Purpose The high consumption of energy by buildings may have enhanced land degradation, flooding, air pollution and many other hazardous environmental issues. However, green practices in buildings have been proved as one of the successful technologies to mitigate these issues. Past studies have shown lax green practices in Nigerian buildings. Concerning public hospital buildings, this is yet to be explored. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the barriers to green practices and proffer possible policy solutions to promote hospital green buildings. Design/methodology/approach In attaining these objectives, the view of hospital building contractors, design team, hospital management and policymakers in the relevant ministries/agencies was engaged via virtual interviews. The collated data were analysed and presented in the thematic pattern. Findings Findings show that green building construction is extremely low in Nigeria, but the worst hit is the health-care buildings across the states. Government/policy-related, organisational/leadership-related, financial-related, technical-related, design team-related and stakeholders’ behaviour-related barriers emerged as the main six themes of barriers affecting public hospital green buildings implementation initiatives. Findings show that proffering possible policies to addressing these barriers may improve public hospital green construction across the states. Research limitations/implications This paper is limited to barriers to green buildings implementation in public hospitals in Nigeria, and data collection was through virtual interviews but does not affect the strength of the findings. Thus, this paper suggests that the sub-themes and variables/items that emerged from the collated data as presented in Figure 1 can be further developed quantitatively via questionnaire survey to validate and improve the reliability of results from this paper. Practical implications As part of this study’s implications, suggestions from this paper will stir up policymakers’ decisions, to be tailored towards achieving green buildings implementation initiatives in Nigerian public hospitals. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is probably the first that attempted to investigate the barriers to green buildings implementation in public hospitals in Nigeria.
The focal point of this study was to assess the perspectives of construction professionals on factors influencing tender prices of construction works and the contribution of the factors to the success rate of contractors. Using literature review and questionnaire survey, 15 factors were identified in respect to contractors' tender price and success rate in Nigeria. The findings of this study based on the results of statistical analyses (mean score and chi-square) reveal that all the construction professionals (architects, builders, engineers and quantity surveyors) are of the opinion that material availability, labour productivity and level of profit are the most significant factors that highly influence tender price of construction works and consequently affect the success rate of contractors in competitive bidding. Project definition and construction plan have least influence on contractors' tender price. Also, it was found that government policy does not have significant effect on contractors' success rate in competitive bidding in Nigeria. It is hoped that the information presented in this paper will be of interest to all parties concerned, including Nigerian construction companies and foreign companies planning to enter the Nigerian construction market. In addition, while the research focused on a particular country, Nigeria, the study can be replicated in other countries particularly developing countries and the results can be compared.
Purpose In less than a decade to sustainable development goals (SDGs) there is a threat of household waste emanating from sub-urban sprawl especially in developing countries. Private approaches with government-enabling environments have been proved a successful platform for urban services such as housing provision and telecommunication in developing cities. Still private solid waste management (PSWM) seems different in Nigeria. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the possible perceived hindrances facing PSWM organisations and proffer feasible policies to enhance sustainable clean and healthy cities. Design/methodology/approach Seven communities within Benin City sub-urban environs were adopted as the study area to accomplish the research’s objectives via a phenomenology type of qualitative research design. The study analysed the collated data from the knowledgeable participants via a thematic approach. Findings Lax legislative, absence of institutional framework, inadequate economic motivation, inadequate technical operations, among others, emerged as the encumbrances faced by PSWM firms. Wastes dumped along unethical locations such as streets, roads, uncompleted buildings, culverts and drainage channels, and undeveloped plots emerged as the encumbrance outcomes. Findings show that proffering feasible policy solutions to tackle identified hindrances can promote the achievement of SDGs across semi-urban locations in Nigeria. Research limitations/implications This research is restricted to urban household waste management by PSWM within Nigeria. Also, the study identified the challenges and proffer policy solutions to enhance improved clean environment within the sub-urban and urban cities. Practical implications As part of this study’s implications, results from this research intend to guide government policymakers and PSWM firms to encourage collaboration in designing appropriate strategic and educational programmes for the householders (customers) in sub-cities. It will be achieved via feasible policies that are tailored towards achieving sustainable health and environment-friendly sub-urban locations. Originality/value This paper intends to enhance proper PSWM and create sustainable cities via collaboration. Also, the paper engaged key stakeholders via a qualitative research design to proffer possible solutions to the menace of sub-urban and urban household waste management.
PurposeStudies showed that construction consultants' ethical negligence is a contributing factor to the time and cost over-run of projects. There is limited research on the issues that may have hindered construction consultants' ethical responsiveness during contract administration. Studies regarding influencing factors in the context of Nigeria's quantity surveyors' (QS) ethical responsiveness are rare. Thus, the study aims to investigate the perceived issues and proffers initiatives to promote QSs' ethical responsiveness on construction projects in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachTo determine the perceptions of QS regarding ethical responsiveness, a phenomenologically driven perspective via face-to-face interviews was conducted with 12 senior professionals in Lagos and Abuja that showed interest in participating in the study and were interviewed. A thematic approach was adopted to analyse the collated data.FindingsEconomic, societal and professional issues emerged as the three groups of issues that hindered QS's ethical responsiveness on construction projects in a developing country setting such as Nigeria. Findings show that for ethical responsiveness to be expressed on projects, key stakeholders should be ethically responsible. This is currently missing, especially in public construction projects. Initiatives that can promote key stakeholders' ethical responsiveness on construction projects are examined in this paper.Practical implicationsThe paper embraces an important practical implication because practices associated with QS's unethical responsiveness and behavioural impacts on construction projects were identified. This will stir both the regulatory professional bodies and policymakers to enforce and implement feasible initiatives that can promote key stakeholders' collaborative ethical responsiveness on construction projects.Originality/valueThis paper is amongst the few papers that attempted to uncover issues that hinder QS's ethical responsiveness on construction projects in a developing country setting via a qualitative approach. Since these issues are rampant in developing countries, findings from this paper can be used to promote QS's ethical responsiveness in other nations with similar unethical issues.
PurposeThe increasing growth of urbanisation, especially in developing countries, coupled with affordable housing leakages, may thwart achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 (sustainable cities and communities). Studies regarding affordable housing leakages and their aftermath to Goal 11 in one study are scarce in Malaysia. The study investigated Malaysia's low-cost housing (LCH) leakages and their aftermath to Goal 11 and proffered measures to achieving Goal 11 and its targets. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe researchers covered four of Malaysia's major cities via a qualitative approach. The study used 40 participants via semi-structured virtual interviews, and saturation was achieved. The study adopted a thematic approach for the collected data and honed them with secondary sources.FindingsFindings group Malaysia's LCH leakages into government/agencies/departments in housing, housing developers/building contractors and client/building owners' root causes in Malaysia's context. It shows a threat from Malaysia's LCH leakages to achieving Goal 11 and proffered measures to enhance achieving Goal 11. Achieving Goal 11 will strengthen and improve Malaysia's many SDGs accomplishments because of their link.Originality/valueApart from proffering measures to mitigate long-standing issues (leakages) in Malaysia's LCH delivery from achieving Goal 11, findings will stipulate the accomplishment of other SDGs related to housing delivery.
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