Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2012) 000–000

www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

International Congress on Interdisciplinary Business and Social Science 2012

(ICIBSoS 2012)

Developing post occupancy evaluation sustainability

assessment framework for retrofitting commercial office

buildings: A proposal

aSuleiman Aliyu Shika

*,bMaimunah Sapri,

cJibril Dan'azimi Jibril,

dIbrahim

Sipan, eShahabudin Abdullah

a, b, c, d,e Center for Real Estate management, Faculty of Geoinformation and Real Estate, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

Abstract

Developing a new assessment tool in the area of sustainable development requires a strategic methodology for a

cohesive and logical framework incorporating relevant theory and practical experience. This study is aimed to

provide a Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) sustainability assessment framework for retrofitting commercial office

buildings in Malaysia. The design of sampling selects GBI certified office buildings and a non GBI certified

commercial building, to obtain the building performance score then, conducting interviews with professionals to

obtain feedback on environmental performance and determine the occupants’ satisfaction level in certified GBI

commercial office buildings and conventional, through questionnaire distribution.

© 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of JIBES University,

Jakarta

Keywords: Commercial buildings, Facilities management, Indicators, Post occupancy evaluation, Sustainability

1. Introduction

Sustainability indicators and composite index are gaining a lot of importance and increasingly recognized

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* Suleiman Aliyu Shika. Tel.: +601-66170876; fax: +0-000-000-0000 .

E-mail address: asshika1@gmail.com.

2 Suleiman Aliyu Shika et al./ Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2012) 000–000

As a powerful tool for policy making and public communication in providing information on

buildings and corporate performance in fields such as environment, economic, social, or technological

improvement. Existing buildings and to this extend, commercial buildings have an important role to play

in addressing the sustainability issue for any meaningful development. By conceptualizing phenomena

and highlighting trends, sustainability indicators simplify, quantify, analyze and communicate the

complex and complicated information (Kumar et al., 2012).

Research in the area of ‘green building’ focused on the assessment of environmental and (to

some extent) health-related attributes of buildings. The further development towards the ‘sustainable

building’ approach led to the inclusion of economic and social aspects that resulted in a substantially

widened scope of assessment criteria. Concerning ‘sustainable buildings’, the description of functional

building performance is therefore a precondition for safeguarding the comparability of building concepts,

and for validating the fulfillment of building users’ needs (Lutzkendorf and Lorenz, 2006). Consequently,

this can be achieved by merging both approaches and by the development of an overall system for the

description and assessment of a building’s characteristics and attributes, hence this research focus on

integrating the POE concept as a means of feedback for retrofitting process for the fulfillment of building

user's need towards performance-based sustainability.

2. Problem Statement

The Malaysian building industry has over the years been developing and working towards a more

sustainable and green architecture. The issue of Sustainable Building Rating System in Malaysian

building industry is still new. Even though Green Building Index has been developed, but the application

has been mostly to the new building. There has been no study done on the application of SBRS to existing

building yet. Thus, Knowledge and understanding on how the Sustainable Building Rating System

(SBRS) can increase their building performance and prolong the building life span among the actors in

Malaysian building industry are very low. Hashim (2011) reveals that one of the major barriers holding

back the development of sustainable building in Southeast Asia is the lack of awareness of sustainability

issues in related to the profession.

The survey conducted by Jaafar et al (2007) also reveals that the Malaysian building industry players

have ‘little’ knowledge on sustainable building assessment, rating and labelling system. Due to this, many

office buildings in Malaysia lay claim for sustainability. The building maintenance and operation cost

increase drastically every year. The building condition deteriorates and this situation will lead to the loss

of rental income by the owner. Tenant of an office building will go for a better building environment for

their companies' good reputation. Even though the capital investment for sustainable building is very

high, but the long term of operation and maintenance cost is very low, hence POE is required if

achievement is to be made in any successful commercial upgrade in order to satisfy the need of

occupants.

3. Literature Review

Sustainability assessment has been developed conceptually and through practice. Pope et al. (2004)

conceptually reviewed several approaches of sustainability assessment such as environmental impact

assessment (EIA), strategic environmental assessment (SEA), objectives-led SEA, EIA-based integrated

assessment, objectives-led integrated assessment, and assessment for sustainability which relied on

principles-based criteria. In sustainability assessment, the triple bottom line approach, covering

Author name / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2012) 000–000 3

environmental, economic and social dimensions, is a starting point (Pope et al., 2004). Sustainability

assessment focuses on the prospects for lasting net gains and the acceptability of associated trade-offs

with generic trade-off rules (Pope et al., 2004; Winfield et al., 2010).

Sustainable renewal/retrofit of buildings uses the building data and case studies as well as the

identification of sustainable features for Building retrofit (Mohseni et al., 2012; Edirisinghe et al., 2011).

This research will adopt the model developed by (Ruwini et al; 2012), in their study of the Sustainable

renewal/retrofit of public building project as shown in Figure1, modified to suit the context of this study.

