International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and ConstructionVol 2, No 2, June 2013, 133-143

Understanding Sustainability: A View from

Intra-organizational Leadership within

UK Construction Organizations

Alex Opoku1,∗, Vian Ahmed2

1Centre for Sustainable Development, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge,

Cambridge CB2 1PZ, United Kingdom

2School of Built Environment, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT, United Kingdom

Abstract: There is an increasing demand from UK construction industry stakeholders to address the issue ofsustainable construction. As a key sector in the delivery of a sustainable built environment, the constructionindustry needs to have a clear understanding of the sustainability concept in order to fully play such importantrole. However, intra-organizational leadership within construction organizations charged with the promotion ofsustainability practices in the construction industry often describes the sustainability concept as an environmen-tal issue only. The study presents the results of a mixed method research approach involving semi-structuredinterviews followed by an industry-wide survey of 200 intra-organizational leaders in UK contractor and con-sultant organizations. The analysis of the results showed that, despite the understanding that sustainabilityincorporates environmental, social and economic issues; the environmental dimension dominates in the UKconstruction industry. This study provides the empirical evidence that links intra-organizational leadership andtheir understanding of sustainability.

Keywords: Construction organizations, leadership, sustainability, understanding, United Kingdom

DOI: 10.7492/IJAEC.2013.012

1 INTRODUCTION

Sustainable development that balances social, envi-ronmental and economic objectives has been firmlyon the agenda for the UK construction industry forsome time (Raynsford 2000). Sustainable develop-ment balances environmental resource protection, so-cial progress and economic growth and stability nowand for the future. Construction organizations are un-der enormous amount of pressure to react to the sus-tainability phenomenon sweeping through the industry.The integration of sustainability practices into opera-tions and processes has become a must for organiza-tions if they wish to remain competitive in the marketand become leaders in their industry while adding valueto the firm (Hannon and Callaghan 2011).Edum-Fotwe and Price (2009) argue that, sustain-

ability is a concurrent representation of the environ-ment, economic and social dimensions of development.

It is therefore important that the primary misconcep-tion that sustainability and environmental are the sameissues should be addressed (Halliday 2008). Organi-zations that are committed to the adoption of sus-tainability are required to simultaneously consider theeconomic, environmental, and social impacts of theirbusiness decisions (Hannon and Callaghan 2011). De-spite the disagreement about the concept of sustain-ability due to different and contrary interpretations,there is a common understanding that sustainabilitymust include economic, social and environmental fac-tors (Velazquez et al. 2011). Mohrman and Worley(2010) agree by saying that, sustainability has recentlybeen connected with a wider set of multiple outcomeswith social, economic, and environmental dimensions,or the ”triple bottom line” of people, planet and profit.Another general consensus about sustainability accord-ing to Schaltegger and Burritt (2005) is that, pursuingsustainable development will promote the best possible

*Corresponding author. Email: Alex.opoku@eng.cam.ac.uk

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quality of life for mankind. Pursuing sustainability willensure economic viability for the long term, maintain-ing an environmental balance on our planet whilst com-mitting to socially desirable practices (Miller 2010).This paper critically examines intra-organizational

leadership understanding of sustainability in attemptto promote sustainable construction practices in con-struction organizations in United Kingdom (UK). Sec-tion 2 of the paper reviews literature on sustainabledevelopment and sustainability in the construction in-dustry while section 3 describes the adopted researchapproach. Section 4 discusses the data collection andanalysis process. Section 5 presents the analysis ofqualitative data and section 6 is on quantitative dataanalysis. The final section of the paper presents con-clusions findings from a survey and semi-structuredinterviews with intra-organizational leadership in UKconstruction organizations charged with the promotionand implementation of sustainable construction prac-tices.

