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2 Sustainability in Construction
2.1 Introduction
This chapter briefly explores, through recent literature, the meaning of Sustainability and its
interactions in the construction sector. First, a discussion on the meanings of Sustainability and SD are
presented and considered in relation to the concept of TBL. Then the chapter describes sustainability
in the construction sector context and how different bodies act in consideration of TBL. Finally the
procurement process is considered in sustainability terms, examining its different types and the tools
that are available these days to improve decision-making in this regard.
2.2 Sustainability and the Concept of TBLriple Bottom Line
The sustainability frame is related to SD which is, according to the most accepted definition in
the Brundtland Report (Brochner et al, 1999; Addis and Talbot, 2001; Zhou et al, 2006; Myers et al,
2007), the ability of progress to meet “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs" (WCED, 1987, p. 8). In 2005 the EU recognised SD as
integral to all European Community policies in consideration of three important factors: economic,
social and environmental (Environmental Law Review, 2005). These constitute the three dimensions
of the TBL definition (Henriques, 2004; Savitz and Weber, 2006) proposed in this report as
interpretation of sustainability.
This concept, formulated for the first time by Elkington in the book Cannibal in 1997
(Elkington, 2004), has been recognised as the main criteria an organisation should follow to achieve
sustainability solutions (OECD, 2001; Walker et al, 2008) with the aim of reaching business success
not solely in financial terms (i.e. profits, ROI etc.), but also taking into account social and
environmental aspects (Savitz and Weber, 2006; Myers et al, 2007) as symbolized by the intersection
of three overlapped circles (OECD, 2001; Henriques and Richardson, 2004; Ashworth, 2006) in the
Venn Diagram model (Addis and Talbot, 2001:18) in fig. 2.1.
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Fig. 2.1: Sustainable Development (citied in Addis and Talbot, 2001:18)
2.3 Sustainability in Construction Sector
SD represents a new challenge to be tackled by the entire construction sector and the
application of SD to the latter is Sustainable Construction (SC) (Adetunji et al, 2003).
The literature very often highlights the weight of the construction sector for economic,
environmental and social subjects. Indeed, it plays a relevant part within the economy of developed
countries: in UK it represents 8% of GDP (Zhou et al, 2006). Its environmental impact is enormous
(CIOB, 2010) for example in terms of pollution as showed in Table 2.1
Table 2.1
Waste production in the construction sector
Country
China Every ten thousand square meters of construction area would produce 500/600 tons
of solid wastes (Qi et al, 2010)
U.S.A. Every ten thousand square meters of construction area would produce 180 tons of
solid wastes (Qi et al, 2010)
UK ~70 million tonnes of waste material each year - three times the industrial waste -
(Ashworth, 2006)
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In social terms, if on one side construction should positively contribute to improving the quality
of people’s lives providing comfortable spaces and assets (CIOB, 2010) on the other, unfortunately, it
is also responsible for a real social pathology: the construction sector registers nearly the majority of
worker deaths and injuries (Lingard and Rowlinson, 2005) as showed in Table 2.2
Table 2.2 (Adapted from Bray’s data, 2009: 5)
Health and Safety statistics
Country Key Figures
UK 229 people died at work in 2008
136,771 people were injured at work in 2007/2008
34 million working days were lost because of work related ill-health
£ 7.8 billion personal injuries claims for accident at work cost UK employers and
insurers £ 7.8 billion in 2208
Private and public bodies show common consensus on sustainability policies: in the UK the
Government is being driven by stringent fiscal policies and regulations (Adetunji et al, 2003) overall
further to Rethinking Construction report that has revolutionized the industry’s approach (Egan,
1998), introducing sustainability within this revolution (Klein, 1999).
The TBL concept is becoming the boardroom agenda of designers, developers and contractors
(Halliday, 2008) thus presenting a new challenge: creating a new construction process scenario
finalised to achieving the completion of projects not only as per owner’s schedule and budget, but also
eliminating and minimising deleterious impacts on the environment (Christini et al, 2004);
considering social benefits; minimising the cost and increasing profits (Adetunji et al, 2003; Myers,
2005).
Although most bodies involved in the construction sector recognise the sustainability concern,
there is still a lack of clarity about its meaning and implications (Halliday, 2008), and the construction
sector’s performance does not seem to embrace sustainability principles yet (Adetunji et al, 2003).
