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Abstract. Recently, there had been reduction in annual budgetary allocations to public universities in Malaysia due to some economic tensions. This situation had left many institutions in question with the options of scaling down their expenses as well as sourcing for other means of meeting up with the shortfalls in allocated funds. Hence, it affects the sustainability of the building itself. This paper is an attempt to look at the possibility of reducing incidents that could lead to expending unbudgeted fund to rehabilitating property unfortunately destroyed by fire on campus, in addition to limiting risk to life and interruption of academic and business activities. Several research had been conducted on FSM, nevertheless very few consider Higher Education Institutions (HEI)s holistically. Hence this research intends to fill that gap.

The construction sector in Malaysia has been facing challenges in productivity due to the increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study aims to enhance the usage of low-carbon building materials among construction professionals so that the carbon emission and GHG can be reduced during the early stage of construction. The scope of this research involved main parties in the Malaysian construction industry, represented by fifty professionals including contractors, consultants, and architects with a focus on low-carbon building materials. Procedures in this study involved a literature review on low-carbon building materials in the construction industry followed by a questionnaire survey with analysis using One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Major study findings indicated that there is a significant need for increasing the awareness of low-carbon building materials, as this is vital to introduce the concept of sustainable development and consequently cutting down carbon emissions to all parties working in construction. The study also suggested that barriers in adoption also prevent alternative material choices as a means of mitigating embodied carbon emissions. Many of these barriers are common across materials with uptake restricted by lack of demonstration projects, regulation, high costs, shortage of skilled labor, lack of design knowledge, time constraints, and lack of knowledge on LCA. The results are significant as the construction industry can seek to overcome these barriers by providing more information on material performance, design training on alternative materials, cost reduction on low-carbon materials, and more demonstration projects as well as case studies. From the work in this study, the industry must also share the knowledge on embodied carbon and implement regulations that will limit embodied carbon. The industry must adopt a business case strategy in encouraging greater value in assessment schemes to adopt low carbon building materials.

These days, the topic on the sustainable building has become one of the most important concerns in the academic studies, construction industries, as well as governmental agencies. Sustainability in the building sector has raised the attention towards a new concept called net-zero energy buildings (NZEBs). With regards to the development of Malaysia's buildings sectors, the government has realised the undesirable effects of inefficient of energy usage by demonstrating their efforts in Construction Industry Transformation Programme (CITP) 2016-2020. Commonly, healthcare buildings are among the greatest energy consumers of any institution and the extensive use of various medical equipment, mechanical ventilation of this building has caused a high level of carbon emission. Hence, by concentrating on these issues, NZEBs become an important concept to be implemented in healthcare buildings. However, the awareness of NZEBs in Malaysia is still low and the construction industry in Malaysia still unaware of NZEBs. This paper aims to investigate the current design practices of healthcare buildings in Malaysia as well as the architect's understanding of NZEBs through preliminary investigation among architects. Literature was reviewed and pilot studies by using semi-structured interviews were conducted. The results uncover that some green practices related to the design practices in healthcare buildings has been carried out and some of these practices are similar to the NZEBs design practices even though the term of 'NZEBs' is not being used. It is predicted that the paper will provide a basic knowledge for future research in NZEBs for healthcare buildings, challenges of NZEBs implementation and designing NZEBs for healthcare buildings in Malaysia.

NZEBs concept has received incrementing attention especially since European Union Parliament are progressively moving towards regulation in which all new buildings to be “nearly Zero-Energy” Buildings by 2020. Even though this concept delivers promising benefits, previous studies found that the benefit of NZEB is still in vague to the Malaysian construction industry, mostly for healthcare buildings. The NZEBs concept implementation is critical in healthcare building as it seen as a key part of the needed transition towards sustainable development. This paper aims to define benefits of NZEBs practices through initial investigation among architects. Several existing energies works of literature and pilot studies by using semi-structured interviews were conducted. The findings divulge that, although the term ‘NZEBs design strategies’ is not being used largely across construction industry in Malaysia, some sustainable practices related to the design stage of construction has been implemented. The findings are also promising in growing awareness, practices and implementation of NZEBs design strategies by the practitioner in Malaysia. It is foreseen that the paper will provide a straightforward knowledge for future research in NZEBs design strategies practices for healthcare buildings construction in Malaysia.