Measures of Sustainable Construction Projects Performance

The sustainability of construction projects has become something of great importance particularly in this era where the natural habitat is going into extinction. The growth in the world population, and series of changes as well as scarcity of resources created a number of environmental and social challenges to the world. Therefore, the concept of sustainability remains the much awaited hope. Companies, corporate bodies as well as national and international organisations are gradually succumbing to pressure to incorporate sustainability considerations into their project decision-making process. This chapter therefore examines the activities of construction industries in connection with sustainability activities in the industry. Different steps to be taken to achieve sustainability in the construction projects as well as the importance of sustainability in construction projects were discussed.

The construction industry can be characterised as a sector of the economy that uses planning, design, construction, maintenance and repair, and operation to transform various resources into physical facilities in both developed and developing countries. Residential and non-residential structures, as well as heavy construction, are among the types of public and private facilities built, and these physical facilities play an important and visible part in the development process. Major participants in the construction industry include the design team (architects, engineers and quantity surveyors), management consultants, general contractors, heavy construction contractors, special trade contractors or subcontractors, and construction workers, as well as the owners, managers and users of the built facility. Building financing and insurance businesses, land developers, real estate agents and material and machinery suppliers and distributors, to name a few, are all involved in construction, yet they are categorised as independent but connected industries. Cost is a major factor that affects and determine the choice and engagement of these processes and stakeholders, and the same has been a measure of project success from the time immemorial.

The importance of the satisfaction derived by participants has escalated in all manufacturing sectors. Due to increased opposition and dissatisfied participants, the importance of participant satisfaction is being stressed in construction as well, despite the fact that only a few studies have been conducted thus far. Many stakeholders are involved in construction projects, and their satisfaction may result in having a direct effect on the successful delivery of the project. Construction projects have to do with several stakeholders; also, their satisfaction could straightforwardly impact the presentation of resulting projects. It is difficult to express participant satisfaction solely in terms of numbers. Achievement of specific objectives (successes) that lead to compensation of specific project goal could be achieved all through the recurring value–goal procedures at the design and development phases, when construction professionals are involved in the project. It can be inferred that participant satisfaction is critical to preserving the project's consistency and degree of collaboration.

Sustainable building development involves several stakeholders, team participants and their fulfilment can affect the performance and outcome of succeeding construction development. The effect of the individual or human component is one of the most desperate reasons for the realisation of any progress in the building sector. Organisations are developing an increasing number of project teams to meet diverse organisational goals as they acknowledge the value and importance of project teams. However, in order to ensure that the project team achieves positive results, management, particularly the project manager, must focus on crucial elements such as team satisfaction. Project success can be influenced by team satisfaction. The project leader usually oversees and manages the team, organising and managing project activities between stakeholders and other team members. The study found that gratitude, enhanced morale, increased responsibility, putting in extra effort and job quality are all reasons why team satisfaction might affect a construction project's success.

Customer satisfaction is a critical element in the building process and the improvement of customer relationships. As construction companies compete more fiercely, customer relationships and happy customers are becoming increasingly important. Customer loyalty allows construction firms to set themselves apart from their rivals and build long-term competitive advantages. Customers have a contractual deal with the supplier and are often referred to as clients. Clients are those who employ a professional. The result of consumer loyalty has expanded in all parts of creation. Because of close contest and greater need for clients, the meaning of consumer loyalty is underlined in development too, albeit few investigations have been made up until this point. This chapter explained the importance of customers' satisfaction as a measures of sustainable construction projects.

Application of sustainable construction is highly important in achieving construction project goal as well as reducing energy consumption and waste. In view of this, value is a critical aspect of construction project delivery, and in as much as value is more than just money in construction, this chapter addresses value as one of the paramount factors that determine project success in the construction industry. It explained the concept of sustainable construction from value point of view, the meaning and concept of value and its essentiality in the construction industry.

Effective communication is the channel by which any industry survives. Communication can be through several convenient means in respect to nature of the information sent. In an effective communication, a well-defined information is passed from the sender to the receiver whether by physical contact in close proximity or distance enabled through a designed medium (traditional or contemporary). Whichever way information is transferred, the importance of communication in construction activities cannot be neglected. In fact, with many barriers experienced before and during the construction process, a structured platform should always be available without hindrance for ease of flow from the project manager to the least member of the construction team.

Sustainability of construction project is incomplete without putting into consideration the health and safety of the workforce and other stakeholders working on a project environment. One of the criteria used to evaluate the performance of a sustainable construction project is health. This chapter gives an insight on health as a yardstick for measuring the success of a sustainable construction project, with respect to the health of the personnel working on a project, meaning of health, what constitutes health and health in construction. It also buttresses value of the health of workforce in construction and the need to see health as an important project performance index, as a healthy construction manpower on a construction project will determine and translate the quick delivery of construction project and on time.

