Modelling Sustainability Transition in the Kenyan Construction Industry

Abstract

Ensuring human life sustenance, now and in future, is at the core of the sustainability agenda globally. Current sustainability concerns relate to uncontrolled population growth, pollution, natural resources depletion, widening wealth-gap, industrialization impacts, and, consumerism. World over, the rapid growth of the construction industry is part and parcel of these concerns owing to its known negative sustainability impacts. This is in addition to lagging behind in transitioning towards sustainability compared to other sectors and the Kenyan construction industry is not an exemption. It is against this background that this study investigated the lagging transition to sustainability, sustainable construction transition (SCT), in the Kenyan construction industry. It specifically sought to: assess SCT performance; assess prevalent SCT strategies including ranking of their implementation considerations; assess priorities, instruments, and, stakeholder orientation including (any) inherent shortcomings of the SCT regime (policy and legislative); and, develop a model for enhanced industry SCT performance. Overall, the study based on socio-technical systems (STS) theory hypothesized, in the alternative, that SCT strategies including their implementation/context appropriateness considerations are significantly related with industry SCT performance. A mixed-methods approach, backed by pragmatism research philosophy, was adopted. Additionally, the study followed a descriptive and cross-sectional research design. For quantitative data, the study employed structured questionnaires targeting key design phase stakeholders (sample size=312 respondents). For an enhanced exploration of study variables, key informants (sample size=nine key informants) were targeted through interviews. Valid responses were 197 and four respectively. The findings from the 197 valid responses quantitatively analysed indicated that SCT performance in the Kenyan construction industry was sub-optimal (M=2.8429). Notably, its ranking along the three facets of sustainability, in order of decreasing performance was: social (M=2.8542); economic (M=2.7986); and, environmental (M=2.6389). Further, the following five SCT strategies were identified to be prevalent: property value enhancement; enhancing functionality; development cost efficiency; energy conservation; and, operational cost rationalization (M>3). However, the overall adoption of SCT strategies was below average (M=2.9172). Additionally, SCT strategies implementation/context-appropriateness considerations were ranked in decreasing consideration order as: change readiness; socio-spatial sensitivity; multi-level governance; resilience; leveraging micro and small medium

enterprises (MSMEs); and, leveraging internet of things (IoT)-driven big data and building information modelling (BIM) (M=2.8065, 2.7948, 2.7855, 2.6620, 2.5911, and, 2.3932 respectively). Overall, their consideration was below average (M<3). The SCT regime (policy and legislative), through 35 documents content analysis, was found to prioritize environmental aspects (31/35 documents) and strategic and tactical implementation with less focus on the socio-economic aspects (social=12/35, and, economic=6/35 documents) and operational implementation. It was driven by: codes, guidelines, and, plans; constitution and legislation – both groups 11/35 documents each; and, regulations (13/35 documents). They however lacked a centralized database and mainly focussed on regulation and control when compared to other operational mechanisms such as education and information. It also primarily targeted developers/owners/occupiers and government (>18/35 documents each) with lesser focus on other industry stakeholder groups (<18/35 documents each). The model developed identified SCT strategies and their implementation considerations of change readiness and leveraging MSMEs to be significant predictors of SCT performance (model predictive power=49.4%; predictive accuracy=62.3%; and, mean absolute percentage error (MAPE)=13.6%). The main conclusion reached is that enhanced joint optimization of SCT strategies including their implementation considerations of change readiness and leveraging MSMEs would result in enhanced industry SCT performance. This study contributes to existing research and knowledge on SCT along the following fronts: development of pioneer SCT model for Kenya – addresses the sustainability challenges faced by the construction industry and the weaknesses of existing sustainable construction frameworks; extension of STS theory application to SCT; pioneer empirical investigation of the Kenyan SCT regime (policy and legislative); and, development of original scales for measurement of SCT performance, strategies, and, their implementation considerations. The findings, for enhanced industry SCT performance moving forward, highlighted the need for: implementation of SCT efforts after satisfactory stakeholders SCT strategies literacy, SCT readiness, and, onboarding of MSMEs; and, SCT policy and legislative regime’s enhanced – focus on socio-economic aspects of SCT and operational level of implementation, centralized instruments database and leveraging them to back more than regulation and control, targeting of all major industry stakeholder groups, and, SCT strategies literacy, change readiness, and, onboarding of MSMEs backing. Additionally, future SCT studies can: use structural equation modelling (SEM); explore more SCT predictors; and, replicate this study in other nations.