2 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTAND THE CONSTRUCTIONINDUSTRY

2.1 Sustainable Development

Sustainable development focuses on improving thequality of life for all without increasing the use of nat-ural resources further than the environment’s abilityto supply them for the foreseeable future. Sustainabledevelopment has been defined in many ways; Parkin(2000) pointed out that, there are well over 200 ru-mored definitions of sustainable development in circu-lation. Even though Riedy (2003) believes that themeaning of sustainable development is still stronglycontested, the most commonly accepted definition forsustainable development is the one in Brundtland’scommission report, which defines sustainable develop-ment as:

“Meeting the needs of the present withoutcompromising the ability of future genera-tions to meet their own needsąŋ A processof change in which the exploitation of re-sources, the direction of investments, theorientation of technological development,and institutional change are all in harmonyand enhance both current and future po-tential to meet human needs and aspira-tions” (Brundtland 1987).

However, Brandon and Lombardi (2011) in theirbook “Evaluating sustainable development in the builtenvironment” define sustainable development as:

“A process that aims to provide a physi-cal, social and psychological environment in

which the behavior of human beings is har-moniously adjusted to address the integra-tion with, and dependency on nature in or-der to improve, and not to impact adverselyon present or future generations”.

This lack of a common definition for sustainabil-ity has become a real challenge for business organiza-tions in understanding and implementing sustainabil-ity strategies (Renukappa et al. 2012). The definitionof Brundtland (1987) aims to be more comprehensiveand addresses the key concept of needs while Bran-don and Lombardi (2011) put emphasis on human be-havior in an attempt to meets our needs. It is be-lieved that, organizations that adopt sustainable prac-tices can maintain their competitiveness in their re-spective industries (Zairi and Liburd 2001). The bene-fits of committing to sustainability is enormous and in-cludes; money saving by reducing waste and increasingefficiencies, risks mitigation, winning more customersor clients and attracting and retaining talented grad-uates (Miller 2010). Sustainable development involvesbalancing and integrating the economic, social and en-vironmental considerations in all business decisions toenable humanity to satisfy their basic needs and en-joy a better quality of life, without compromising thequality of life of future generations (DTI 2006). Thisstudy however defines sustainable development as “theadjustment of human behavior to address the needs ofthe present without compromising the ability of futuregenerations to meet their own needs”.

2.2 Sustainability in the Construction In-dustry

The construction industry has been under severe pres-sure in recent times to adopt environmentally friendlypractices in order to gain competitive advantage (Baloi2003). Over the last twenty years, the concept ofsustainability has been growing in importance andit has currently become the basis of most socio-economic activities and developments in the built en-vironment (Edum-Fotwe and Price 2009). The con-struction industry has a major role to play towards theachievement of sustainable development, because theindustry affects water, resources, land use, greenhousegas emissions (Pitt et al. 2009) as well as communitiesand the health of the general public (Sev 2009; Holtonet al. 2008). It is believed that, implementing sustain-ability in the built environment should be supportedby a mix of policy measures; focusing on all stakehold-ers in the industries (UNDESA 2010). In order to fullyimplement sustainable construction practices, organi-zations should attempt to integrate and strike a bal-ance between the three dimensions of environmental,economic and social in their overall strategies (Bansal2005; Manoliadis et al. 2006). It is argued that, thereis no universal definition of sustainable constructionbecause it is continuously developing as the concept

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of sustainability is been understood more clearly (UN-DESA 2010). Parkin (2000) describes sustainable con-struction as a construction process that incorporatesthe basic themes of sustainable development. Sustain-able construction aims at reducing the environmentalimpact of a building over its entire lifespan; providingsafety and comfort to its occupants and at the sametime enhancing its economic viability (Addis and Tal-bot 2001). However, the Marrakech Task Force on Sus-tainable Buildings and Construction set up by the UNDepartment of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)define sustainable construction as:

“The construction that brings about the re-quired performance with the least unfavor-able ecological impacts while encouragingeconomic, social and cultural improvementat local, regional and global level” (UN-DESA 2010).

