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This paper explores project managers' (PMs') role in contributing to and achieving sustainability within construction projects, particularly focusing on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 PMs working with construction firms in the UK. Thematic analysis was also performed on the qualitative data retrieved using the NVivo software.

The study’s findings revealed that PMs working on construction projects considered various sustainable construction processes in attempts to solve problems with traditional construction technology. Furthermore, it was revealed that the PM’s role was key in achieving the SDGs in general and SDG 11 in particular through the process of perfecting the client brief, ensuring the client’s financial stability and creating an environment of teamwork. In terms of specific competencies, sustainability leadership and sustainable innovative capability were revealed to suggest that a PM is the leader of change.

The study highlights the essential role of the PM in delivering sustainable construction projects as part of the drive to achieve SDG 11. The study impacts the construction industry in developing strategies and training programs that build PMs' competencies and skills for contributing to the world we want.

This study aimed at determining the decisive factors for achieving sustainable procurement in construction projects.

Questionnaire survey of principal stakeholders involved in construction project delivery within client, consulting and contracting organisations in Nigeria were conducted to assess stakeholders' perspectives on the decisive factors for achieving sustainable procurement in construction projects using importance weights. A total of 243 questionnaires were distributed and a response rate of 51% (123 questionnaires were adequately filled and returned) was achieved. Descriptive and inferential statistics were utilised in analysing elicited data.

The results from data analysis showed that “satisfaction – including workforce satisfaction and user satisfaction”, “value for money” and “creating a healthy, nontoxic environment – including high indoor air quality” were the top most three decisive factors for achieving sustainable procurement in construction projects in Nigeria.

An understanding of these decisive factors can help principal stakeholders in the construction industry of developing countries to facilitate the development of methods required in supporting the adoption of sustainable procurement practice.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the key practitioners’ level of involvement in the delivery of sustainable regeneration projects in the UK. Practitioners’ level of involvement is a major factor that has and continues to determine the delivery of sustainability outcomes of regeneration projects.

The paper adopted a qualitative study that obtained data from 21 key practitioners through semi-structured interviews in exploring practitioners’ level of involvement in the delivery of sustainable regeneration projects in the UK. The semi-structured interviews are conducted with seven practitioners, each from the three construction organisations selected through a purposive sampling approach for the study.

The findings identify varied levels of involvement of the key practitioners at the three delivery stages – early, construction and post-construction of the projects. The findings further reveal that clients’ representatives, commercial managers and architects are the most frequently involved practitioners during the early stages of the projects. The findings also indicate that practitioners who have sustainability assigned to their roles and their responsibilities, such as sustainability managers, are the least involved in all the three delivery stages of the projects.

The study involves interview with 21 practitioners from three organisations delivering sustainable regeneration projects; hence, this could limit the generalisation of the research findings. However, the findings of this study could serve as a useful source of information for the further study in this area.

The paper is of the view that the level of key practitioners’ involvement in the delivery of the projects will have an impact on their knowledge and will determine how sustainability benefits are promoted and delivered from the projects.

Although some studies have been carried out on practitioners’ engagement in the delivery of “normal” construction projects, none has focussed on practitioners’ levels of involvement in sustainable regeneration projects. Hence, this study has brought to the fore how the key practitioners tasked with the responsibilities of delivering sustainability benefits of regeneration projects have been involved (at various levels of the project life cycle) in the delivery of these projects.

The majority of the literature on green buildings in Ghana focuses on environmental benefits, innovative designs, construction technologies and project management techniques. However, little is known about how such facilities are financed. This issue creates potential knowledge gaps, one of which this study aims to address. This study examines the key drivers for green building project financing in Ghana.

The study uses an explanatory sequential design with an initial quantitative instrument phase, followed by a qualitative data collection phase. An extensive critical comparative review of the literature resulted in the identification of eight potential drivers. One hundred and twenty-seven questionnaire responses based upon these drivers from the Ghanaian construction industry were received. Data were coded with SPSS v22, analysed descriptively (mean, standard deviation and standard error) and via inferential analysis (One Way ANOVA and One-Sample t-Test). These data were then validated through semi-structured interviews with ten industry professionals within the Ghana Green Building Council. Data obtained from the semi-structured validation interviews were analysed through the side-by-side comparison of the qualitative data with the quantitative data.

Though all eight drivers are important, the five key drivers for the Ghanian construction industry were identified as, in order of importance, “high return on investment”, “emerging business opportunity”, “ethical investment”, “conservation of resources” and “mandatory regulations, standards, and policies”. The interviewees agreed to and confirmed the importance of these identified drivers for green building project financing from validating the survey's key findings.

