Key stakeholder values in encouraging green orientation of construction procurement

Abstract

Poor environmental management of construction projects contributes greatly to environmental degradation. While many changes have been introduced in the global industry, such as the development of green materials and green building certification, limited effort has been done by stakeholders to bring about any improvement in Malaysia. Green procurement was introduced to accelerate practitioners to procure green buildings. This paper examines the interaction between two main constructs – stakeholder values and green procurement – through a questionnaire survey of experienced Malaysian construction stakeholders, extracted from an extensive literature review and validated through expert interviews. The ensuing data is then used to build a structural equation model to measure the constructs through their constituent variables, to verify if stakeholder values have a significant impact on the adoption of green procurement by an organisation or for a project. The study reveals that stakeholder values have a positive influence on shaping the green orientation of a construction procurement. The identified key stakeholder values are stakeholder commitment, technical competencies, awareness and knowledge sharing. The results show the key values needed for their procurement delivery to be on a sustainable path. The study also provides the basis for further research into green procurement for construction projects in Malaysia and beyond.