Industrialised, Integrated, Intelligent sustainable Construction - I3con

HANDBOOK 2 SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION
Sustainability Drivers and Management
When considering the drivers for organisations to implement sustainability, the stakeholders an
organisation reported to will give an insight into these drivers. Stakeholders are having an increasing
influence on organisations by requesting them to move towards managing their effects on the
environment and society, and publicly. Figure 3 highlights a significant proportion of construction
organisations that do not report to any particular stakeholder (43% in comparison to 11% from the
BIFM survey). The smaller number of aspects covered by an organisations sustainability policy
within the construction industry can be linked to the lack of stakeholder significance. Of the
remaining construction respondents, most report sustainability to their clients and customers along
with a greater significance towards government and local community stakeholders. The level of
customer/client reporting within both questionnaires could highlight the drive for better practices or
the importance of sustainability for marketing. How companies perform on sustainability is an
important factor for external stakeholders since they are affected by corporate strategies and actions
(Atkin et al. 2005).
Figure 3. Questionnaire one and two: Comparison between stakeholders reported to
Both surveys questioned the respondents’ opinion of the effectiveness of their organisations
management of sustainability responsibilities (Figure 4). The opinions of the construction professions
range from inconsistent to very good, with no response relating to poor management, although there is
a 38% level of inconsistency. The results do not coincide with the comprehensiveness of the
construction organisations sustainability policies and can be linked to the lack of understanding of
what sustainability actually is and how it is implemented. FM can be assumed to have more active
management in the sustainability activities of an organisation due to their link with non-core activities
which would give a more accurate description.
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