Application of green building rating systems for high-rise low-income residential buildings in Sri Lanka

Abstract

“Green Building” technology has not been fully adopted into the housing construction industry due to many limitations. Hence, housing developers rarely obtain the services provided by green building consultants in their projects. A Large amount of low-income people within the city creates a great problem for urban housing. Since they are unable to afford a house, the government of Sri Lanka has created high rise housing concept for these urban poor. However, there are many issues and problems regarding this high-rise housing from the view of sustainability perspective. Therefore, this research is focused on investigating the application of green rating systems for developing high-rise low-income housing projects in Sri Lanka as sustainable housing solutions to increase housing affordability and enhance urban livelihoods. Subsequently, three objectives were identified to form this study. Reviewing green building concept and its application in high-rise low-income housing projects through published research works. Analyzing the level of application of green rating systems in Sri Lankan high-rise low-income housing projects. Finally, proposing the strategies to enhance the application of the green rating systems for high-rise low-income housing projects. Semi-structured interviews were selected as the main method of data collection. GREENSL® RATING SYSTEM FOR EXISTING BUILDINGS Version 1.0 was used as the interview guide for obtaining data from the experts. The panel of expert were selected based on extensive working experience in high-rise low-income housing construction industry in Sri Lanka and green accredited professionals who were declared by GBCSL. All the interview comments were analyzed using “Manual content analysis.’ The findings revealed that the extent of application of the green building concept and GREENSL® RATING SYSTEM in high-rise low-income housing projects is limited due to the identified current limitations of the green building concept. Furthermore, 148 possible green building strategies were derived aiming for the 8 green aspects which comes in GREENSL® RATING SYSTEM to improve sustainability aspects of high-rise low-income housing buildings in urban environments. These proposed green strategies will benefit for emerging and existing high-rise low-income housing projects to ensure a lower environmental effect, decrease the use of natural resources, and improve living standards of occupants.