2.4 The Practice of Procurement
Construction procurement is been defined by CIB W092 as “the framework within which
construction is brought about, acquired or obtained” (Walker and Rowlinson, 2008: xix)
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The TBL concept is proposed as a construction framework based upon financial, social and
environmental aspects to be incorporated into project procurement strategy (Halliday, 2008) to
achieve the pivotal satisfaction of needs and desires of the stakeholders, and followed into all phases
of the construction procurement lifecycle (OGC, 2007A):
• Business justification
• Project brief and Procurement Process
• Design brief
• Construction process
• Operation and management
Indeed, responding to the clients’ requirements means acknowledging the wider meaning of
‘adding value’ as value that exceeds value added (Pryke and Smyth, 2006, p. 35). This goes beyond
the economic definition of value added [value of the outputs produced by an activity minus the value
of the inputs used-up during the process (Ive and Gruneberg, 2000)] and embraces also the definition
of added value that in marketing terms means satisfying not only the client’s needs (value added) –
intended as the contract requirements – but also its desires (added value) (Smyth, 2005).
Embracing the SC approach thus becomes a factor of competitive advantage (Kumaraswamy
and Anvuur, 2008): as early as 2005 large companies started to recognise the importance of capturing
and delivering value not only from an economic perspective but also in relation to the social and
environmental aspects (Myers, 2005).
However, it is recognised the difficulty in achieving the balance between the three TBL
dimensions (Pope et al, 2004; Lützkendorf and Lorenz, 2005) The economic factor is very often
privileged to the detriment of social and environmental aspects through a trade-off of the three
elements instead of their complementation (Coffman and Umemoto, 2009): it might happen, for
example, that maximising profits can conflict with creating social benefits and/or satisfying the needs
of other involved stakeholders (Savitz and Weber, 2006).
By contrast, according to Coffman and Umemoto (2009: 12) “the various goals should be
integrated rather than juxtaposed” for the TBL concept, also considering the inability to prove
priority of one aspect over another (Henriques, 2004).
2.4.1 Procurement Methods
In the UK the procurement strategy can be classified into different type of systems, called
project coalitions by Winch (2009), and described in the Table 2.3
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Table 2.3
Procurement system types
Separated project
system
Sequential stages of traditional procurement based on established
hierarchy structure of design-tender-construction, where activities are
divided between contractors and consultants (Building, 1999).
Integrated project
coalitions
Only one-point responsibility: the contractor’s. The contractor is directly
responsible for both design and execution jobs, hence the name Design
and Build (D&B). A variant of this method is novated D&B that consist
of the appointment of the contractor after the partial o full completion of
the design phase and the contractual transfer of the design team to the
main contractor (CIOB, 2010)
Mediated project
coalitions
Management job is emphasised and the entire job is sublet completely to
a subcontractors’ trade package. This system includes two different
procurements: management contracting (MC) and construction
management (CM), differing only inasmuch as in the former trade
contracts are placed with a construction site manager rather than directly
with the client, as in the latter case (Winch, 2009).
Product-based
systems
Product-based systems see the building as a product, and the client is
outlined as operating in the facility on a pay-per-use basis (Building,
1999). The contractor takes charge of the design, execution and finance
aspects of the entire project, including maintenance and management of
the building. Parts of this ‘family’ type of procurement are (Franks,
1998:29): Private Finance Initiative (PFI), Public/Private Partnership
(PPP), design-build-operate (DBFO), build-own-operate-transfer
(BOOT) and others.
Starting from the concepts of SD and TBL expressed, it becomes important to adopt the
appropriate procurement method, identifying its advantages in terms of delivering sustainability
(Addis and Talbot, 2001) and rejecting what lacks the right attributes (Ashworth, 2006): in other
words, considering the risks and the best part that can manage the risk (Building, 1999). The literature
presents contrasting positions in this regard.
Although referring to environmental issues, Addis and Talbot (2001) argue that there is not a
better procurement method and success depends mainly on the clients’ role as a guide, on project
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management effectiveness and the collaboration between design teams and construction contractors.
Overall: “Sustainability in practice can be seen as the art of doing business in an interdependent
world” (Savitz and Weber, 2006: x) against one of the main barriers for implementing SD: the
fragmented nature of the construction industry (Adetunji et al, 2003).
With reference to a wider sustainability view, Brophy and Lewis (2005) argue that the
traditional sequential method might be an obstacle to the integration between the parts involved and
thus to innovation. From their survey it emerges an interesting designers’ perspective: where clients
are owners or future occupiers, the traditional method is not considered a barrier to achieving
sustainable targets, but a type of procurement that offers more possibility for clients to act in favour of
a better performance.
Klein (1999) instead argues that sustainability increases pressure in construction and the client
tends to expect better performance than what traditional procurement methods can achieve, thus
preferring to be directly involved and seek specialist actors directly rather than rely on a main
contractor and its selected subcontractors.
It has also been found that in the public procurement, where authorities represent the main
client in almost 50% of the construction output (Winch, 2009), PFI represents one of the major public
procurements through which they can delivery sustainability in practice (Zhou et al, 2006).
