Designing a whole-life cost index for non-residential buildings

Abstract

The study investigates the whole-life costs of non-residential Green Mark certified building developments in Singapore to derive useful information for teaching, research and practice. When industry stakeholders like building owners, architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, builders and facility managers have detailed information about the initial and operating costs of different types of buildings, they would be able to apply whole-life costing to their existing or new projects with the intention of achieving value for money, as well as environmental sustainability. Data is collected from Green Mark certified building projects starting from 2005. Statistical analysis is performed on the collected data to generate the information required to build the cost database. The Paasche Price Index method is used to produce a weighted composite index for Singapore’s non-residential building sector by applying 2005 as the base year.