Willingness to Pay for Green Buildings in Ghana: The Impact of Benefit Sensitisation

Abstract

Global discourse on sustainable construction has aroused great interest in the need for green building proliferation as a strategic means to reduce the environmental harms of conventional buildings. However, green building adoption remains laggard in Ghana as individuals are unwilling to pay extra for green buildings. Researchers have made many recommendations to enhance willingness to pay, recurrent amongst which is benefit sensitisation. However, the impact of benefit sensitisation, especially in the Ghanaian market, remained unproven and unquantified. This study provides clarity to the issue by investigating and quantifying the impact of an undertaken green building benefit sensitisation on the willingness to pay of 630 participants who were unaware of the individual-level benefits of green buildings. The study confirmed a significant impact of benefit sensitisation on willingness to pay for green buildings. After benefit sensitisation, respondents who were initially only willing to pay up to a 5% premium became willing to pay an average of 6 -10% premium; with only 14.8% of respondents maintaining an unwillingness to pay extra for green buildings.