Breaking through the Barriers to Green Building Movement in Indonesia: Insights from Building Occupants

As one of the biggest countries in the world and the 4th rank in construction industry in Asia, Indonesia is very far behind compared to some neighboring countries in terms of green building movement. It is confirmed by the fact that only 16 buildings in Indonesia that have been earned GREENSHIP, the certification issued by the Green Building Council Indonesia up to present. Therefore, the research was conducted to identify the barriers to green building movement in Indonesia from building occupants' point of view. The data presented in this paper are mainly derived from interviews and responses to a questionnaire which distributed randomly to building occupants who had experiences either in conventional or in green buildings around Jakarta and Bandung. Based on the findings from 75 respondents, it was identified that the barriers are: burdensome implementation, lack of supported atmospheres, resistance to change, inadequate knowledge and information, negligence, high cost of green building options, insufficient supervision, lack of awareness, low availability of green products on the market, and lack of building management role. The work concludes with recommendations of performance improvement strategies analyzed by SWOT method.