2.4.2 Sustainability Evaluation Tools
All phases of the procurement process can be assisted through tools that have been elaborated
to make progress in SC decision-making (Brophy and Lewis, 2005) such as Whole Life Costing
(WLC) In economic terms and Life-cycle assessment (LCA) in relation to the environmental impact,
defined in Table 2.4
Through WLC it possible to find cost information on the building’s whole life span – from
acquisition, maintenance and operation through to its disposal – beyond the short-term cost view
(Addis and Talbot, 2001; OGC, 2007B; Halliday, 2008; Swaffield and McDonald, 2008). That
represents a reliable indicator of value for money within a sustainability framework because a ‘well-
built’ design can more easily become an investment with significant saving of running costs (OGC,
2007B: 5).
The process of LCA is described in ISO 14040 and consists of establishing objectives and
goals, creating the inventory of inputs and outputs to define the system, evaluating the impact and
analysing the results (Ortiz et al, 2009).
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Table 2.4
Sustainability Evaluation Tools
Definition
Whole Life Costing
(WLC)
‘tool to assist in assessing the cost performance of construction work,
aimed at facilitating choices where there are alternative means of
achieving the client’s objectives and where those alternatives differ, not
only in their initial costs but also in their subsequent operational costs.’
as per ISO standard 15686-5 citied by Kishk et al (2002: 5)
Life-cycle
assessment (LCA)
“method to measure and evaluate the environmental burdens associated
with a product system or activity, by describing and assessing the
energy and materials used and released to the environment over the life
cycle. LCA looks at the ‘cradle-to-grave’ impact of elements, materials
and components, and is the basis of most product labelling” (Halliday,
2008: 79).
The latter can be used by architects and facility managers to better identify the lifetime of the
building and/or its components to find possible cost savings and alternative product systems for
providing the same function (Edwards, 2005); overall, professional architects found that the lack of
LCA might represent a obstacle to achieving the sustainability project targets (Brophy and Lewis,
2005).
Based on LCA is the UK Envest (Environmental impact estimating software), used mainly
during the design stage by architects (Persson and Olander, 2004; European Commission, 2008); and
the BREEAM actually combines LCA analyse with other criteria methods.
Created in 1990 only for offices, BREEAM covers today all kinds of building with the aim of
inducing sustainability design beyond the requirements (Taylor, 2008) in terms of environmental
impact; use of natural resources as per the ‘3R’ principles (reduction, reuse and recycle); and high
quality built environment to satisfy people’s needs. Credits and awards for different areas are
considered in relation to the whole construction process and not only to the asset itself, jointly to
weightings to finalise a single overall score: pass; good; very good or excellent (Halliday, 2008).
The final score does not represent an absolute standard or completely objective (Halliday,
2008: 98). In fact, environmental issues are more qualitative according to Ding (2008) and
performance targets and weightings come from the community involvement judge.
BREEAM has been used mainly as a design tool, although it does not have the potential to
work as a guide: indeed, it is carried out when the design stage is almost finished rather than being
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used at the early stage, when collaboration between design and assessment teams could generate more
positive results and create development options (Ding, 2008).
In 2008 the BREEAM certificate was split into two assessment stages: a provisional certificate
at the design stage and a final certificate after the conclusion of the construction phase with the aim of
filling the gap between what certified during design and what the clients may have to find after the
project execution (Taylor, 2008).
The lack of integration between LCA and WLC remains a problem in supporting sustainability
decision-making. LCA technique does not consider neither external nor internal economic aspects, at
least not in the traditional LCA. In this sense the ISO 14040 series does not contribute to find a
correlation between these tools which are different in purpose and approach (Norris, 2001). Nor does
the BREEAM evaluation tool include the economic aspect: hence, a building can be certified as
respondent to established environmental criteria but it can be very expensive to build without an
economic return (Ding, 2008). Innovative tools should be created to assist the assessment of a
building’s sustainability (Myers et al, 2007) – such as adopting the BREEAM multiple criteria
evaluation – and cover the lack of information on more sustainable building costs (Halliday, 2008)
that represents a limit in changing the common perception that the initial cost of a sustainable building
is too high if compared with low environmental and social values (Varnäs et al, 2009).
2.5 Summary
As underlined by Henriques (2004), sustainability issues fit the TBL three pillars dimensions:
economic, environmental and social. Indeed, the construction sector needs to deal with this
(relatively) new situation in all stages of the procurement process. Although sustainability relevance is
broadly recognized within the construction sectors, it does not seem to be deep-seated and expressed
in practice.
Construction Procurement should be experiencing an on-going revolution since the Rethinking
Construction Report, with an eye to SD. However, in actual fact the construction sector is trying to
meet clients’ requirements while economic factors are usually prioritised in the decision-making
rather than looking at and satisfying their desires on the basis of a balance between economic, social
and environmental aspects.
The literature does not propose any particular procurement method as ideal to achieve
sustainable solutions; nevertheless, the traditional procurement does not seem to facilitate this
process; the cooperation between parties involved and the clients’ role as drivers are the two crucial
aspects in achieving sustainable objectives.
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