ITcon Vol. 17, pg. 162-178, http://www.itcon.org/2012/10

The Development of a Sustainable-Construction Planning System

SUBMITTED: December 2011
REVISED: July 2012
PUBLISHED: August 2012
EDITOR: Amor R.

Javier Irizarry, Assistant Professor Dr.,
School of Building Construction, College of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia, USA.
javier.irizarry@coa.gatech.edu

Samaneh Zolfagharian,
School of Building Construction, College of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia, USA.
zsamaneh2@live.utm.my

Mehdi Nourbakhsh,
School of Building Construction, College of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia, USA.
mehdi.nourbakhsh@gatech.edu

Rosli Mohamad Zin, Associate Professor Dr.,
Department of Structures and Materials, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor,
Malaysia.
roslizin@utm.my

Kamaruzaman Jusoff, Professor Dr.,
Department of Forest Production, Faculty of Forestry, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia.
kamaruz@putra.upm.edu.my

Rozana Zakaria, Assistant Professor Dr.,
Department of Structures and Materials, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor,
Malaysia.
rozana@utm.my

SUMMARY:Since construction is considered as one of the main sources of environmental pollution in the world, the level of knowledge and awareness of project participants, especially project managers, regarding the construction impacts on the environment are required to be enhanced. The aim of this paper is to develop a prototype of a Sustainable-Construction Planning System (SCPS) in order to mitigate the negative impacts of the construction industry on the environment. To achieve this aim, frequency and severity of known environmental impacts of construction process of residential buildings were investigated through interviews with a safety expert panel in Malaysia. Then, risk level associated with each environmental impact was calculated based on the relevant risk matrix. The SCPS extracts current construction activities from any computer-based schedule (Microsoft Project® in this study) and identifies sustainable strategies, and environmental impacts related to each activity as a report. The SCPS was presented to an expert panel who was asked to assess the reliability and usability of the SCPS. It can be concluded that the SCPS is efficient and helpful in mitigating construction related impacts on the environment. The practical implication of this study is to promote sustainable construction by promoting the project participants’ knowledge and awareness of significant environmental impacts related to construction operations. This study could be a platform for developing automated sustainable planning systems that can be used broadly in construction projects.

KEYWORDS: environmental pollution, impacts assessments, sustainable strategy, prototype

FULL TEXT: file.pdf (1,290,522 bytes)

CITATION:

Javier Irizarry,Samaneh Zolfagharian, Mehdi Nourbakhsh, Rosli Mohamad Zin, Kamaruzaman Jusoff, Rozana Zakaria (2012) The Development of a Sustainable-Construction Planning System, ITcon Vol. 17, pg. 162-178, http://www.itcon.org/2012/10