The Opportunities and Challenges of Implementing BEAM Plus in Hong Kong from the Perspectives of Government and Developers

Due to the enhancing environmental concerns worldwide with the need of increasing demand for sustainability of building design, maintenance and operation, key stakeholders including the government and developers in many countries strike for the benefits in implementing the green design and building concepts in constructing, infrastructure as well as the buildings. Different countries have their standards or certifications for green buildings while the adoption rate of BEAM-Plus in HK is relatively less compared with other developed countries such as Europe, USA and Japan. Therefore, in the present research, BEAM-Plus, the beginning assessment method of green standard implemented in HK, will be mainly discussed. Current situation of BEAM-Plus implementation in HK will be reviewed and then adopt a systematic approach via literature review and research paper, questionnaire with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method to depict the opportunities and challenges from the perspective of government and developers regarding implementing BEAM-Plus in HK and thus investigate the implementation gaps. It is found that for both the macro level of opportunity and challenge, the most important criterion is political, in which the weighting value are 0.3114 and 0.2321 respectively. It is obvious that government plays a critical and significant role in affecting the development of BEAM plus. Technological difficulty is also an important factor that challenging and hindering the implementation of BEAM plus, the weighting value is 0.2194 under challenge hierarchy. More experts and professionals should be imported to Hong Kong to enhance the technique is building green buildings. At the end of this paper, solutions and actions will also be suggested and concluded in alleviating the challenges. Finally, solutions and actions are suggested and concluded in alleviating the challenges. Findings from this research can guide developers to consider adopting green elements, government and Green Building Council in HK to review green buildings' policy.