The construction sector must accept new ways of working if it is to remain competitive and meet the demands of its ever-demanding clients in the twenty-first century. Many people believe that collaborative working is required for design and construction teams to comprehend the complete construction process life cycle. Collaboration among project participants has gained a lot of attention in the field of construction management in recent years. The claim that cooperation promotes project success is supported by a number of case studies. The goal of this study is to see if facilitating collaboration is a good indicator of long-term construction. Effective cooperation, on the other hand, is now recognised as having an impact on project performance in terms of project success and delivery.

Projects are created and planned with the intention of achieving a specific aim that refers to the project's client's requirement or desire. As a result of the diverse interests of other construction professionals and stakeholders, the goals of the projects have multiplied, necessitating an examination of the participants' perspectives. These objectives are referred to as project success, performance, or delivery measures, variables, methodologies, criteria, indices or qualities. Various elements influence the success of any building project in general. Project characteristics, contractual arrangements, project participants and interactive procedures are some of the categories. This chapter discusses the importance of budgeting in determining project success, concluding that a project cannot be considered successful without proper budgeting.

This chapter explains the concept of risk management in construction in relation to project success. The types of risks were examined based on the date of identification which are known risk, unknown risk, new or discovered risk, secondary risk and residual risk. Project risk is not an all-encompassing negative event as it could also cause a positive impact on construction projects. It was acknowledged that project risk in itself could have a positive impact if its risk management process is properly implemented by the construction project team.

Adoption of sustainability principles is crucial for construction project delivery, and various parameters are being used as a yardstick for its measurement. This chapter discusses profit as one of the parameters used to determine the success of a sustainable construction project. It explains such issues as the nature and important of construction industry and its product (construction project), meaning of sustainable construction as well as meaning of profit and what its entails in construction. It reviews the value of profit as a measure of success for a construction project and also encourages the need for planning and analysis of all activities involved on a construction project in relation to its environment so as to validate the profit as a measure of project success.

There has been a substantial growth in the construction industry in the last decades. However, as this sector grows, there is also a growth in its effects on the environment. Owing to this fact, professionals in the sector are promoting practice focusing on how these environmental impacts caused by construction activities can be reduced to the barest minimum during and after construction. This study focuses on the environmental performance of construction projects with the goal of mitigating the negative environmental impacts of building construction. In this chapter, the environmental performance characteristics, forms of pollution that cause these environmental difficulties and the relevance of sustainable construction were not overlooked.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss operational performance as a tool for construction project success. Specifically, the chapter examines important aspects such as the definition and meaning of operational performance, operational performance objectives, operational performance indicators and the key points to increasing operational performance. This chapter emphasises the importance of operational performance in business as it plays vital role in other aspects of business or company's variables. It concludes that investment in the improvement of operational performance is very important to any successful business. The essence of operational performance is to identify problems and provide solutions to them. It is essential to know that every difficulty that is encounter in business should be picture as a chance to become better. On this note, a mentality that embraces continual improvement should be taken graciously and adopted in order to make sure that a company continue to plan for the future.

Functionality as a measure of project performance encompasses definitions across literature, relevance and essentiality in construction as the industry moves towards sustainable construction. Functionality in this section shows details in social functionality, as well as functionalities expressed in assessing, implementing project performance within set out target and goal. Furthermore, for functionality to be truly experienced in construction, many factors have to be gotten right. One of such is decision making that tends towards standard expatiated in the contract agreed without compromising budget, performance, collaboration, health and safety, communication, profit, satisfaction, quality, project cost, profitability among others.

The adoption of sustainable techniques in the built environment has swept the building industry. The social aspect is one of the three pillars of sustainability. Its core tenet is to increase human life quality by maintaining security. Due to the significant risks connected with construction and the unavoidability of employer-hazard relationships, security methods should be established to prevent accidents and injuries and thereby achieve this goal. Security measures are considered in this chapter as a crucial indication of a long-term project's viability. It considers security measures in terms of staff health and safety on building sites in comparison to end-user safety.

In construction, stakeholders engagement is viewed from two major perspectives: management perspective and ethical perspective. Management perspective deals with capturing of information, increase in responsibility of the property by users, minimising conflict and support innovation while ethical perspective deals with decision-making for both inclusive and local, promote equity and build social capital. Apart from the two major view, stakeholder's engagement can also be viewed from another angle, which is social learning perspective. Social learning is an area where different stakeholders have the same place for discussion, acquiring of each other's values, agree on their own values and generate mutual objectives. Stakeholders make use of dialogue to create consciousness, changing of attitude and affect behaviours. Stakeholders' engagement are majorly viewed from either management perspective or ethical perspective but not from both perspectives. For us to achieve sustainability, there is need for an approach that will bring the two major perspective together.