improvement for a tropical climate.

The thermal benefits of Vertical Greenery System (VGS) in providing thermal comfort, reducing internal building temperature, and lowering operational energy consumption are not widely known. There is a lack of research and technical knowledge on the effects of vertical greenery systems related to thermal performance, especially in tropical climates, such as that of Malaysia. Therefore, this paper addresses this gap by investigating the effect of VGS on heat transfer and the thermal performance of hypothetical buildings. In this paper, a data prediction method is used to identify the overall thermal transfer value (OTTV) from several hypothetical case studies. A variety of combinations of variables have been used to identify the best design with the lowest OTTV reduction through VGS. From the calculation, Linear Greenery System achieved the highest OTTV reduction with an average of 6.87%, followed by Modular Green Wall (6.82%), Double-skin Green Facades (2.97%), and Direct Green Facades (1.32%). Therefore, this paper can conclude that Linear Green Wall is the best greenery system for reducing heat transfer for the tropical climate of Malaysia.

The quality of the indoor environment has become a vital component for buildings due to the time spent indoors. To this extent, the performance of the indoor environment is considered as part of the greenery criteria by green rating schemes such as the Green Building Index in Malaysia. This study aims to investigate and assess the quality of the indoor environment of Platinum-certified office buildings in a tropical climate. This research applied a case study approach over two Platinum-certified office buildings. Post-occupancy evaluation is employed integrating full-scale measurement with an occupants’ survey. The measurement was carried out from May to August, and 112 questionnaires were retrieved to evaluate occupants’ satisfaction with aspects of the indoor environment. Thermal comfort, indoor air quality, acoustic, lighting, furniture, and cleanliness are considered as the main study variables. The findings of full-scale measurement indicated high relative humidity, and low air velocity and illuminance. While occupants reported overall indoor environment quality (IEQ) comfort, a significant correlation of variables was observed. The main sources of dissatisfaction were identified as overcooling around 24 °C, high relative humidity (RH), around 70% RH, glare, and background noise around 51.9 dB. Statistically, a significant difference between occupants’ responses to IEQ of two cases was identified, although both buildings are labelled with a Platinum certificate.

This article presents a comprehensive literature review of Vertical Greenery System (VGS) in tropical areas, its benefits, its carbon sequestration potential and its calculation methodologies, and its potential for urban heat island (UHI) and climate change mitigation. The contemporary VGS has evolved from the seventh-century beginnings of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the vertical urban farms of today in Singapore and Japan. The VGS has demonstrated a significant role in mitigating urban climate change impacts by the potential use of carbon sequestration from vegetation. However, studies on carbon sequestration rate and the methodologies used for calculation are still rather vague. Therefore, this paper reviews existing methodologies for evaluating carbon sequestration rates in tropical climate plants and makes suggestions of potential plants for optimum carbon sequestering.

Purpose Global warming and climate change is one of the biggest issues facing humanity in this century; its effects are felt on the highest peaks of Mount Everest to the low-lying islands in the India Ocean. This century marked the highest amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted, breaking records of the past 650,000 years, and we have pushed the climate to “a point of no return”. Much of the climate contribution has been linked to humanity’s thirst for higher living standards and lifestyle, which has led to higher consumerism, depletion of earth’s resources, production of massive waste and carbon emissions. Fast forward from the sustainability agenda of Brundtland set in 1987 and the increasing demand for energy consumption to cater for the current global inhabitants, many “green” efforts have been taken by the building industry to reduce the overall environmental impact. This purpose of this study is to compare energy performance of a conventional office building with a green certified building. Design/methodology/approach This paper tries to bridge the performance gap by comparing measured operational energy consumption and carbon emission of Green Building Index (GBI)-certified office buildings in Kuala Lumpur, to determine whether “green buildings” are performing as intended in reducing their environmental impact. Findings This paper highlighted and compared operational energy consumption and carbon emissions of a GBI-certified office with a conventional office building in Malaysia. The paper also discusses the performance gap issue and its common causes, and aims to compare predicted energy and operational energy performance of buildings. Originality/value Initiatives such as “green” or “sustainable” design have been at the forefront of architecture, while green assessment tools have been used to predict the energy performance of a building during its operational phase. There is still a significant performance gap between predicted or simulated energy measurements to actual operational energy consumption. The need to measure actual performance of these so-called “green buildings” is important to investigate if there is a performance gap and whether these buildings can perform better than conventional buildings. Understanding why the performance gap occurs is a step in reducing actual and predicted energy performance in buildings.

Malaysia’s electricity consumption is increasing exponentially as it gears towards becoming a developed nation by year 2020. This paper is aimed at policy development in terms of energy efficiency and building design as Malaysia has yet to establish any mandatory energy efficiency or energy performance building code. The focus on public low-cost housing projects is important as it is administered by government agencies and provides possible streamlining of proposed energy policies for the housing sector. Presented in this paper are findings from fieldwork conducted to investigate the energy performance and green house gas (GHG) emissions from the building operation of two public low-cost housing projects in Kuala Lumpur. The baseline calculations use UNEP–SBCI’s Common Carbon Metric tool to provide project-specific calculations of energy and emissions intensity with its bottom-up approach, while presenting a national-scale projection using its top-down approach. Findings from bottom-up analysis suggest that Malaysian public low-cost housing households consume more than benchmarks set by the World Energy Council and the International Energy Agency, in terms of Building Energy Index (BEI) of kwh/m2/year. This is a reflection of the absence of building energy efficiency legislation in Malaysia, both for residential and non-residential buildings. The importance of this research lies in its focus on a developing country experiencing rapid urbanisation and climate change effects.