In a research by Carter and Fortune (2003), usinggrounded theory approach to explore the perceptionof sustainable development held by those involved inthe procurement process, they argue that understand-ing what is meant by sustainability in the constructionindustry at all levels of project delivery is key to itssuccessful implementation. Sustainability is all aboutimproving economic growth (economy), social progress(equity), and environmental protection (ecology) con-currently. This can be achieved through energy ef-ficient buildings that have little or no harm on ourenvironment; reducing the consumption of resources;increasing the use of recycled materials and generally

reducing CO2 emissions from our buildings (Williamsand Sutrisna 2010). Kibert (2007) argue that, the con-struction industry will be judged on how its activi-ties contribute to the world’s sustainable developmentagenda. It is therefore important that sustainability isintroduced and managed throughout the constructionprocess life cycle; from design to demolition.Shafii et al. (2006) describe sustainable construc-

tion as the appropriate management of all aspects ofbuilding design, construction, operations and use inorder to significantly reduce the overall cost of a build-ing throughout its life. Reffat (2004) argues that, theconcept of sustainable construction now goes beyondenvironmental issues to include economic and socialsustainability issues with the view of adding value tothe quality of life of individuals and communities. Theenvironmental dimension of sustainability focuses onissues such as reducing energy and water consump-tion, using renewable resources and minimizing pol-lution (Sourani and Sohail 2011). The economic di-mension of sustainability refers to the implementa-tion of construction practices that provide for pos-itive economic growth (Beheiry et al. 2006; Joneset al. 2010), through job creation, competitive ad-vantage, and reduction in operating and maintenancecosts (Baloi 2003). Socially, sustainability is about con-ducting business ethically to enhance the quality of lifeof people (Jones et al. 2010). The construction indus-try has a significant social responsibility to minimizethe damage its projects do to the social environment.However, this can only be achieved if leaders imple-menting sustainability practices in the construction in-dustry fully understand the concept of sustainability.

Figure 1. Mixed method research design approach (Adopted from Creswell 2012)

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3 RESEARCH APPROACH

This study adopts a mixed method approach whichcombines elements of qualitative and quantitative re-search approaches. A mixed method uses both quali-tative and quantitative viewpoints, data collection andanalysis techniques in a single study concurrently orsequentially as illustrated in Figure 1 (Creswell andPlano Clark 2007; Johnson et al. 2007; Creswell 2012).Mixed methods research aims at drawing from thestrengths and minimizing the weaknesses of both meth-ods in a single research study (Johnson and Onwueg-buzie 2004).Whilst the use of qualitative studies provide an

eloquent in-depth insights through subjective inter-pretations of experiences, adopting mixed methodsallow researchers to minimize and reduce the over-dependence on statistical data to explain a social oc-currence and experiences which are mostly subjectivein nature (Jogulu and Pansiri 2011). Creswell (2003)identified that, using mixed methods research providesstrengths that offset the weaknesses of both quantita-tive and qualitative research. It also provides morecomprehensive evidence for studying a research prob-lem than either using quantitative or qualitative re-search alone. The motive for using questionnaire inaddition to interviews in this study was its ability toreach a large target group in a practical and efficientway and it’s a relatively high validity of result due toits wide geographical coverage (Naoum 2003).

4 DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

A mixed method data collection approach using bothinterview and questionnaire research techniques wasadopted to achieve the research aim. The interviewswere aim at obtaining detailed information, percep-tions and opinions from leaders within UK construc-tion organizations charged with the promotion of sus-

tainability practices on how their organizations are ac-tively engage in sustainability practices in the deliveryof construction projects. This was achieved throughpurposeful sampling of the interview participants fromleading sustainable construction organization from thetop 150 list of consultants and contractor organizationsoperating in UK as published in the September 2010edition of the Building Magazine. Questionnaires wereused to eliminate bias associated with interviews andalso to obtain a wider view of respondents from the UKconstruction industry (Yin 2003).

