Abstract:
With world’s trend, though the Sri Lankan government has taken a substantial effort for local green
building movement, still it has not become as a major and pressing concept in Sri Lanka due to several
barriers. Those barriers could be identified under five key areas as financial barriers, regulatory
barriers, social barriers, knowledge/skills barriers and industrial barriers. Thus, the purpose of this
study is to recommend the probable approaches to foster green building constructions in Sri Lanka by
overcoming the existing barriers.
A qualitative research approach was adopted for attaining the research aim while conducting semi
structured interviews with 15 local professionals who are in local regulatory bodies for green
buildings and sustainable constructions, who are involving with green building constructions as well
as who have not still involved with green constructions but expect it in future. The findings were
analyzed with content analysis technique. It was recommended to follow simple and primary green
strategies, take the correct consultation, implement mandatory regulations, make collaboration
between existing authorities, increase public awareness, correct common misconceptions, provide
knowledge and education, promote research and development, government takes the leadership and
take the support from organizational managements as few major approaches to overcome the
identified barriers for Sri Lankan green building constructions. The recommended approaches can be
followed by industry players in order to foster green building constructions in national level, local
level or organizational level and it will provide a basis to achieve the sustainability goal of Sri Lanka.
Citation:
Thalpage, R., & Karunasena, G. (2016). Approaches to foster green building constructions in Sri Lanka. In Y.G. Sandanayake, G.I. Karunasena & T. Ramachandra (Eds.), Greening environment, eco-innovations & entrepreneurship (pp. 70-78). Ceylon Institute of Builders. https://ciobwcs.com/downloads/WCS2016-Proceedings.pdf