Green building rating systems comparative study and development methodology from global and local prospective

Building environmental assessment for the current day has become a concern, because of the tremendous impact of greenhouse gases (GHG), energy consumption, and quality of life along the building lifecycle. Those parameters have great influence in directing the trend in the world to initiate rating or calculation tools to assess building sustainability. The question is, where is the assessment focus of the sustainability initiators, and how far do its effects extend to the global climate? The objectives were set for in-depth research and comparative review of the rating systems around the globe and inside Malaysia, alongside reviewing their development methodologies, to come up with the findings. Ten international and Malaysian rating systems were detailed in their assessment systems to have a holistic view on sustainability industry measures, representing different climatic and regional zones around the world. The study’s design was conducted in two parallel paths to verify the rating tools and carbon calculation tools, side by side during data collection, processing, and analysis. However, the analysis revealed that energy dominates weightage allocation by more than half of the average, with 55% for Green Mark on an international scale and 56% for GreenRE on a local scale, for example. That indicates the influence of the assessment category among the group. Also, it was noted that for all reviewed systems’ energy efficiency is 38% on average, which was estimated to be 1/3 of the total categories' assessment weightage allocation, while transportation and water are each allocated half (1/2) of their respective allocations. The tool development methodology is effective, based on the positive results of the applied projects. Future research should focus on the limitations of tall-building sustainability assessment tools.