Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the concepts of satisfaction and service quality of outsourced facilities management (FM) services. Design/methodology/approach – An empirical survey of 208 stakeholders in Nigeria’s hospitals was used to first, assess the level of satisfaction of users of outsourced FM services and second, validate a conceptual model using the structural equation modelling (SEM) methodology. Findings – Findings show that the three top services are cleaning (6.17), security (6.01) and landscape maintenance (5.73) while the least rated service is the plant maintenance and their personnel. The result also indicates that all six hypotheses were supported by the service quality satisfaction model structural equation model, meaning that quality attributes depicted by the outsourced FM services is antecedent to overall satisfaction. Specifically, “security services to overall satisfaction” received the highest path loading of 0.88, and was closely followed by “cleaning services to overall satisfaction” with a loading of 0.82. “Plant maintenance services to overall satisfaction” was however supported even though it had a very low path coefficient of 0.38. Originality/value – The study establishes a causal relationship between antecedents of satisfaction and service quality within the context of Nigeria’s public hospitals and provided insight into outsourced services that received high level of satisfaction among stakeholders unique from previous studies.

11The purpose of this paper is to conduct a review of how household energy consumption and carbon emissions (HECCE) modelling 12 paradigms have evolved over the years. This is achieved by adopting the literature review methodology for the study. The paper first 13 reviewed the previous studies that are serving as the theoretical framework underpinning the HECCE models. Further to this, the paper 14 identified an array of energy models that have evolved over the years together with their capability of analysing energy consumption and 15 their associated carbon emission trends in housing sector of the economy. The results of the study showed that econometric (mainly 16 top-down), building physics, and statistical (mainly bottom-up) methods are the existing approaches that have found application in mod-17 elling HECCE issues. However, a number of limitations were noticed in these existing modelling techniques. These are (1) lack of trans-18 parency in the model algorithms, (2) inability to account for the complex, interdependencies, and dynamic nature of the issue of energy 19 consumption and carbon emissions, (3) limited evidence to show for the occupants-dwelling interactions, and (4) lack of enough capacity 20 to accommodate qualitative data input. And as such, the study concluded that there is the need to scout for more robust and sophisti-21 cated modelling approaches that take into consideration the kind of complexity involved in issues relating to HECCE. 22

The use of bamboo leaf ash as cement supplement can contribute to reduction in cost and environmental hazard associated with cement production as well as waste pollution caused by the littered bamboo leaves. Therefore, the characteristics of cement paste and mortar incorporating bamboo leaf ash were investigated. The results of the physical properties of the pastes were within the requirements stipulated by relevant standards while that of the mortar cubes indicated that the compressive strength generally increased with curing age, and that the mix containing 15% Bamboo Leaf Ash (BLA) by mass competes favorably with that of the reference mix at 28days and above. The water absorption and apparent porosity were observed to increase with increase in BLA content, while the bulk density decreases as the percentage of BLA increases from 5% to 25% by mass. The study concluded that 15% BLA replacing cement is adequate for the production of masonry mortar.

Awareness of the benefits of sustainable construction practices has been acknowledged as the fundamental principle that underlies its implementation. This survey study examined the level of awareness of the benefits of sustainable construction practices among building construction stakeholders and the strategies for optimising the awareness level through the use of questionnaire. The Mann–Whitney U Test result revealed that there was significant difference in the awareness level of benefits of sustainable construction practices between building professionals and non-professionals, in spite of a general moderate high level of awareness; due to difference in the training background and experience of the professionals and non-professionals. The Relative Importance Index (RII) result further showed that these differences could be narrowed through the adoption of 12 strategies for promotion of awareness. For maximum optimisation, the study suggested that six high level importance strategies had to be operationalised. However, when these are not readily available or very difficult to apply, alternative medium-high level importance strategy could be adopted. Thus, since non-professional stakeholders such as clients and non-professional contractors do not have opportunity of learning as professionals, the study suggested that the professionals should engage in such strategies as community or professional group engagement and local partnership with the non-professional stakeholders so as to create an interface that would promote awareness of benefits of sustainable construction practices among the stakeholders. Similarly, relevant authorities, such as government agencies and regulatory bodies need to embark on other alternative strategies such as advertisement promotion, etc.

As a result of an increasing cases of community protest and opposition to construction projects in the Niger Delta during the construction stages, the present study investigated factors influencing construction stakeholders' engagement outcome. The aim was to determine the severity of factors influencing construction stakeholders' engagement in the research environment. Due to the pluralist usage of the term stakeholder, the study examined community stakeholders. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected using semi-structured interview and questionnaire survey administered on 186 respondents selected from two stakeholders groups using snowballing. 32 factors generated individually and collectively from literature, interview and practice were ranked and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Gap between regulatory requirements and public expectations, location of projects, effect of cumulative development effects, poverty, and lack of information disclosure are some of the high ranking factors influencing engagement performance. Further analysis involving Levene's Homogeneity test indicates no significant difference in the population ranking opinion of these factors. This heterogeneous distribution demonstrates strong similarity across the population studied. These factors must therefore be smoothened in future construction engagement process to enhance successful project delivery. The study unveils inherent lacunas in construction project management which strongly correlates project performance.