Soft Cost Elements in Green Projects: Malaysian building industry

Abstract

The most commonly cited green building barrier is the high development costs of construction. Many developers share the common perception that green building construction incurs expensive additional costs. A preliminary study was conducted with four industry experts via semi-structured interviews to investigate the soft cost elements (SCEs) in the project. Eighteen SCEs were identified and categorized into three groups namely Professionals, Procedures, and Legal Requirements. Three of the SCEs were found to be unique to green building and contributed a financial concern. The study rendered that these SCEs may influence a developer's decision to invest in green building development.Keywords: Soft cost elements; green building; developer decision; development costeISSN 2398-4295 © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.