Facility Performance and the Need for Building Sustainability in Nigeria: A Review

Abstract

Over the years, Nigeria has had a disturbing history of unsustainable building practices, mismanagement of buildings and poor maintenance culture with no consideration for its impact on the environment. There has been several cases of building collapse and failures reported in various cities across the country resulting in the loss of lives and properties, thus raising concerns and questions as to the efficiency of our building industry regarding the quality of building construction, maintenance and management in the country. The building industry is a vital element of any economy which has a significant impact on the environment and by virtue of its size; construction is one of the largest users of energy, material resources and water. With respect to such significant influence of the building industry, there is the need to adopt a sustainable building approach which has a high potential to make a valuable contribution to sustainable development in the environment, reduce the rate of building collapse recorded in the country and save human lives. This paper researches on building facility performance and the need for sustainability in Nigeria. Methodology applied involved extensive literature review on design, construction and maintenance of “green” buildings as a sustainability approach for high performance buildings and findings revealed that sustainability issues of building include ways of designing, constructing, and maintaining a building with its facilities that maximizes its health, efficiency, cost-effectiveness and durability. This will minimize the state of building failures in the country and improve its value in the long run.

Keywords: Building, facility, performance, maintenance, sustainability, Nigeria.