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In 2003 HM Treasury published a revised “Green Book”, otherwise known as The Green Book Appraisal and Evaluation in Central Government – a technical guide, which is designed to help decision makers appraise and evaluate capital expenditure decisions more effectively. Coincidentally, the RICS brought out its revised edition of the “Red Book”, now called The Appraisal and Valuation Standards, in March 2003. This paper looks at the development and recent changes to these documents particularly from the viewpoint of a public sector property practitioner involved in day‐to‐day appraisal.

Real options available to developers and leading to an active and dynamic development of real estate assets are numerous. The purpose of the article is twofold. First, a conceptual framework is proposed as a practical aid for recognizing and understanding some frequently recurring combinations of options (such as deferral and expansion options). Based on the definition and classification of real options available in real estate markets, a comprehensive valuation tool for quantifying the value of those options embedded in a real estate development project is thus developed using a portfolio view.

Based on standard option pricing techniques, the proposed conceptual methodology is validated by applying it to an actual case of an investment for the construction of a new, multi‐purpose building in the semi‐central zone of the urban area of Rome (Italy).

Based on a static land value of €34.7 million, a waiting mode (deferral option) at an early stage of developing a property accounts for 16 percent of the expanded land value of the project, with 8 percent of such value being contributed by the expansion option. A real options valuation of the options portfolio available to a real estate developer enables increasing the project value by 31.1 percent as opposed to a traditional DCF analysis. In line with financial options theory, values of real options increase as volatility rises.

The case‐based analysis highlights that: flexibility in real estate development may create additional value enabling real estate developers or funds to react to market trends as new information arrives and uncertainty on fundamental factors (e.g. property prices) unfolds; the extra value added by managerial flexibility is neglected by DCF/NPV techniques; contrary to the common criticism on its lack of rigor, option valuation theory is suitable for appraising real estate assets; a portfolio approach is crucial when multiple real options exist.

Active management of real estate investments in response to changing property market and technology conditions confers operating flexibility and strategic value to appraisal of development projects beyond what is traditionally captured by a DCF model. An options approach to valuing and managing real estate development may change the developer's perspective altogether. Based on the combination of an original classification and a portfolio view of options existing in real estate markets, a real options framework for assessing the value of strategic flexibility incorporated in a greenfield development project (also accounting for potential option interactions) is designed.

Sustainability encapsulates economic, environmental and societal domains. In order to conform to these domains, the efficiency of maintenance and repair of heritage buildings is no exception. Emergently, environmental considerations for sustainable heritage buildings repair have become increasingly important. The purpose of this paper is to present a decision-making process based on “Green Maintenance Model” – an appraisal approach based on life cycle assessment (LCA) of paint repair options for heritage buildings.

Calculation procedures of Green Maintenance model within selected boundaries of LCA enable evaluation of carbon emissions, in terms of embodied carbon expenditure, expended from paint repair for heritage buildings during maintenance phase.

“Green Maintenance” model could be understood as a carbon LCA of paint repair and has been recognized in reducing carbon emissions. Significantly, the model underpins decision-making for repair options for heritage buildings.

It must be emphasized that the calculation procedures of Green Maintenance model is not limited to heritage buildings and can be applied to any repair types, materials used and building forms. More importantly, this model practically supports environmentally focused conservation and promotes sustainable repair approach.

The implementation of Green Maintenance model highlights the efficiency of repairs options that may be adopted.

Green Maintenance shows that generated environmental maintenance impact from repair options relays the “true” embodied carbon expenditure contextualized within the longevity of repair and its embodied carbon. This will consequently allow rationale in appraisal of repair options.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the impact of performance appraisal on the productivity levels of professional and para-professional librarians in selected academic and research libraries in Ghana, namely, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Building and Road Research Institute, Crop Research Institute and the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Kumasi Polytechnic.

Both primary and secondary sources of data were used for the study. The primary data involved the use of a structured questionnaire to 60 respondents, but 50 of them, representing 83.3 per cent, responded. This was supplemented by secondary sources such as records on file, journals, books and Internet sources.

The survey revealed that these institutions practice performance appraisal on an annual basis as a way of promoting team work, reducing grievances, identifying employees’ strengths and weaknesses and their training needs. It was observed that these institutions do not have a common appraisal format for appraising their staff. Furthermore, only the Head Librarians carry out the appraisals instead of the Line Mangers who are always in touch with these employees on a daily basis.

