A proposed model of construction cost and carbon emission best practices in the Malaysian construction industry

The Malaysian construction industry contributes as an empowerment to the Malaysian economic sector. Even though, the building and construction industry are the key sector for sustainable development, but still they are among the biggest threat to the environment in a form of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions. Moreover, this industry consumes a huge amount of natural resources and emits million tonnes of carbon emission per year. In fact, the Malaysian construction industry is categorized as the 30
^th
world ranking in carbon emission. However, the Malaysian Construction industry introduced the Malaysian CIB Report, Green Building Index (GBI) and lately the Green Performance Assessment System in Construction (Green PASS) to help the construction's stakeholders in evaluating the impact of their buildings on the environment. Several studies around the world identified the main sources of GHGs and introduced various assessment methods to reduce the amount of carbon emissions of construction projects but it is lack of implementation in the Malaysian construction context. This paper presents a critical literature review for tools and methods used to assess and reduce GHGs emissions of construction projects and it proposes a new model to assess sustainability in the Malaysian construction industry.