INFLUENCE OF SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF A COUNTRY- A CASE STUDY

Abstract

Sustainable construction is one of the most important attributes in developing countries to achieve sustainable development. This research aims to investigate the importance of the use of sustainable aspects during construction towards sustainable development in a country. There are two main objectives namely: to identify the factors of sustainable construction as indicators for sustainable development measurement and to investigate the contribution of sustainable construction practices to environmental, social and economic development. Through a comprehensive literature review, 39 factors related to sustainable construction were identified under the eight main criteria based on the green rating system of the Green Building Council, Sri Lanka. The contribution of those identified factors to three themes of sustainable development, namely: environmental, social and economic was investigated through the responses collected using a questionnaire survey. Respondents cover CS2 to C4 grade construction companies via physical and google questionnaire forms. The sample size was taken based on the purposive sampling method. 122 responses were collected and those were analyzed using the Relative Importance Index (RII). According to the results, Material and Resources (MR), Water Reuse (WR), Energy (E), and Innovation and Innovative Aspect (IA) categories mostly contributed to economic development. Effective Land Use (LU) and Management Aspect (MA) mostly contributed to environmental development. The other two categories, Social and Cultural Awareness (SC) and Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) mostly contributed to social development. Further, all the factors under Energy category have significantly contributed to economic development compared to other factors in all other categories.