The paper will be of significant value to policymakers and administrators in academic and research institutions in the planning and implementation of performance appraisal systems. Challenges facing these institutions in implementing effective performance appraisal have been highlighted and appropriate recommendations have been made to ensure quality service delivery.

This paper aims to develop a framework to assist the identification of robust adaptation options that account for uncertainty in future climate change impacts for the water sector.

The water evaluation and planning (WEAP) tool, is to identify future water resource vulnerability in the Glore sub‐catchment within the Moy catchment in the West of Ireland. Where water stress is evident, a detailed hydrological modelling approach is developed to enable an assessment of the robustness to uncertainty of future adaptation decisions. WEAP is coupled with a rainfall runoff model (hydrological simulation model), and forced using climate scenarios, statistically downscaled from three global climate models to account for the key sources of uncertainty. While hydrological models are widely applied, they are subject to uncertainties derived from model structure and the parameterisation of the catchment. Here, random sampling of key parameters is employed to incorporate uncertainty from the hydrological modelling process. Behavioural parameter sets are used to generate multiple future streamflow series to determine where the bounds within future hydrological regimes may lie and the ranges within which future adaptation policy pathways need to function.

This framework allows the identification of adaptation options that are robust to uncertainty in future simulations.

Future research will focus on the development of more site‐specific adaptation options including soft and hard adaptation strategies. This approach will be applied to multiple water resource regions within Ireland.

A robust adaptation assessment decreases the risk of expensive and/or mal‐adaptations in a critical sector for society, the economy and the aquatic environment.

Monitoring care quality is integral to modern health service delivery. This paper describes how a specialist mental health assessment and treatment inpatient service for people with intellectual disabilities put in place a process to improve and reprovide the service, following an audit, in partnership with local stakeholders. In describing the process the paper highlights the need for transparent and honest working relationships with stakeholders, along with the role of audit and monitoring of quality to determine the ‘health’ and effectiveness of services. This included evaluating the continuing need for service and maintaining an agenda driven by needs rather than beds, based on best practice.

The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of global supply chains. Attempts to deepen our understanding of the effects of the pandemic on global supply chains mostly offer anecdotal evidences and lack theory grounded research. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to help explain supply chain disruption management.

This is a conceptual paper and uses a theory building approach. It develops a conceptual framework adapted from coping theory in psychology to explain supply chain disruption management. To refine the framework, the authors independently reviewed extant supply chain disruption management literature. The authors then studied the frameworks on stress theory in psychology. Following the review of both streams of literatures, the authors developed an initial draft of the conceptual model. This draft was then iteratively refined through extensive discussions among the authors.

Coping theory can help revise supply chain disruption management with an alternative lens that has not been applied before in this domain. The proposed conceptual framework is generic and can be applied to disruption management strategies for any organization in any industry.

The conceptual framework proposed in this paper offers a new theoretical lens to supply chain disruption management discourse. It contributes to the operational understanding of supply chain disruption management.

This article sets out the main conclusions of a research project into how UK local authorities are managing within limited resources (MLR). Frameworks are developed to aid authorities to plan their approaches to MLR and to situate what they have already done and what they plan to do within a wider portfolio of tactics and strategies. An evaluation is made of how well local government is learning its way through to getting “more from less” and of what local authority support agencies need to do to help authorities to accelerate their learning. Finally, the authors argue that existing learning systems like benchmarking and quality management, while developing rapidly in local government, need further, significant refinement if the costs and benefits of resource management strategies are to be systematically evaluated.

Current policy context in the UK promotes the “co-production” of health and care services – with service users and providers working in partnership. However, the assumption that all individuals and communities have the personal resources, skills and willingness to get involved in co-produced services may have implications for social and geographical equity of access to health and care services. The paper presents the results of a nine-month action research project with a remote and rural community in Scotland to discuss the implications of co-produced health and care services for remote and rural community members – particularly those with ageing populations.

The research project worked with community members, health care providers and commissioners to develop a community social enterprise model for home care delivery. Textual resources collected during this action research process were subject to thematic analysis in order to explore community perceptions and experiences of service co-production development in the remote and rural context.

The qualitative analysis showed that community members identified some positive aspects of being involved in service co-production relating to sense of community, empowerment and personal satisfaction. However, negative impacts included increased feelings of pressure, strain and frustration among those who took part in the co-production process. Overall, the community was reluctant to engage with “transformative” co-production and traditional provider-user dynamics were maintained.

The example is used to demonstrate the types of resources that rural individuals and communities draw on in order to create social enterprises and how the potentially negative impacts of co-produced services for different types of social and geographical community may be overlooked in contemporary policy and practice.