Benefits of adopting green concept for construction of buildings in Sri Lanka

Abstract

While moving towards the sustainable development, the concept of green building has become the forefront in the construction industry globally. Simply, green buildings increase the efficiency of resources while sustaining natural resources for the future generation and reduce impact on human and environment. With the global interest, nowadays construction of green buildings has become a new trend in Sri Lanka as well. Many studies identified that there is a significant initial investment perceived in the green construction than conventional buildings. However, it is important for a developing country like Sri Lanka to identify the real benefits and challenges when adopting green concept in construction of buildings. Thus, the research aimed at investigating the benefits associated with green buildings for a country like Sri Lanka and analysed each benefit in terms of achievable time duration. The questionnaire survey was used as a main data collection method and statistic technique, relative importance index was used to analyse the data. Findings obtained from Thirty-four key professionals were used to derive the conclusions. The results indicated that the construction of a green building provides many environmental, economic and social benefits to the owners and users of the built-environment. Furthermore, the paper discussed the level of importance of individual factors under main three categories. In addition, it is evident that most of benefits are achievable in long-run where approximately it takes more than two years to achieve after construction of a green building.