Malaysia has rapidly transformed from an agricultural to an industrialized economy in the last four decades, which attributed to the accelerated 235.6% carbon emissions increase from 1990 to 2005. This carbon emission growth was largely due to an increase in national energy demand of 210.7% (1990 to 2004) and rising number of automobiles and industries. In 2009 Malaysia announced a voluntary commitment to reduce 40% of its greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions by 2020 (from 1990 levels). This commitment has not been greeted with much optimism given the limited support from existing legislation and restrained environmental awareness. Without emissions mitigation and conservation policies, Malaysia is unlikely to meet its emissions reduction targets. Malaysia has yet to include any energy efficiency legislation in its growing building sector, particularly in the Uniform Building By-Laws (UBBL). In the absence of such legislation, the Malaysian building sector is likely to lock-in inefficiency for decades into the future, which leads to further growth of GHG emissions. This paper reviews existing Malaysian policies and legislation in the building sector and recommends implementation of mandatory energy efficiency building codes to curb rising GHG emissions and reduce the carbon ‘lockin’ risk.

Affordability in housing is often defined by the ratio of purchase price or rent, to total household income. At present, public low-cost housing units in Malaysia are sold or rented at below market price value being subsidized by the government. This housing affordability definition overlooks other important issues such as long-term operational costs, where a typical low-income household spends a substantial share of monthly income on energy and utility services such as electricity and water. Consequently, the apportionment or percentage of average household income spent on operational household expenditure such as rent, electricity and other utilities are investigated in this paper, by using a survey questionnaire and interview techniques. This paper presents a brief overview to how low-cost housing can contribute to sustainable development in terms of long-term operational affordability for social and economical sustainability.

Forward from the sustainability agenda of Brundtland in 1987 and the increasing demand for energy efficient buildings, the building industry has taken steps in meeting the challenge of reducing its environmental impact. Initiatives such as ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ design have been at the forefront of architecture, while green assessment tools have been used to predict the energy performance of building during its operational phase. However, there is still a significant hap between predicted or simulated energy measurements compared to actual operational energy consumption, or is more commonly referred as the ‘performance gap’. This paper tries to bridge this gap by comparing measured operational energy consumption of a Green Building Index (GBI) certified office building in Kuala Lumpur, with its predicted energy rating qualification.

Malaysia’s carbon emissions grew by +235.6% from 1990 to 2005, largely due to an increase in national energy demand of 210.7% from 1990 to 2004. This unparalleled carbon emission growth, along with business-as-usual (BAU) practices will put Malaysia at high risk for carbon lock-in and a very unsustainable path of development. Malaysia clearly needs to make significant and urgent changes in its policy, economy, industries and lifestyle in order to reduce its climate change impacts. In 2010 Malaysia announced a voluntary commitment to reduce 40% of its greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions by 2020 (from 1990 levels). Without emissions mitigation and conservation policies, Malaysia is unlikely to meet its emissions reduction targets. Presently, Malaysia has no energy efficiency legislation in its growing building sector. This paper reviews existing building policies and energy efficiency measures in Malaysia and highlights the need to implement mandatory energy efficiency building codes in reducing the sector’s impact on climate change.

Performance Measurement System (PMS) is an effective performance measurement tool and technique that is being widely implemented in the global industries. Literature has suggested the significant contributions of its implementation in enhancing the strategic service delivery and performance. However, there is little study undertaken to explore the PMS implementation in Facilities Management (FM) industry, particularly focusing on Malaysia. This study explores the PMS practice among FM practitioners and their knowledge in Performance Measurement (PM) generally. Findings from this study also proposed the 20 contributing factors that the FM practitioners believed are the barriers in implementing PMS. This research also suggests the future research opportunities in developing a PMS framework that can be used as guidance for FM service delivery in Malaysia.

The ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has infected over 58 million people and claimed over 1.58 millions deaths globally (as of 11th December 2020) since its first outbreak in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Initially, the numbers of infected patients and death was largely contained in China with 98% of all confirmed infected cases. However, the increased rate of new infected cases outside of China like United States, Italy, and Spain raises questions on the virus characteristics and its routes of transmission. Although the main transmission modes of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are through direct contact and respiratory droplet/aerosol inhalation, current studies stipulate that SARS-CoV-2 RNA is found in sewerage, suggesting the potential transmission of SARS-COV-2 through wastewater systems. This paper seeks to review potential exposure routes of SARS-COV-2 in urban environments, the survival rate of coronaviruses that pose human health risks, and to provide relevant safety recommendations to reduce the impact of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. There is an urgent need for wastewater effluent and water treatment supply epidemiology surveillance, especially in developing countries with subpar wastewater treatment systems and infrastructure to reduce human and ecological risks to protect populations from infectious diseases outbreak.

Growing urban population has increased environmental demands and also affects human health. As the global population becomes more urbanized, there is a concern that it will negatively affect not just physical health, but also mental health. Mental health can be categorized and studied through many different approaches, such as psychology, psychiatry, clinical and sociology. This paper aims to highlight the comparison of mental health of rural and urban dwellers, in terms of environmental psychology (EP) through the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ). A survey questionnaire was distributed to respondents in Petaling Jaya to represent the urban area, and Pontian to represent the rural area. The survey questionnaire was analysed using one-way ANOVA analysis, and suggests a relationship between behaviour and age, but also in relation to ‘living area’ influence that suggests urbanization affects a person’s environmental psychology. The findings suggest that urban dwellers are more prone to certain personality traits that can be detrimental to a person’s mental health.