The Role of Stakeholder Engagement in Green Building Technology Adoption in Malaysia

Abstract

Green building technology (GBT) is recognised as a fundamental driver of sustainable construction in Malaysia. Despite the implementation of various policies and initiatives to promote GBT, its diffusion across the construction industry remains relatively limited. As GBT adoption relies on the coordinated involvement of multiple stakeholders, stakeholder engagement has become increasingly recognised as a fundamental prerequisite for successful implementation. However, Malaysian research has largely treated stakeholder engagement as one variable among many and has concentrated on barriers, leaving the role of engagement itself under-theorised. As a result, it remains unclear how, through which mechanisms, and under what conditions stakeholder engagement actually facilitates GBT adoption. This conceptual paper synthesises recent literature published between 2021 and 2026, retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, alongside seminal studies on stakeholder theory, collaborative governance, and the diffusion of innovations, to examine how stakeholder engagement facilitates GBT adoption in Malaysia. The paper identifies the primary and supporting stakeholders involved, examines five engagement dimensions: communication, collaboration, knowledge sharing, resource mobilisation, and decision-making involvement and analyses the challenges that weaken stakeholder engagement, including conflicting interests, communication gaps, weak coordination, limited capacity, and governance shortcomings. The paper also outlines practical implications for key stakeholders, including government agencies, developers, contractors, and professional bodies, to support the effective adoption of GBT. The paper concludes that strengthening stakeholder engagement is necessary but contingent upon institutional design and Malaysia's specific context. It also proposes a future research agenda for empirically validating the conceptual relationships identified in this review.