Key limitations of this study are the restrictions regarding the geographical location of the collected data (i.e. Kumasi and Accra); timing of the study and sample size (i.e. the COVID-19 pandemic making it difficult to obtain adequate data).

Though this study was conducted in Ghana, its implications could be useful to researchers, policymakers, stakeholders and practitioners in wider sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, financial institutions can invest in green buildings to expand their green construction and mortgage finance products to build higher value and lower risk portfolios. The findings from this study can provide investors with the enhanced certainty needed to help guide and inform their investment decisions, i.e. what to invest in, and when, by how much and how a scheme being “green” may influence their rate of return. Also, for building developers, it will give them a clearer understanding of the business case for green buildings and how to differentiate themselves in the market to grow their businesses.

This study's findings provide insights into an under-investigated topic in Ghana and offer new and additional information and insights to the current state-of-the-art on the factors that drive green building project financing.

This study aims to investigate the underlying factors that give rise to the set of sustainability indicators which are used for the implementation of sustainable construction projects and eventually the production of sustainable built assets.

To accomplish the purpose of this research, an online questionnaire survey was administered to a sample of 200 experts. By employing the statistical method of exploratory factor analysis (EFA), five distinct dimensions (factors) of stakeholders' attitudes were revealed.

The findings indicate that the sustainability indicators are based on five underlying factors, namely (1) sustainable competitiveness; (2) stakeholder engagement; (3) sustainable economic growth; (4) social sustainability; and (5) resource conservation and environmental policy.

More studies would be welcome to verify the underlying factors revealed in this paper.

The knowledge of the underlying factors enables senior management to maintain a balance of choices during the project management (PM) phase in order to implement and deliver sustainable construction projects. Furthermore, the findings deepen the understanding toward sustainable PM practices by providing insights on its core attributes.

As a theoretical contribution to knowledge, this study enhances the body of knowledge by revealing the underlying factors that give rise to the predefined set of the 82 sustainability indicators which are used to enable sustainable construction projects. In practice, the findings aid senior management in adopting strategies that enhance the delivery of sustainable construction projects.

In responding to global issues of creating sustainable development, the Indonesian government has enacted regulations (i.e. Ministry of Public Works and Housing No. 05/PRT/M/2015) on the implementation of sustainable construction in infrastructure project execution. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the means of implementing sustainable principles in the execution of infrastructure projects in Indonesia by the main construction service providers and their partners. A lesson-learned is presented as a source of knowledge to underpin the extensive implementation of sustainable principles in the construction of infrastructure projects leading to an integrated approach in creating a sustainable infrastructure that fulfills the requirements of sustainable development.

The method used is questionnaire surveys with Indonesian construction practitioners who are working on building construction, road and bridge construction, water facilities construction and house and settlement construction.

From the results, the practices of sustainability principles by construction service providers in infrastructure project execution are imperative from the project procurement phase. The evaluation continues to the phase of construction project execution, which reveals the inconsiderable performance of sustainability indicators due to current constraints on the implementation of sustainability principles.

This research looks into the existing gaps between sustainable construction principles and their practical implementation in Indonesian infrastructure projects. This will foster a holistic approach in the practice of undertaking sustainable procurement processes, thus reinforcing project management techniques in the phase of sustainable construction project execution. This also strengthens the interrelated roles and responsibilities of project stakeholders by taking into account principles of safety, balance and the harmony of infrastructure and the environment.

The paper is conceptual in nature and explores the role and function of project management in the achievement of sustainability in the built environment by developing a 4Es (Economic, Effectiveness, Efficiency and Ethics) and 4 Poles (Economic, Social, Environmental and Technology) model of sustainability. The study also identifies that the existing debates on sustainability seem to marginalise project management's positive contributions to sustainable construction, as well as the importance of technology in the sustainability agenda.

The paper consists of a literature review on the concept of sustainability, the contribution of the built environment to the sustainability problem, and an intellectual discussion of a proposed model for achieving sustainable development in the built environment. The body of this paper is divided into three sections: part one reviews “what is sustainability”, part two discusses the current state of sustainability including the importance of technology, and part three discusses the 4Es and 4 Poles model.

This research establishes the importance of technology in the sustainable development agenda. The paper proposes a 4Es (project management model) and 4 Poles (poles or factors of sustainability) model as a holistic approach to achieving sustainable construction. In addition, this paper proposes an extension to the definition of sustainable construction or development, as the existing definitions seem to be vague.

This research paper focuses only on sustainability in the built environment and sustainable development with reference to project management.

