SEM-PLS Approach to Green Building

Abstract

Green buildings refer to buildings that decrease adverse environmental effects and maintain natural resources. They can diminish energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, the usage of non-renewable materials, water consumption, and waste generation while improving occupants’ health and well-being. As such, several rating tools and benchmarks have been developed worldwide to assess green building performance (GBP), including the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) in the United Kingdom, German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB), Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) in the United States and Canada, Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency (CASBEE) in Japan, Green Star in Australia, Green Mark in Singapore, and Green Building Index in Malaysia. Energy management (EM) during building operation could also improve GBP. One of the best approaches to evaluating the impact of EM on GBP is by using structural equation modelling (SEM). SEM is a commanding statistical method to model testing. One of the most used SEM variance-based approaches is partial least squares (PLS), which can be implemented in the SmartPLS application. PLS-SEM uses path coefficients to determine the strength and significance of the hypothesised relationships between the latent constructs.