Building sustainably : the project manager’s contribution in delivering sustainable projects - a Maltese and international perspective

Abstract

Despite ample technological advancements, the building industry is still seen, as an unsustainable activity. To counteract this, buildings’ development is now being requested to be more sustainable. Due to the increasing complexity of sustainable projects’ criteria, the project manager’s role, tasked with the overall management of a building’s different development phases, is changing, becoming increasingly crucial for the attainment of pre-established sustainability goals. Based on this premise, a set of project management processes and supporting practices were identified from existing literature. The significance and relevance of these set of optimum project management processes and supporting practices were tested via a purposely designed questionnaire distributed locally, in Malta, and globally amongst established project managers. Among the main outcomes of the study, it is observed how all respondents are very aware about sustainability issues and that their decision-making role places them in an optimum position to bring forward a sustainability agenda for a particular project. In terms of intervention, pre-construction (43%) and construction (28%) were considered to be the main stages were a project manager usually gives the highest input. Various challenges were however also highlighted by the respondents, including, the client’s refusal to commit increased capital (34%), the requirement for further training (33%), and the lack of incentives aimed towards increasing the sustainability of projects (22%).