The proposed model uses a project management approach, which does not allow trade‐offs, but promotes integration of the 4 Poles. This will contribute to the achievement of sustainable construction at every level of a project or organisation.

The proposed model is new within project management and the built environment. It also promotes technology as a core factor in achieving sustainable development.

Megaprojects are large-scale and long-term investments. Three pillars of sustainable construction objectives, namely, social, environmental and economic, should be integrated into megaproject risk management to ensure long-term success. A risk assessment method, Risk Assessment Method for Sustainable Construction Objectives in Megaprojects (RAMSCOM), was developed for this purpose.

RAMSCOM was developed based on the latest concepts and identifying relevant and critical sustainability objectives and risks through an extensive literature review. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Cross-Impact Analysis (CIA) were used to determine and quantify the threats regarding the importance of the sustainability objectives. The applicability of RAMSCOM was demonstrated on a real megaproject.

The findings revealed that sustainability risk assessment requires integration of economic, environmental, social objectives and analysis of cross-impacts of risk factors. Visualization of interrelated threats, vulnerabilities and objectives has a potential to support risk mitigation decisions to achieve sustainability goals.

The method has been developed based on the findings from a detailed literature survey on sustainability objectives and risks. RAMSCOM was tested on a single project with the assistance of three experts' views. Findings from the case project cannot be directly generalised for various megaprojects considering the unique nature of megaprojects.

Decision-makers can use RAMSCOM to assess sustainability risks in megaprojects and develop risk management plans for the most vulnerable and important sustainable objectives in a visual and quantified approach to ensure megaproject's sustainability in the long-term.

The theoretical contribution is a novel risk assessment method that integrates all dimensions of sustainability and quantifies the vulnerability of sustainability objectives considering their priorities, interrelations and risks. Sustainability dimensions, objectives and risks used in RAMSCOM can be useful for other researchers aiming to develop similar methods.

The purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge transfer (KT) practices in five construction projects delivering sustainable office buildings in Germany and the UK by using social network analysis (SNA).

Case studies were adopted as research strategy, with one construction project representing one case study. A combination of quantitative data, social network data and some qualitative data on perceptions of the sustainable construction process and its KT were collected through questionnaires. The data were analysed using a combination of descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, content analysis and SNA. This resulted in a KT map of each sustainable construction project.

The findings resulted in a better understanding of how knowledge on sustainable construction is transferred and adopted. They show that large amounts of tacit knowledge were transferred through strong ties in sparse networks.

The findings could offer a solution to secure a certain standard of sustainable building quality through improved KT. The findings indicate a need for further research and discussion on network density, tie strength and tacit KT.

This paper contributes to the literature on KT from a social network perspective. It provides a novel approach through combining concepts of network structure and relatedness in tie contents regarding specialised knowledge, i.e. sustainable construction knowledge. Thereby it provides a robust approach to mapping knowledge flows in office building projects that aim to achieve high levels of sustainability standards.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework integrating risk management (RM) into the architectural design process (ADP) as an approach for delivering sustainable construction projects.

A research methodology, which consisted of literature review and field study, is designed to accomplish four objectives. First, to provide a comprehensive literature review of the concepts of sustainability, ADP and RM. Second, to present and synthesis the results of two relevant studies focused on identifying, quantifying and classifying the risks associated with ADP; and investigating the perception and application of Egyptian architectural design firms (ADFs) towards integrating RM into ADP as an approach for delivering sustainable construction projects. Third, to develop a framework that integrates RM into ADP towards delivering sustainable construction projects. Finally, to draw conclusions and recommendations to improve the practice of delivering sustainable construction projects among ADFs, construction professionals and governmental authorities.

ADP is a fundamental phase of the construction process because the decisions adopted during this phase affect the project performance throughout its life cycle. While RM is widely applied in different sectors of the construction industry, its application in ADP received scant attention in construction literature. The research identified 18 key risks that affect the sustainable delivery of construction projects during ADP. The architect, the client and the project manager are the highest ranked responsible parties for the occurrence of these key risks. The field study highlighted the need to develop a framework to facilitate integrating RM into ADP.

This paper focused only on the integration of RM into ADP.

The conducted literature review and field study provided an in-depth understanding of the key risks that affect the sustainable delivery of construction projects during ADP. Through its five stages, the proposed framework is expected to serve as a foundation for integrating RM into ADP as an approach for delivering sustainable projects. This ideology has received scant attention in construction literature. The developed framework represents a synthesis that is novel and creative in thought and adds value to the knowledge in a manner that has not previously occurred.