Approaches to foster green building constructions in Sri Lanka

Abstract

With world’s trend, though the Sri Lankan government has taken a substantial effort for local green building movement, still it has not become as a major and pressing concept in Sri Lanka due to several barriers. Those barriers could be identified under five key areas as financial barriers, regulatory barriers, social barriers, knowledge/skills barriers and industrial barriers. Thus, the purpose of this study is to recommend the probable approaches to foster green building constructions in Sri Lanka by overcoming the existing barriers. A qualitative research approach was adopted for attaining the research aim while conducting semi structured interviews with 15 local professionals who are in local regulatory bodies for green buildings and sustainable constructions, who are involving with green building constructions as well as who have not still involved with green constructions but expect it in future. The findings were analyzed with content analysis technique. It was recommended to follow simple and primary green strategies, take the correct consultation, implement mandatory regulations, make collaboration between existing authorities, increase public awareness, correct common misconceptions, provide knowledge and education, promote research and development, government takes the leadership and take the support from organizational managements as few major approaches to overcome the identified barriers for Sri Lankan green building constructions. The recommended approaches can be followed by industry players in order to foster green building constructions in national level, local level or organizational level and it will provide a basis to achieve the sustainability goal of Sri Lanka.