An Assessment of Environmental Sustainability Practices in Construction Industry. A Case Study of Tilisi Development Project Site, Kiambu County, Kenya

Abstract

Construction industry in many developing countries continues to be a key pillar of economic development. In Kenya, the industry contributes to gross domestic product and creation of employment. Even with these contributions, the industry has played a detrimental role of environmental damage. The aim of this study was to assess environmental sustainability practices that were undertaken at construction sites in Kenya through a case study of the construction at Tilisi Development Project in Kiambu County. The guiding objectives were to establish environmental management practices that were undertaken at the project site, to evaluate the challenges experienced during their implementation and to examine challenges that were faced by stakeholders towards compliance to rules and regulations in environmental practices. Based on the aforementioned objectives, the study hypothesized the null hypothesis that environmental management practices do not have a significant relationship with sustainable construction at the construction site. Target population comprised of Tilisi management, workers under different contractors, officials in government and professional bodies, and neighboring community. A census study was adopted for Tilisi management staff and on neighboring community members whereby the entire population formed the sample size of the study. The method used to select contractor workers was stratified random sampling while official from government agencies that deal with environmental and construction regulations and certification were selected using purposive sampling method. Data was collected using questionnaires, interview guide, and through observation. The themes that formed the focus of the study were borrowing from BREEAM that accord themes that construction sites should conform to in order to achieve sustainable environment. The themes include: natural resources extraction, energy use and conservation, water use and conservation, as well as health, safety and environmental responsibility. The results showed that there were minimal steps taken by the project management to reduce natural resource extraction from nature as indicated by (69.5%) of the workers. Green energy use and conservation was not given much emphasis as indicated by (88.8%).Tilisi workers were neither skilled on efficiency and sustainable water use (70.1%) nor skilled on waste management as indicated by (70.1%). It was also noted that Tilisi project was not designed to actively promote workers and general societal health and safety (64.7%). Inadequate workers training (73.0%) was the main challenge towards implementation of sustainability environmental practices and corruption by governing bodies came out as the main factor (84.5%) contributing towards noncompliance to rules and regulations in environmental practices. The null hypotheses that that environmental sustainability practices do not have a significant relationship with sustainable construction at the construction site was tested and rejected using Pearson‟s Chi-Square (X2) test at 0.05 significance level. This study showed that construction sites are marred with inefficient sustainability environmental practices such as lack of water management system, poor natural resources extraction, inadequate occupational safety and health measures, and environmental responsibility measures thereby contributing to environmental damage. This study recommends implementation of adequate training for contractors and workers for awareness creation of sustainable construction as well as instilling in them current adequate for effective implementation of regulations to enhance sustainable.