This model takes sustainability indices into consideration in order to determine various environmental,

social, economic and functional factors as emphasized by (Kalutara, et al., 2011), when assessing

sustainable retrofit options and technologies for buildings. In addition to that, the model also takes

associated risk into account in assessing various sustainability features. Once the retrofit case study is

identified the project estimates the quantifiable sustainability criteria and indices such as Heating,

Ventilation, and Air Conditioning systems (HVAC), Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ), energy and

water prior to retrofit. Upon implementation of the retrofit, a building monitoring system is used to

validate the pre-estimates through the post-retrofit real measurements of the above criteria and indices.

Rating tool (GBI)

Case study, occupant’s feedback

and industry Consultation

Feedback

Fig 1. Conceptual model of POE Sustainability Assessment/ retrofits of commercial buildings

(Adapted from Ruwini et al; 2012)

Regarding existing buildings, it is desirable to assess occupants’ satisfaction through POE

(Lutzkendorf and Lorenz, 2006). The indicator ‘occupant satisfaction’ represents a key performance

POE

Sustainability

Assessment

Toolkit

Assessment of

sustainable Features

for commercial office

building retrofit

Sustainable Features

for Building retrofit

- Literature

- Building Data

- Industry

Environmental, Social

and Economic Indicators Sustainable

Building

Retrofit Model

Implementation

Monitoring

(Energy, IEQ,

HVAC)

Qualitative and

Quantitative data

4 Suleiman Aliyu Shika et al./ Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2012) 000–000

indicator that may replace some other partial indicators. This indicator reveals a very close relationship

between the social aspects of sustainable development (in terms of health, comfort and well-being) and

economic or financial considerations. Therefore, there is a close correlation between occupant satisfaction

and occupant productivity (Heerwagen et al., 2004; Kampschroer and Heerwagen, 2005). Hence,

occupant satisfaction has an impact on the risk of losing the tenants, on the cash flow generated by the

building and thus on the building’s market value. Furthermore, aspects of occupational health and safety

feed into the ‘labor practice’ and ‘decent work’ criteria, which are applicable within the framework of the

Global Reporting Guidelines (Lutzkendorf and Lorenz, 2006).

Currently, several environmental methodologies and methods for evaluating environmental

performance of buildings are being developed. In a global scale it is worth mentioning SB (Sustainable

Building) Tool, formerly known as GB Tool (Green Building Tool), which is an international project

coordinated from Canada, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) a method developed

in the USA with a worldwide application and CASBEE (Comprehensive Assessment System for Building

Environmental Efficiency), a method developed in Japan. In Europe, some of the most frequently used

include BREEAM (Building Research Establish Environmental Assessment Method) in the UK and it is

worth mentioning the HQE (High Environmental Quality) developed in France during the last decade and

the VERDE method developed recently in Spain (Sinou, 2006).

4. Methodology

Both, qualitative and quantitative methods will be used as a research method to achieve the objectives

of this study and to answer research questions, table 1 below depict the research strategy

Table 1: Research Strategy Objective Type of Data required Data collection Approach Analysis

To critically examine the relevant criteria for

assessing sustainability of existing office

buildings.

Green Building system

strategies.

Environmental, social and

economic Sustainability

indicators.

GBI-Rating Criteria.

Literature Review

Interview with experts

(Qualitative)

Pilot case study

Content

analysis

To evaluate the occupants’ perception of

sustainability in both GBI certified office

building and conventional commercial office

building.

Environmental, Social and

Economic indicators

Quantitative data

(Questionnaire)

Factor

analysis

To determine the variability of the occupants’

perception in the two buildings

Indicators

Quantitative data

(Questionnaire)

Principal

Component

Analysis

To develop a POE sustainability

assessment framework for retrofitting

commercial buildings.

Categories of assessment

indicators and their

weighting coefficient

Quantitative and

Qualitative data

AHP

Author name / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2012) 000–000 5

4. Conclusion

To achieve sustainability objectives in buildings, a coherent strategy and action plan is needed to

address occupants expectations and needs in existing buildings. This highly fragmented and important

issue must be aligned for action in a timely manner or objectives will be at risk. The creation and

adoption of a Post occupancy evaluation sustainability assessment framework that incorporates occupants,

such as the one described and demonstrated here, with escalating mandatory performance levels would

help to drive improvement in existing commercial building stock. Such an approach would be used to rate

existing commercial buildings, galvanize stakeholders around a common framework, and provide long-

term visibility in the marketplace. A retrofit-rating scheme must be integrated with existing building

regulations, planning mechanisms, incentive programs, and assessment requirements such as energy

performance certificates. Third-party assessment and achievement of minimum requirements should be

mandated at key trigger points, such as sale, lease, extension, major renovation or conversion. Because

there is not enough empirical information regarding the value of buildings, this study was centered on

development strategies and expectations. Given the properties of the qualitative and quantitative research,

it must be acknowledged that the results of this research will be more clarifying than conclusive and

imply paths for future research studies regarding sustainability.

5. Acknowledgement

The authors will like to acknowledge and thank the International Doctoral Fellowship (IDF) initiated

by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), supported by the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia

(MOHE) for contributing to this research work

6. References

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