Investigating the challenges of green building management practices for platinum office buildings / Soffia Adillah Selamat and Nurul Sahida Fauzi

Green building has become an important aspect in achieving a sustainable environment for the country and one of the highest achievements in green building certification is platinum certification that issued by Green Building Index (GBI) Malaysia. However, the management of platinum green office buildings in Malaysia has been reported to have low numbers, with only 4% of the total green certified buildings achieving platinum status and from that only 4 buildings are office building. The number is significantly very low compared to the total number of green building certified. Why there is low numbers of platinum GBI certification? Is that difficult to manage the GBI certification building? Thus, this study seeks to identify the reason of low number of platinum office building and to investigate the challenges of management practices in platinum green office building. Three property managers of platinum-certified green office buildings in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya are selected as participants. The research employed a qualitative approach using face-to-face semi-structured interviews for data collection, which were then analysed using content analysis. The findings indicated that the main issue faced by platinum green office buildings is maintenance cost. The findings revealed property manager should prioritize the element of energy efficiency, safety, comfort and compliance in the management.Challenges arise when unexpected damage occurs to building components, requiring immediate repairs or timely attention. Addressing the issues and challenges, as well as identifying the crucial elements in managing platinum office buildings, may contribute to an increase in the number of platinum-certified green office buildings in Malaysia in the future.