Why Accreditation of Green Building Certification is one of the criteria

With the purpose of obtaining the MSC Malaysia Cybercentre status, designated building should comply with the Qualifying Criteria as well as the MSC Malaysia Cybercity/Cybercentre Performance Standards outlined by Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC). Qualifying Criteria, or specifically referred as the MSC Malaysia Qualifying Criteria are basically the core elements as well as the niche value proposition that the building owner should deliver in pursuing the MSC Malaysia initiatives of realising the vision for Malaysia to be a preferred global ICT hub, which also includes to provide a conducive and enabling environment for companies to conduct their business operation. For instance, requirement to set up the Incubation Business Centre (IBC) is one of the efforts toward achieving this objective.

In contrast, the performance standards, otherwise known as MSC Malaysia Cybercity/Cybercentre Performance Standard, is the physical readiness that the designated building need to comply with. There are seven parameters listed in the performance standard which are:

1. Infostructure
2. Electricity supply
3. Water supply
4. Transportation
5. Natural environment
6. Safety & security
7. Customer service quality

Building that have been accredited with Green Building certification from local or international standards such as GBI (Malaysia), Green Mark (Singapore) or LEED (United States) would automatically comply with the fifth parameter in the performance standard. Hence, this will ease the process of being a dual-compliant (MSC status and green certified) building in the effort of being more marketable and consequently increase the occupancy rate of the building designated. Alternatively, building that have not been accredited with the Green Building certification can still pursue the proposal of obtaining the MSC status or also known as MSC compliant or MSC Cybercity / Cybercentre status by developing its own Environmental Management Plan (EMP) or Environmental Policy which is endorsed by the management of the designated building.

Building owner that seek to move towards realising the aim of being dual-compliant building would have an advantage in securing valuable prospect as the building would obtain superiority among other building in attracting potential tenants. Otherwise, normal building would only be depending on the rental and occupancy rate. 

As published in The Edge Malaysia, Sarkunan Subramaniam, managing director of Knight Frank Malaysia cited that "However, with the impending high supply of space in the city centre and city fringe, it is inevitable that there will be mounting pressure on occupancy and rental rates as the gap between supply and demands widens." 

Since at present the surplus of office space owing to the supply-demand mismatch fairly worrying, being exceptional appear to be indispensable. Concisely, by being a dual-compliant building, it is not only have the advantage of attracting prospective tenants, the building would also secure other benefits such as entitles to a set of incentives, rights and privileges, namely the MSC Malaysia Bill of Guarantees (BoGs) from the Government of Malaysia.

For further details on what is BoGs, visit http://www.mscmalaysia.my/news/introducing-msc-malaysia-certified-solutions