Importance of Sustainability-Related Cost Components in Highway Infrastructure: Perspective of Stakeholders in Australia

Despite the advent of the new Sustainable Development Goals, and noted benefits around the social, economic, and environmental aspects, the sustainable infrastructure development (SID) implementation process faces a number of challenges. Moreover, while there is a plethora of studies around sustainable infrastructure, there are limited studies undertaken on the influencing drivers and barriers particularly within the South Australian construction industry. This paper is aimed at filling that knowledge gap by identifying and ranking the drivers and barriers of SID implementation in South Australian construction organizations. A sequential mixed methods approach comprising questionnaires and interviews was conducted among construction professionals. The highly ranked drivers were identified as innovation, standardization of the word ‘sustainability’ (knowledge improvement), and close interaction of all involved stakeholders. “Lack of steering mechanism”, “multi-disciplinary nature of the word “sustainability”, and “lack of cooperation and networking” were the critical barriers. Suggested strategies and coping mechanisms for overcoming these barriers include instilling sustainability awareness, sustainability specifications, and governance frameworks. Strong and positive relationships were evident amongst all the drivers. This paper provides further insights into the knowledge and awareness of these drivers, which are cardinal to increased uptake of SID by the stakeholders, and barriers to overcome.

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“…The number of barriers influencing the adoption of SID by are well documented in literature [15][16][17][18][19][20]. For example, Ref.…”

Section: Barriers To Sid Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards Sustainable Infrastructure Development: Drivers, Barriers, Strategies, and Coping Mechanisms

Munyasya

Chileshe

2018

Sustainability

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“…The existing studies assumed that the roadway conditions and requirements would not change over the lifetime of a highway project. They were not concerned with the upgrading and end of life costs, which is obviously not reflecting real-world situations (Goh and Yang 2013;Ozcan-Deniz et al 2011;Santos and Ferreira 2013;Zhang et al 2010). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing cost implications for highway infrastructure sustainability

Goh

Yang

2014

Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Highway construction works have significant bearings on all aspects of sustainability. With the increasing level of public awareness and government regulatory measures, the construction industry is experiencing a cultural shift to recognise, embrace and pursue sustainability. Stakeholders are now keen to identify sustainable alternatives and the financial implications of including them on a life cycle basis. They need tools that can aid the evaluation of investment options. To date, however, there have not been many financial assessments on the sustainability aspects of highway projects. This is because the existing life cycle costing analysis models tend to focus on economic issues alone and are not able to deal with sustainability factors. This paper provides insights into the current practice of life cycle cost analysis, and the identification and quantification of sustainability-related cost components in highway projects through literature review, questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews. The results can serve as a platform for highway project stakeholders to develop practical tools to evaluate highway investment decisions and reach an optimum balance between financial viability and sustainability deliverables.

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“…There are similar studies conducted which applied mean indexing and t-tests. Studies have been done by rating the criticality index for the importance of the sustainability-related cost components [24] and using mean indexing to discuss the importance of evaluation elements for customer satisfaction in project management [25]. Apart from that, t-test analysis has been used in past research in identifying the relative important indicators [26,27].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overcoming ICT Barriers in IBS Management Process in Malaysia Construction Industry

et al. 2017

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Abstract. As the result of government's initiative and future outlook in uprising the awareness towards the implementation of sustainable elements in construction industries, the Industrialized Building System (IBS) is one of the approaches that had been introduced as an alternative to conventional building method and produce the new strategy of reducing the waste of materials in construction. The IBS approach is actively promoted through several strategies and incentives as an alternative to conventional building methods. Extensive uptakes of modern Information Communication Technology (ICT) applications are able to support the different IBS processes for effective production. However, it is argued that ICT uptake at the organizational level needs to be regularly improved. Thus, this paper fulfills the need to identify the critical barriers to ICT employment and highlighting the ICT drivers in enhancing the IBS management process. Critical barriers and drivers to ICT uptake were identified through questionnaire survey with industry stakeholders and were analyzed using mean index and critical t-value with the use of SPSS software.The critical drivers are top management support and commitment and improving the availability of the technologies. The critical drivers which were identified are significant in ensuring the enhancement of ICT implementation. Hence, any system in place should avoid the highest ranked barriers or seek to alleviate their impact by focusing on the identified drivers in order to enhance implementation of ICT in IBS process management.

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Importance of Sustainability-Related Cost Components in Highway Infrastructure: Perspective of Stakeholders in Australia

Cited by 24 publications

References 56 publications

Towards Sustainable Infrastructure Development: Drivers, Barriers, Strategies, and Coping Mechanisms

Towards Sustainable Infrastructure Development: Drivers, Barriers, Strategies, and Coping Mechanisms

Managing cost implications for highway infrastructure sustainability

Overcoming ICT Barriers in IBS Management Process in Malaysia Construction Industry

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