Conceptual Maturity Model for Sustainable Construction

The construction industry has contributed substantially to not only the growth of the economy, but also the development of the environment and society. In past decades, an increasing public awareness on the environmental and social growth has promoted the application of sustainable development in construction. The triple bottom line-economy, society, and environment-has been widely recognized as a significant dimension for measuring the performance of sustainability. Although a number of performance indicator systems are available in the current market, few of them have considered soft systems-culture and human aspects-in measuring the performance of sustainable construction. This paper therefore aims to develop a conceptual maturity model for sustainable construction to gain a deeper and richer understanding of the actual practices on sustainable construction. Five key domains are outlined in the proposed model as the metrics with the description and subfactors of each metric. Apart from contributing to increasing competitive advantage, the proposed model can steer the construction community to improve performance in attaining the goals of sustainable construction. Nonetheless, this conceptual maturity model is still at an early development stage, and it is subject to more empirical testing and research for its practicability and further refinement. (c) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.