Abstract:
Fulfilling energy demand has become a major challenge faced by most of high rise buildings today as
it creates high utility cost to the organization. Hence, most of the organisations, especially in
commercial building sector seek better options to fulfil their energy demand as a major energy
consumer among the other building facilities. Hence, several energy management practices have been
introduced to enhance energy efficiency. In the governing concern on less energy and less
environmental impact, Net Zero Energy Building concept has received attention. Net Zero Energy
Buildings have a greatly reduced energy demand by an equivalent generation of energy from low-cost,
locally available, non-polluting, renewable sources. However, the adaptation of this concept has
become a major challenge due to various barriers. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to
identify the barriers to adopt Net Zero Energy Building concept to commercial buildings in Sri Lanka
for proposing probable solutions. As this research required a detailed investigation, case study
approach was selected under qualitative phenomenon. Three cases were conducted in three selected
commercial buildings to collect the data. Cross-case analysis technique was applied as the
appropriate data analysis technique. Nvivo and Decision-Explore software’s are used to analyse and
present the data. As the focal point of the research, barriers to adopt Net Zero Energy Building
concept was determined relating to five major categories, such as, financial, legal, policy, social, and
technical barriers. According to case study findings, this concept is more suitable for new building
constructions than the existing buildings, as it is more effective to adopt it at the early stage of the
building. Further, major barriers include limitations of organisational internal policies, preference of
organisations for short term profits, unawareness and government rules and regulations. Accordingly,
a framework is developed to propose probable solutions. The developed framework gives a value to
the research, as it could use as a firm base in both organisational and national levels to adopt Net
Zero Energy Building concept to reduce energy cost of commercial buildings in Sri Lanka.