5 QUALITATIVE DATA COLLECTIONAND ANALYSIS

The interview sample were selected from both con-tractor and consulting organizations through purpose-ful sampling. This process was to ensure that theinterview participants cover a wide range of intra-organizational leadership with direct experience andknowledge in sustainable construction. In all 15 lead-ers were interviewed because it is argued that, wherethe aim of a research is to understand common per-ceptions and experiences among a group of relativelyhomogeneous individuals, twelve interviews should besufficient (Guest et al. 2006). This was the result of astudy which conducted an experiment on a corpus oftranscripts from interviews with women in two WestAfrican countries in which the researchers carried outa systematic analysis of transcripts of sixty interviewsand found that 94% of the coded topics that appearedwere identified within six interviews whilst saturationwas attained after twelve interviews.All interviews were held in confidentiality and

recorded with participant permission. The interviewslasted between 45 and 60 minutes. The interview datawere coded after preparing the transcripts and iden-tifying the key concepts and themes. The process ofcoding involves recoding the number of responses asso-

Table 1. Profile of 15 intra-organizational leaders interviewed in UK

Interviewee Job Title Type of Construction organization

A Sustainable Construction Manager Consultant organizationB Head of Sustainability Consultant organizationC Senior Sustainability Consultant Consultant organizationD Corporate Sustainability Manager Consultant organizationE Principal Sustainability Engineer Consultant organizationF Associate Head of sustainability Consultant organizationG Associate: Sustainability Manager Consultant organizationH Sustainability Consultant Consultant organizationI Senior Sustainability Manager Contractor organizationJ Environmental Manager Contractor organizationK Head of Sustainable Development Contractor organizationL Sustainability Manager Contractor organizationM Director of Environment Contractor organizationN Principal sustainability Consultant Contractor organizationO Environmental Manager/Advisor Contractor organization

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ciated with each interviewee for a particular question.The version 9 of the Nvivo data management softwarewas used to code the themes from the interviews intonodes.

5.1 Profile of Intra-organizational LeadersInterviewed

Qualitative data were collected through in-depthsemi- structured interviews carried out with 8 intra-organizational leaders from consultant organizationand 7 intra-organizational leaders from contracting or-ganizations charged with the promotion of sustainabil-ity practices. These leaders were responsible for pro-moting and implementing environmental, social andeconomic sustainability issues in their respective orga-nizations. Even though there are variations in the jobtitles of the interviewees, all were responsible for driv-ing forward the agenda relating to sustainable prac-tices in construction. The profile of leaders within UKconstruction organizations who were interviewed areshown in Table 1.

5.2 Analysis of Interviews

The aim of this study was to explore intra-organizational leaders understanding of sustainable de-velopment in the context of the construction industry.It is important that, leaders have a clear understandingof what sustainability means to them and their orga-nizations. Even though most interviewees understandsustainability to comprise of the three dimensions ofsocial, environmental and economic impacts of theiractivities, some simply refer to environmental issues astheir understanding of sustainability. The understand-ing of sustainability was expressed by interviewee ‘M’as:

“Sustainability means more environmentalfollowed by social, because these dimensionsare important to most of our clients”.

However, interviewee ‘D’ agrees to the three dimen-sions of sustainability by saying:

“Sustainability considers the social, eco-nomic and environmental aspects of ourbusiness and how it impacts on the widerworld, our clients, local communities, ourbusiness and our people”.

The understanding of the sustainability has beenvery difficult topic as it means different things to differ-ent people. There has been a many seminal works onsustainability research over the past periods that haveincreased the level of understanding among many prac-titioners in the construction industry. The construc-tion sector is more aligned towards the environmentaldimension of sustainability and business leaders have

to recognize and better understand the concept of sus-tainability in order to enhance its implementation. Forinstance, interviewee ‘K’ said that:

“The understanding of sustainability is verydifficult but is growing now; people first, cli-mate change, responsible behavior, environ-ment/energy, carbon, biodiversity, climatechange, finance and performance”.

