A successful delivery process of green buildings: The project owners’ view, motivation and commitment

Abstract

The project owners are at the centre of sustainability decisions to drive the implementation of sustainable building features in the construction industry. Despite this, the existing studies on the successful delivery of green buildings have only focused on the views of other construction project participants such as Architects and Contractors, while project owners are left out. To fill this gap, this study developed a conceptual framework of the synergy between owners’ motivation and commitment towards successful delivery of green buildings. The framework was empirically tested by exploring the views of 10 purposively selected project owners in the Australian construction industry. The findings revealed that while project owners’ motivation increases their commitment towards successful delivery of green building projects, the intrinsic type of project owners’ motivation is more effective than the extrinsic type. The extrinsic type of motivation is less effective due to the lack of harmonization in the existing incentive policies and programs for driving green building development in the Australian construction industry. The study concluded that, similar to other construction project participants, project owners have specific roles in the area of sustainability performance towards the successful delivery of green building projects. By implication, this study tinkers the Australian government to revisit the policy landscape for enhancing green building practices. Additionally, this study has demonstrated the need for active participation of project owners in the delivery of green building projects, and shown how the active participation of project owners can be enhanced through motivation in the construction industry.