Benefits of Adopting Sustainability Practices by Construction Companies: Developing Country’s Perspective

Abstract

In today’s world, sustainability practices are critical to every industry including the construction sector. This has come into being because of the pressure exerted on organisations and their supply chains by different stakeholders who demand ethically produced goods and services as well as responsible service delivery methods. The purpose of this research was to assess the relationship between sustainability practices and the benefits that sustainability offers organisations. This study employed cross-sectional descriptive design with a quantitative approach. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire with closed-ended questions from 67 respondents who were purposively sampled from building construction companies registered with the National Council for Construction (NCC) in grades 1 to 4 and operating in the Copperbelt province of Zambia. These included senior management employees involved in various projects. The collected data was analysed using exploratory factor analysis and regression analysis. The findings revealed that economic sustainability practices had a significant influence on delivering sustainability benefits, whereas social and environmental sustainability practices had no significant influence on delivering sustainability benefits. The research further revealed that the period a company was in operation significantly contributed to its ability to realise sustainability benefits, and to the contrary, that awareness and stakeholder participation did not. The researcher thus recommended that companies in the construction sector should develop and implement sustainability policies in order to meet the expectations of several stakeholders and secure long-term competitive advantage.

Keywords

• adoption
• construction
• developing countries
• sustainability