Interviewee ‘B’, who is Head of Sustainability, ex-plained his/her understanding of sustainability by say-ing that:

“I believe in the Brundtland’s report defini-tion of sustainability through help for peopleto contribute to life now and the future butour strategies are more on environment, fo-cused because of client demand”.

Moreover, interviewee ‘O’ noted that, sustainabilitymeans,

“Economic, social and environmental well-being within the communities in which weoperate”.

The above discussions illustrate intra-organizationalleaders’ level of understanding of sustainability or sus-tainable development in the UK construction indus-try. Even though, there are variations in leaders un-derstanding of sustainability in the construction indus-try, the three core sustainability dimensions of social,environmental and economic has been a re-occurringconcepts in almost all the definitions given by the in-terviewees. It is also however important to note that,there is a strong commitment towards environmentalrather than the economic and social issues. It is ac-cepted that construction organizations can more eas-ily measure their environmental performance at projectlevel. Notwithstanding the above, the environmental,social and economic elements of sustainability becamerecurrent theme in the responses from all interviewees.

6 QUANTITATIVE DATACOLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

A web-based questionnaire with a link to the surveywas sent to intra-organizational leaders in the selectedorganization with the role of leading the sustainabil-ity agenda. A total of 200 questionnaires were sent;consisting of 100 each from the list of top 150 consul-tant and contractor organization as described above.These participating construction organizations rangefrom small size (50 or less employees) to large size(above 250 employees) organizations.An analysis of the survey data shows that a re-

sponse rate of 63% was achieved representing 126 re-sponses out of 200 questionnaires sent. However, 10%

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Figure 2. Respondents current job title and contractor to consultant ratio

of responses were discarded as not being fully com-pleted. Archer (2008) argued that, the response ratefor a web-based survey varies based on the survey type.The overall average response rate for a web-based sur-vey is 48.3% as evidenced by the results of a researchinvolving the calculated response rates of 84 web-basedsurveys deployed over 33 months.

6.1 Profile of Survey Respondents

The results of the survey show that, 49% of respon-dents are from contractor organizations while, 51% ofrespondents are from consultant organizations in UK.The respondents to the questionnaire were asked toclassify their construction organizations in terms of thesize of employees. The respondents ranged from small

to large construction organizations. However, most re-spondents were situated in large sized organizations;having over 250 employees. This equated to almost54% of overall respondents. Small size organizationsemploying up to 50 people form 17% of the respon-dents. The result also shows that, 29% of respondentsbelong to construction organizations employing 50 to250 people. The survey respondents were also asked todescribe their current job title in order to establish ifthey have leadership roles in leading the sustainable de-velopment agenda in their respective construction or-ganizations. Respondents who describe their currentjob title as “Sustainability Consultants” represent 31%of respondents while 24% of respondents also describetheir job title as either “Sustainability Manager or sus-tainability Director”. Details of all the statistical re-

Table 2. Respondents understanding of sustainability: Statistical mean and standard deviation

Statement N Mean Standard Deviation

Focus on environmental issues such as low carbon and waste 106 2.31 1.341Corporate Social responsibility issues 106 2.81 1.212Addressing issues from the long-term perspective 106 2.65 1.242Sustainability incorporates environmental, social and economic issues 106 2.08 1.367Other understanding 21 2.52 1.834

Note: 1 = Best description; 2 = Better description; 3 = Good description; 4 = Fair description; and 5 = Worst description.

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sults of contractor to consultant ratio in terms of re-spondents current job title is presented graphically inFigure 2.

