Investigating the significance of sustainability indicators for promoting sustainable construction project management

Abstract

Sustainable project management practices constantly gain importance over the last years. Relevant indicators constitute a means of leading modern projects to sustainability. Hence, it is necessary to identify a set of sustainability indicators that affect the construction process. The aim of this research is to explore and rank the relative importance of the principal sustainable project management indicators contributing to sustainable construction projects, considering the views of all construction project stakeholders. To achieve this aim, this study followed a research design including a questionnaire survey to investigate the perception of stakeholders from the construction sector regarding the usage of sustainable project management indicators when in seek of sustainability attributes in their projects. The structured questionnaire survey included 82 identified indicators, which were shortlisted based on relevant previous literature research and the input of semi-structured interviews from experts and professionals. The data gathered has been analysed through the relative importance index approach which has been widely used for similar purposes in the literature. Employing the relative importance index approach, environmental indicators were identified as the most important. The findings are helpful for practitioners that seek achievements in the sustainability construction sector by focusing, acting upon, and controlling the most important indicators.