A study of sustainable practices in the sustainability leadership of international contractors

With an increasing global need for sustainable development, numerous world‐leading construction corporations have devoted significant efforts to implementing sustainable practices. However, few previous studies have shared these valuable experiences in a systematic and quantitative way. RobecoSAM has published The Sustainability Yearbook annually since 2004, which lists the sustainability leaders in various industries, including the construction industry. Learning from those sustainability leaders in the construction industry can provide useful references for construction‐related companies when developing their sustainable development strategies. Based on a comprehensive literature review, this paper identified 51 methods used for improving sustainability performance and 34 outcomes achieved via these methods. These methods and outcomes are used for coding the sustainable practices of sustainability leaders in the construction sector. Using the coding system, 133 annual sustainability reports issued by 22 sustainability leaders (The Sustainability Yearbook, RobecoSAM 2010–2016) in the construction sector were analyzed using content analysis. Social network analysis was then employed to identify the key adopted methods and achieved outcomes (KAMAO) of these leaders. The dynamic trend and regional analysis of KAMAO are also presented. These KAMAO findings provide valuable guidance for international contractors to develop a better understanding of the primary sustainable methods adopted by sustainability leaders in the construction sector and the top outcomes achieved by these leaders. The findings also provide a useful reference for international contractors to evaluate their current sustainability‐related strategies and make improvements.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156206/2/sd2020.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156206/1/sd2020_am.pd

The NISPAcee journal of public administration and policy

This paper introduces a new approach for conducting project feasibility study by embracing the principles of sustainable development. Construction projects, in particular, infrastructures have major influence on the attainment of sustainable development, thus project sustainability needs to be considered. This becomes a pressing issue particularly in those developing countries or regions, such as China where a huge amount of construction works are currently performed and remain to happen in the future. Previous study has addressed little on the relevance of project feasibility study to project sustainability performance. The importance of incorporating sustainable development principles in conducting project feasibility study is not effectively understood by project stakeholders. This paper addresses major challenges of undertaking project feasibility study in line with sustainable construction practice with reference to the Chinese construction industry. A case study approach is the major research method in this study. The research team collected 87 feasibility study reports from various projects. Attributes are used for measuring project performance, including 18 economic performance attributes, nine social performance attributes, and eight environmental performance attributes. Research results show that economic performance is given the most concern in the current practice of project feasibility study, whilst less attention is given to the social and environmental performance. The study reveals the insufficiency of examining the performance of implementing a construction project from the perspective of sustainable development. The results also suggest the need for shifting the traditional approach of project feasibility study to a new approach that embraces the principles of sustainable development

Peaks of transportation CO2 emissions of 119 countries for sustainable development: Results from carbon Kuznets curve

Transportation has significantly boomed energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Understanding and forecasting the dynamic statuses of transportation CO2 emissions is a necessary step before making strategies to decrease CO2 emissions. Carbon Kuznets curve (CKC) hypothesis has been frequently validated properly to present the changing statuses of CO2 emissions in the literature. This study tests the CKC hypothesis using the data recording the CO2 emissions of transportation sectors of 119 countries over the period of 1995–2014, then turning points (TPs) are calculated for the countries where CKC hypothesis is turned out supported. Based on the CKC models, this study identifies different types of TPs, i.e. TP of carbon intensity (TPCI), TP of per capita CO2 emissions (TPPC), and TP of total CO2 emissions (TPTC) of the countries whose data support the CKC hypothesis. According to the earliness of the turning years (TYs) (TYCI, TYPC and TYTC) – the years when CO2 emissions peak – of individual countries, this study identified a step‐wise decoupling strategy for different countries, i.e. (1) first to reach the TPCI, (2) then to reach the TPPC, and (3) finally to reach the TPTC. As a result, the CKC hypothesis was supported by the data of 58 countries, among which, there are still seven countries having not reached any of the three TPs, 23 countries have reached the first‐step TP (TPCI), 9 countries have reached the second‐step TP (TPPC), and 19 countries have reached the third‐step TP (TPTC).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156198/2/sd2008.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156198/1/sd2008_am.pd

Evaluation of workplace safety performance in the Chinese petroleum industry

Reform of the Chinese petroleum industry has entered its second phase since early 1999. The productivity of the petroleum industry has been greatly improved, while the safety performance and records are not satisfactory. This paper investigates the critical factors for improving safety performance in the Chinese petroleum industry. The data used for the analysis are from a questionnaire survey administered to 480 professionals in the petroleum industry in which 143 valid responses were received. Statistical analysis techniques are used to analyze the data collected. The findings revealed that the most significant source of the safety problem is due to the combination of several reasons, including (a) violation on operating procedures, (b) obsolete facilities and equipment failures, (c) insufficient safety management system, (d) improper commands, number of casualties, and (e) production performances and operating skills. The three most essential protective methods include safety training and increasing staff's safety consciousness, cultivating safety culture, and enhancing equipment management and detecting hazards in time

Key attributes underpinning different markup decision between public and private projects: A China study

In the construction industry, contractors have to improve the efficiency of markup decision-making to survive from fierce business competition. The effect of client type on markup decision has been aware in previous studies and contractors are advocated to take account of decision factors properly when they are confronted with different types of projects. Nevertheless, the rationales behind the inclusion of different factors in markup decision-making for different projects sustain unknown. In this study, fifty-three factors were identified after extensive literature review and interviews with professionals. The identified factors were afterwards grouped under the headings of nine attributes and compiled in a questionnaire for survey in China. Using the Hotelling’s T-square test, it is found that three attributes (i.e., project characteristic, client characteristic, and macro condition) can explain the effect of client type on contractors’ markup decision. The research findings provide useful insights into the cognition of bid pricing as well as the improvement of bidding efficiency. While the research works were situated in China, contractors in other countries could benefit from the research findings in a similar vein

A new experience mining approach for improving low carbon city development

Developing low carbon city (LCC) has been widely appreciated as an important strategy for sustainable development. In line with this, an increasing number of cities globally have launched low carbon practices in recent years and gained various types of experience. However, it appears that existing studies do not present methods of how to use these valuable LCC experience in solving new problems. This study therefore introduces an experience mining approach to assist decision‐makers in reusing previous experience when tailoring LCC development strategies. The mining approach consists of three processes, namely, collecting historical cases which have been experiencing LCC, establishing LCC experience base, and mining similar experience cases. This study innovates the existing experience mining approach by introducing a two‐step mining process with considering the perspective of problem‐based urban characteristics (PBUCs) and the perspective of solution‐based urban characteristics (SBUCs). The application of the introduced mining approach has been demonstrated by a case study, where Shenyang’s energy structure is adopted as the target problem. The new experience mining approach provides a valuable reference for decision‐makers to retrieve similar cases for improving LCC development with the consideration of city characteristics.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156189/2/sd2046_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156189/1/sd2046.pd