An Analysis of Determinants for Sustainable Construction in Vietnam

Abstract

The construction sector plays a main role for the delivery of sustainable development but it also has a certain impact on environment. The key challenge for the sector is to reduce influences of its activities on environment and society. Principles of sustainable construction need to guarantee sustainable development for the construction sector. However, because of unclear definition of sustainable construction, many problems appear as applying this definition for a particular country. The problem is that the definition of sustainable construction can vary based on the size, economic development level as well as social, cultural and other factors of a country. Therefore, this study is undertaken to explore the various aspects of the pursuit of sustainable construction in Vietnam, namely: the criteria of sustainability, barriers of sustainability practice, drivers for achieving sustainability, appropriate solutions to improve sustainability. The aspects of the sustainability in this study just revolve around three dimensions: environment, economy, and society. For these reasons, the six objectives of this study are: (1) Identify the criteria of sustainability in the construction industry in Vietnam, (2) Identify the barriers of sustainability practice, (3) Identify drivers for achieving sustainability, (4) Develop a structural model that demonstrates the relationships among factors affecting sustainability by Structural Equation Model (SEM) method, (5) Develop a prediction model of sustainability by System Dynamics method, and (6) Propose appropriate solutions to improve sustainability. Based on a comprehensive literature review and survey questionnaires, the study identified the criteria of sustainability interested by construction firms in Vietnam. The result identified the five most important environment criteria of sustainability, including: Dust, Land use, Waste management, Construction ventilation, and Odors. The five most important economy criteria of sustainability are: Optimization of resources use, Cost, quality and schedule, Suppliers management, Availability of materials and machinery, and Use of local materials. The five most important society criteria of sustainability are: Competent employees attracted and maintained, Reputation, Relationship between managers and employees, Health and safety of workers be ensured, and Competition and high quality of projects. Next, through evaluations of the respondents to the barriers and drivers in achieving the sustainability, the five most significant barriers identified are: Additional costs for training, No awareness of sustainable construction, Lack of client awareness and demand for sustainable construction, Incompetence, and Lack of legislation. And five drivers considered very important in pursuit of the sustainability, including: Creation of a healthy environment, Enhanced security, Enhance reputation, Enhance relations with stakeholders, and Sharing of knowledge. The next objective of this study is to develop a structural model that demonstrates the relationships among factors affecting sustainability by Structural Equation Model (SEM) method. Only significant attributes of the factors are considered to have significant effects on sustainability. The attributes are classified into the following factors: Sustainable practices, Resources, Drivers, Internal, Barriers, and Leadership. The respondents were asked to assess the effect of these attributes on the sustainability. To determine how strong the attributes represent the above factors, a measurement model was deployed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Attributes that cannot represent the factors were removed. The fit measurement model are defined to include only strongly influential attributes on the sustainability. After the reliability of the fit measurement model has been confirmed, a structural model has been developed and rigorously tested by Structural Equation Model (SEM) to determine the relationships among the factors that affect the sustainability and sustainability which includes three aspects: environment sustainability, economy sustainability, and society sustainability. The result of the SEM model shows that there are four factors that have a strong impact on the sustainability: Sustainable practices, Resources, Drivers, and Leadership. However, Internal and Barriers do not have any impact on the sustainability. The causal relationships identified in the SEM model will be inputs to the development of the sustainability predictive model by using the System Dynamics method. In the developed System Dynamics model, the Sustainability index will be affected by four dynamic models: Sustainable practices, Drivers, Leadership, and Resources. The Sustainability index will be the sum of the following indexes: Sustainable practices index, Resources index, Drivers index, and Leadership index. Various policy scenarios and sensitivity analyzes were also performed to test the reliability of the developed model. The results show that the behavior of the model is insensitive to changes of the indices in the model. So the results of the model are highly reliable. The most important implication of the model is that construction companies in Vietnam need to focus their efforts on improving leadership since this is the most significant factor driving other factors to develop. This study helps stakeholders in the construction industry in Vietnam particularly and other regions generally gain the insight into the criteria, barriers, drivers and policies that need to be focused on when pursuing sustainability. This study is especially valuable in developing countries.