6.2 Statistical Analysis of Survey Results

The literature review and data from the interviews es-tablished that there are numerous definitions of sus-tainability and this study examine how constructionprofessionals leading the sustainability agenda withinthe respondent organizations understand sustainabil-ity. Respondents were asked to score a number of sus-tainable development definitions or statements for their

applicability on a “likert” scale of 1-5; where 1 is the“best description” and 5 is the “worst description”. Theresults are presented in Table 2 and illustrated graph-ically in Figure 3.The best description of sustainability is the one that

“incorporates environmental, social and economic is-sues”. Respondents score this description high with amean value of 2.08, followed by the description “focuson environmental issue such as low carbon and waste”with a mean value of 2.31. The above results confirmsthe findings from literature review and interviews thatsustainability is understood by the construction indus-try as involving the three main dimensions of envi-

Figure 3. Intra-organizational leadership understanding of sustainability

Figure 4. Intra-organizational leadership understanding of sustainability

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Table 3. Mann-Whitney U test of intra-organizational leadership understanding of sustainability and type ofconstruction organization

Sustainability incorporatesenvironmental, social and

economic issues

Focus on Environmentalissues such as low carbon,

waste etc.

Addressing issues fromthe long-termperspective

Mann-Whitney U 1401 1178.5 1267.5Wilcoxon W 2779 2663.5 2752.5Z -0.02 -1.482 -0.891Asymptotic Significance(2-tailed)

0.984 0.138 0.373

Note: Grouping Variable: Company’s Principal Business Activity/Type of organization.

Table 4. Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA test of intra-organizational leadership understanding of sustainability andsize of construction organization

Sustainability incorporatesenvironmental, social and

economic issues

Focus on Environmentalissues such as low carbon,

waste etc.

Addressing issues fromthe long-termperspective

Chi-Square 1.805 3.084 15.675Degrees of Freedom 2 2 2Asymptotic Significance 0.406 0.214 0

Note: Grouping Variable: Organizational Size.

ronmental, social and economic issues. However, “cor-porate social responsibility issues” was the descriptionwith the lowest score with a mean value of 2.81. Sur-prisingly, respondents score “other” description in thirdplace with a mean value of 2.52. This shows the levelof variation in respondents understanding of sustain-ability in the UK construction industry. Figure 4 how-ever graphically illustrates intra-organizational leader-ship description of sustainability among contractor andconsultant organizations.

6.3 Type of Construction Organization andLeadership Understanding of Sustain-ability (Statistical Difference)

The collected data was not normally distributed andtherefore a Mann-Whitney U test was carried out tocompare if there was any significant differences in theunderstanding of sustainability from either contractoror consultant organizations in the UK construction in-dustry. The result of the statistical test is presented inTable 3.The Table 3 above shows data on the calculated Z-

values and the approximately calculated statistical sig-nificance of differences between the crossed variables(top three sustainability statements as rated in the sur-vey). The amount of its probability that somethinghappened by accident is not equal to or less than 0.05.The results showed a measure of standard deviation(Z-value) of -0.020 for the statement “Sustainability in-corporates environmental, social and economic issues”,-1.482 for “Focus on Environmental issues such as lowcarbon, waste etc.” and -0.891 for “Addressing issuesfrom the long-term perspective”. The Asymptotic sig-nificant values were (U = 1401; p = 0.984) for “Sus-

tainability incorporates environmental, social and eco-nomic issues”, (U = 1178; p = 0.138) for “Focus onEnvironmental issues such as low carbon, waste etc.”and (U = 1267; p = 0.373) for “Addressing issues fromthe long-term perspective”. The U refers to the Mann-Whitney test statistic value whiles the p is the probabil-ity value. The above analysis concludes that there areno significant differences in intra-organizational leader-ship understanding of sustainability irrespective of thetype of construction organization (contractor or con-sultant organization).

