Critical Evaluation of Environmental, Social and Governance Disclosures of Malaysian Property and Construction Companies

There is an increasing demand from stakeholders for higher transparency on environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures. Yet not much is known about the state of sustainability reporting in Malaysia especially in the property and construction industry. This paper aims to fill this gap accordingly. Content analysis of corporate websites, sustainability and annual reports was adopted as the main methodology in this study. Findings show that corporate governance indicators are most reported by Malaysian construction companies compared to other environmental or social indicators. It was also found that details on actual health and safety performance of these companies and the initiatives implemented were largely absent from their reporting. Given the increasing number of rating tools in the capital markets which serve to rank and file companies based on their sustainability disclosures and performance such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) and FTSE4Good Index, it is questionable as to how reliable this can be done for the Malaysian property and construction market. The paper will be useful to construction management practitioners and ESG analysts with a focus on Asian markets

Human resource management in the construction industry – Sustainability competencies

While environmental sustainability has been the subject of much debate in the last decade, it was not until recently that attention started to shift towards human resource management as an enabler for sustainability.  Yet, this is still a relatively under researched area.  Much is still unknown about the role of an individual worker in contributing towards sustainable development.  This paper addresses the gap by proposing a framework to measure sustainability competencies of employees within the construction industry sector.  As part of the framework, four proficiency levels together with relevant descriptions are defined for a total of eight sustainability competencies.  Suggested proficiency levels are then mapped to main construction related jobs based on the framework.  An example is also given to illustrate the manner in which competencies should be assessed.  This framework is original and of practical use to construction managers and human resource practitioners

A Review of Sustainability Reporting Tools (SRTs) for Communities

Sustainability reporting tools (SRTs) for Communities is part of a new paradigm to aid local governments and councils in their decision making process.  These integrative tools have evolved from prior versions of SRTs that focus purely on a single building performance to consider the sustainability performance of communities.  This paper provides a review of mainstream SRTs for Communities, in particular: BREEAM for Communities; LEED for Neighbourhood Development; CASBEE for Urban Development; Green Star for Communities; Sustainability Tool for Assessing and Rating (STAR); EcoCity; and HQE2R.  A critique of these tools is provided to better understand some of the existing limitations including the lack of clarity in the size of development that these SRTs are capable of assessing; lack of published reasoning behind the allocated scores or weightings for the criteria selected; inadequate account of the different sources of uncertainty; the adoption of a static perspective; and the lack of acknowledgement of possible interaction or correlation between criteria.  This review will be of interest to practitioners, academics and developers who are concerned about ways to improve the sustainability of the built environment

Are we ready for circular economy? Towards zero waste in construction

Over the past decade, the concept of circular economy (CE) has emerged encouraging a rethinking of the way products are designed so that they can be “made to be made again”, turning the conveyor belt of consumerism into a circle (a closed-loop supply chain) and hence eliminate waste. The construction sector, especially, is known to be one of the main contributors of material waste-to-landfill. This paper investigates (i) the causes of construction waste and (ii) the readiness of the construction sector in Malaysia to embrace CE. Based on the relative importance index (RII), the five main causes of construction waste in Malaysia identified include frequent design changes (RII = 0.853) by owner or agent during construction followed by poor site management and supervision (RII = 0.835), changes in material specification and type (RII = 0.803), rework (RII = 0.719) and lack of coordination between parties (RII = 0.680). Survey findings also show that a majority (75%) of stakeholders within the Malaysian construction industry is unfamiliar with the concept of CE while 90% of the respondents claim that they are not ready to implement such practices within the next 5 years. It is anticipated that the findings from this paper will be of interest to construction practitioners

Pectin at the oil-water interface: Relationship of molecular composition and structure to functionality

The present review examines how macromolecular structure and functional groups of pectin affect its functionality with particular focus on its interfacial activity. We venture into a description of the particularly complex pectin structure and describe the major building blocks and their properties. In the following section, the role of each structural parameter is discussed with particular attention to protein, degree of acetylation and methylation, molecular weight, and branching. Finally, we discuss how modification of the extraction conditions could be tailored to obtain pectin with the desired emulsification properties. It is proposed that pectin with protein content in the range of 3%, with degree of acetylation greater than 10%, molecular weight between 100 and 200 x103 g mol-1 and enriched in RG-I segments is more likely to perform well as an emulsifier. To tailor such a structure, an aqueous extraction protocol with low pH values (between 2.5-3.5) with a strong monoprotic acid (e.g., HCl) and one-step solvent precipitation should be selected. The proposed set of extraction conditions could be used as a first step towards rational design of pectin with desirable interfacial functionality

TOWARD A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO YOUTH EMPOWERMENT FOR CLIMATE ACTION

This brief focuses on empowering the youth to act on climate change and environmental protection by strengthening formal and informal environmental and sustainability education. Environmental education is the foundation for problem recognition and solving. The G20 is in a powerful position to exercise environmental and climate leadership by mandating sustainability and environmental education domestically, regularly tracking environmental and climate literacy internationally, investing in infrastructure and educator training for environmental education, promoting games drawing on real-world problems, developing partnerships for environmental education in local communities, and organizing an annual Youth Summit for Climate, Environment, and Sustainable Development Solutions

Sustainability rating tools for buildings and its wider application

This paper provides a commentary on the latest research in measuring the sustainability of buildings and its wider application. The emergence of sustainability rating tools (SRTs) has faced critique from scholars due to their deficiencies such as the overemphasis on environmental criteria, the negligence of uncertainty in scoring and existence of non-scientific criteria benchmarks among many others. This could have attributed to the mixed evidence in the literature on the benefits of SRTs. Future research direction is proposed to advance the state-of-the art in this field

Briefing: task force for climate financial disclosures (TCFD) for the property and construction industry

The property and construction industry are known to be a main contributor to climate change contributing more than 40% of the world's emissions. In direct response to this, there has been a call for corporations to be more transparent and align themselves to the requirements of the task force for climate financial disclosures (TCFD). This paper seeks to provide a briefing on the requirements of the TCFD. It highlights common challenges faced by the property and construction industry in implementing TCFD such as the difficulty in integrating climate related risks and translating them into quantitative measures, lack of capability within the industry to understand the complexities of climate risks and data collection issues among others. Recommendations are proposed to address these issues including setting up an industry specific network to share best practices in TCFD, harmonisation of existing frameworks to include TCFD requirements and exploring opportunities for incentivisation and rewards for early movers. This paper will be useful to property and construction industry practitioners who are looking at aligning to the requirements of the TCFD