The Recent Hype in Malaysia: Green Buildings

In recent years, Malaysia has been inching towards a greener mindset. There is now a much greater sense of environmental awareness than ever before in the country, though I must admit that it is still at a very humble level if compared to countries like Denmark, Germany, or Japan. In any case, there has been progress over the years and recently the hype is about green buildings. Inspired by green building rating tools such as UK’s BREEAM, USA’s LEED, Japan’s CASBEE, Australia’s GREENSTAR, and Singapore’s GREEN MARK, to name a few, Malaysia recently introduced its very own Green Building Index (GBI) in early 2009. GBI was jointly developed by the Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM) and the Association of Consulting Engineers Malaysia (ACEM).