Life cycle cost comparison of leed certified and conventional office buildings in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Green buildings are emerging concept to Sri Lankan construction industry. Although with a slow uptake, office building development is currently trending towards green buildings in the country. Lack of knowledge of the developers about advantages of green buildings in terms of the life cycle cost appears to be the largest obstacles which hinder green buildings in the country. In this context this study aims to compare the Life Cycle Cost of LEED certified office building with conventional office building in Sri Lanka in order to raise awareness of the advantages of green buildings mainly in terms of life cycle cost savings. Case study strategy was employed with semi-structured interviews and document survey as the data collection method. An expert survey was conducted to identify the life cycle cost components which are applicable to Sri Lankan context. Life Cycle Cost Analysis was carried out to evaluate the cost savings of green building over conventional building using Net Present Value method. The findings of this study reveal that although the construction cost of green building 5.33% higher of conventional building the cost is saved through operation and maintenance cost.