Identification and evaluation of green building assessment indicators for Myanmar

Abstract

To accommodate its increasing population, the Myanmar government has planned to implement smart city projects in Yangon and Mandalay by 2021 and to build 1 million homes by 2030. However, such projected growth does not coincide with Myanmar’s current level of preparedness for sustainable development. Myanmar presently has no standards and specifications for green buildings; it solely relies on the adoption of those from overseas, which may not always be compatible with the unique context of Myanmar. Hence, this study was aimed to identify appropriate green building assessment indicators for Myanmar as an important first step for future rating system development. Nine categories and forty-eight criteria were initially identified by reviewing the widely adopted seven rating systems and investigating existing certified green buildings. The Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP) was used to determine and rank the importance levels of the identified assessment indicators. Results showed that “energy efficiency” and “water efficiency” are the most crucial categories with weights of 17.48% and 13.95%, respectively. Compared to other rating system standards, “waste and pollution” was distinctively found as an important category for Myanmar. Energy-efficient architectural design was ranked as the highest priority among all criteria. These findings serve as a building block for the future development of a Myanmar green building rating system by revealing assessment categories and criteria that are most relevant to Myanmar’s built environment.