Malaysia’s Green Building Index Requirement on Solar Reflectance Index For Paving Materials – Part 1
Green construction has become the hottest topic in construction industry today. Almost every research organizations around the globe are working on developing and improving current construction technology and materials in order to obtain the green building status. The manufacturers of building and construction materials are also working around the clock to develop products that can obtained green status.
In Malaysia, Architect Association of Malaysia is the one responsible in developing and implementing the guideline for green construction. The association has come with Green Building Index as the reference document for the green status. The Green Building Index (GBI) is already recognized as Malaysia’s green rating tool for building to promote sustainability in built environment and raise awareness among the construction industry players.
The GBI consist 6 main categories (Non-Residential New Construction), namely (1) Energy Efficiency – 35 points, (2) Indoor Environmental Quality – 21 points, (3) Sustainable Site Planning & Management – 16 points, (4) Material & Resources – 11 points, (5) Water Efficiency – 10 points, and (6) Innovation – 7 points. Each of this 6 categories is further divided many sub-categories which will details out the point allocation for each element of the construction process.
The GBI is very comprehensive and covers almost every aspect of the construction process. However, this article is focused on discussing the Solar Reflectance Index requirement for Paving Materials. This requirement comes under third category of the GBI, which is Sustainable Site Planning & Management with sub-category of Greenery & Roof for Hard-scape and Greenery Application. Under this scope the minimum requirement for Solar Reflectance Index (SRI) is 29.
Therefore, for any paving products that need to be used in green building status construction shall achieve SRI value of at least 29. Though the number sounds small, it is not easy to achieve that in paving products. For asphalt paving there is no way of achieving that number. However, concrete paving products can achieve SRI of 29, but of course with some improvement in the mix design and raw materials.
Look out for my follow-up article on this topic, which will discuss more SRI.