6.4 Size of Construction Organization andLeadership Understanding of Sustain-ability (Statistical Difference)

Kruskal-Wallis one way ANOVA test was used to testif there are any differences in the three organizationsbased on the three top three statements that best de-scribe sustainability. The results shown in Table 4 indi-cate that, there was a statistically significant differencebetween the size of construction organization and intra-organizational leadership understanding of sustainabil-ity. With Kruskal-Wallis test of (H(2) = 1.805, P =0.406) for the statement “Sustainability incorporatesenvironmental, social and economic issues”, (H(2) =3.084, P = 0.214) for “Focus on Environmental issuessuch as low carbon, waste etc.” and (H(2) = 15.675,P = 0.000) for “Addressing issues from the long-termperspective”. At the significant level of (α = 0.05),there exists enough evidence to conclude that there isdifference among the three organizational sizes clas-sified in the survey based on the test scores when itcomes to their understanding of the description “Ad-dressing issues from the long-term perspective”. There

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was therefore statistical difference in how sustainabil-ity is understood or described across the three differentsizes of construction organizations identified in the UKconstruction industry.The survey respondents were also given the opportu-

nity to set out their own understanding of sustainabil-ity in the construction industry. The sustainability de-scriptions or statements given in the survey were iden-tified through literature review and data from the in-terviews. It was therefore important that respondentswho did not agree with the given description and hadadditional definitions of sustainability had the oppor-tunity to provide such description of their understand-ing of sustainability. A total of 21 respondents rep-resenting almost 20% of the total respondents scored“other” in their response to the survey. Some of thecommon descriptions cited by respondents who scored“other” in the survey are: “Responsible sourcing, eth-ical procurement, community development”, “SavingResources, driving efficiency and reducing cost”, “Af-fordable, robust buildings with minimal impact andgreat places for people”, “Affordable, robust buildingswith minimal impact and great places for people” etc.Despite the different descriptions provided by respon-

dents, it was clear that, intra-organizational leadersin respondent construction organizations understandwhat sustainability really means; reducing the nega-tive impacts of construction activities on the environ-ment. Even though, the respondents made clear thattheir understanding of sustainability included the so-cial, environmental and economic issues in the deliv-ery of construction projects, it was evident that en-vironmental issues seems to be the dominant issue inthese descriptions. This confirms the findings in litera-ture which identified environmental issues as being thedominant dimension of sustainability related to con-struction projects because construction organizationscan easily measure their environmental performance.

7 CONCLUSION

The study investigated intra-organizational leadershipunderstanding of sustainable development in attemptto promote sustainability practices in the deliveryof construction projects. A mixed method researchapproach involving literature review, interviews andquestionnaire survey with intra-organizational leaderscharged with the promotions of sustainable construc-tion practices was adopted for the study.The research provides a more concise and convinc-

ing definition of sustainable development as: “the ad-justment of human behavior to address the needs ofthe present without compromising the ability of futuregenerations to meet their own needs”. The findingsfrom the study shows that sustainability (sustainabledevelopment) is understood differently by each intra-organizational leader charged with the promotion of

sustainability practices in construction industry, how-ever, there was a consensus that, sustainability in-volves the economic, social and environmental impactsof their business activities on society. The survey re-spondents also scored “sustainability incorporates en-vironmental, social and economic issues” as the bestdescription for sustainability. Statistical analysis ofthe results show that, there is statistical difference inhow sustainability is understood or described acrossthe three different sizes of construction organizationsidentified in the study. However, the results showedno significant differences in intra-organizational lead-ership understanding of sustainability in terms of or-ganization type; either being contractor or consultantorganization.Even though, the respondents made clear that their

understanding of sustainability included the social, en-vironmental and economic issues in the delivery of con-struction projects, it was evident that the environ-mental dimension seems to be the dominant issue inthe construction industry because construction orga-nizations can easily measure their environmental per-formance. The construction industry therefore needsto establish a common sustainable construction frame-work that clearly defines sustainable development inthe context of construction project delivery in order tofacilitate its goal of achieving sustainable construction.Little or no study has been done in construction man-agement research that link leadership and sustainabil-ity and this study provides the empirical evidence link-ing intra-organizational leadership within constructionorganizations and the understanding of sustainability.This will help fill the gap in literature and serving as asource of reference material for higher education pro-grams in the built environment. The study will guideconstruction organizations in their quest to promotesustainable construction project delivery.

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