Have you ever felt sick while working at the office? Or do you have any colleagues at work who seem to be sick often? Or maybe there are those who kept on having MC’s every other week? Well, if there are such cases, do you ever wonder what causes them? Instinctively you will look at the environment when talking about health; checking the condition of your surroundings. Now, do you know of the term “Sick Building Syndrome”? It might just be the cause of sickness of the people surrounding you, and even you yourself.

Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) is a combination of ailments that is associated to an individual’s residence or workplace. It is related to the indoor air quality within and around buildings and structures, as well as the health and comfort of building occupants. How would you know if the building that you are residing in is a ‘sick building’? Well, all you have to do is to watch out for the following symptoms; sensory irritation, skin irritation and hypersensitive reactions. Those are some of the symptoms that have been reported; there might be others that we do not know of.

Malaysia, while enjoying remarkable growth over the decades in the aspects of industrialisation, agriculture and tourism, faces no exception in having buildings and residences with SBS. Are there any ways in preventing more of these ‘sick’ buildings? Well, of course! With green technology, that is. Green technology encompasses a continuously evolving group of methods, from techniques for generating energy to non-toxic cleaning products. Energy, green building, environmentally-preferred purchases, green chemistry and green nanotechnology are some of the subject areas of the green technology.

In order to prevent SBS, Malaysia is now inching towards a greener mindset, though I’d have to admit it is still at a very humble level compared to countries such as the UK, Denmark or Japan. Inspired by the green buildings in the above-mentioned countries, Malaysia introduced its very own Green Building Index (GBI) in 2009 and has since progressing to have its own green buildings. What exactly is a green building?

Wikipedia defines green building as the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building’s life-cycle; from sitting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and deconstruction. I define it in a simpler way; buildings designed to reduce the overall impact of the built environment on human health and the natural environment, which will help in preventing buildings from SBS as well as improving our health.

So far, there are several green buildings in Malaysia such as the Mesiniaga Tower in Subang Jaya, the Securities Commission building in Bukit Kiara, the Low Energy Office (LEO) building in Putrajaya, the Zero Energy Office (ZEO) building in Bandar Baru Bangi, and the latest being the Diamond Building in Putrajaya. I’m hoping that there would be more to come in the near future.

I have always been supportive of the government’s effort in going green, and it was good news to me when I heard the government decided that all new government buildings must incorporate the features of GBI. This country needs all the ‘green’ it can get, and with political wills, Malaysia can progress much more significantly than ever before in the development of green buildings.

Sincerely,

Rasila.