Industrialised, Integrated, Intelligent sustainable Construction - I3con

HANDBOOK 2 SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION
questionnaire did not contain a question regarding the respondents’ profession, it can only be assumed
that all respondents were FM. There are risks of bias from the respondents as they are already aware
of the BIFM with their continual drive to Best Practice with regard to FM, and were self-selecting.
These members could have a higher level of understanding of sustainability issues which may skew
the investigation. The second questionnaire used a different sampling approach and spilt the
constituents of professionals involved within the construction process into three main categories;
Architects, Construction Managers and Quantity Surveyors. This was essential for the direct
comparison of opinions and highlights a potential knowledge chasm regarding sustainability.
However, these respondents only represent a small number of construction professionals in the
process and may not give a holistic view. Time and costs limitations restricted the questioning of a
larger number of clusters in the sample.
Results
In questionnaire one (BIFM Questionnaire) the total number of respondents was 168 FM, a large
proportion are members of the BIFM (92% have BIFM membership of some form). The 17%
associate level of membership requires no level of qualification or experience in FM, whereas other
forms, such as Fellow Members requires experience. The level of membership raises the question of
whether the results are skewed in favour of those already aware of the BIFM. The majority of
respondents are members of end-user organisations with full in-house facilities management (63%).
For questionnaire two (Construction Questionnaire) there were only 21 respondents, over half were
practicing as Quantity Surveyors. Questionnaire two included an FM category as a precautionary
measure and, therefore, this category will be discarded throughout the analysis. The ‘other’ category
included professionals from Construction Environmental Management and Civil Engineering
Contracting.
Sustainability Policy and its Aspects
Figure 1 shows the varying levels of sustainability policy between the professional organisations. Of
the 168 respondents to the BIFM survey, 73% of respondents have a sustainability policy
implemented within their organisation (Figure 1) which highlights the growing importance of
sustainability issues in the FM profession. A lower proportion of construction organisations (67%)
have a sustainability policy. However, the poor performance of the construction industry which has
been highlighted in the literature review does not match this level of sustainability policy. Therefore,
the analysis of the comprehensiveness of these policies will show what organisations define as
sustainable. There are many definitions of sustainability, but little information on how to apply it in
practice.
Figure 2 highlights the differences in the aspects covered by an organisation’s sustainability policy
between the two questionnaires. The respondents to the BIFM questionnaire range mostly between
Government, Financial and Business services, and Health and Educational organisations. The top
three aspects of Waste Management and Recycling, Energy Management and Health and Safety
remain proportionally the same for a large proportion of the organisations in both surveys. The
importance of these can be linked to the high legislative drivers for these aspects within the UK.
Governments at both national and international level are using regulation to reduce carbon emissions
and manage demand with much of the burden needing to be picked up by FM (Leifer 2003).
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