Relevant criteria for selecting project delivery methods in sustainable construction

Abstract

There is a lag in incorporating sustainability in core project management practices such as the selection of project delivery methods. Available literature focuses on traditional selection criteria of project delivery methods. These criteria, while important, may not address the challenges associated with sustainable construction projects’ delivery. There is a need to develop relevant selection criteria that increase the success rate of sustainable construction projects. This paper bridges this gap by identifying relevant criteria and modelling the correlation between the selection criteria exogenous variables and their corresponding latent variables as well as evaluating the impact of the relevant selection criteria on the success of sustainable construction projects. A partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM) is developed based on a survey that was administered to construction professionals in the UAE to collect their perceptions on the significance of the selection criteria. 110 responses were collected using a snowball sampling technique and the results revealed that all of the selection criteria proved to be significant. These include: level of integration, green team, green contract, green liability and technology. It is recommended to prioritize the level of integration, green team and green liability criteria groups for the PDM selection in sustainable construction projects.