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Over the years, the significance of retrofitting has gained much attention with the unveiling of its different applications, such as energy retrofit and deep retrofit, to enhance the climate-resilience of buildings. However, no single study comprehensively assesses the climate-resilience of retrofitting. The purpose of this study is to address this gap via a systematic literature review.

Quality journal studies were selected using the PRISMA method and analysed manually and using scientometrics. Three dimensions of climate-resilience, such as robustness, withstanding and recovery, were used to evaluate the contribution of retrofit measures for achieving climate-resilient houses across four climate zones: tropical, arid, temperate and cold.

Most passive measures can enhance the robustness of residential buildings but cannot verify for withstanding against immediate shocks and timely recovery. However, some passive measures, such as night-time ventilation, show excellent performance over all four climate zones. Active measures such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, can ensure climate-resilience in all three dimensions in the short-term but contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, further exacerbating the long-term climate. Integrating renewable energy sources can defeat this issue. Thus, all three retrofit strategies should appropriately be adopted together to achieve climate-resilient houses.

Since the research is limited to secondary data, retrofit measures recommended in this research should be further investigated before application.

This review contributes to the knowledge domain of retrofitting by assessing the contribution of different retrofit measures to climate-resilience.

The construction industry in many developing countries is reluctant to apply value engineering (VE) due to uncertainty of outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the existing practices of VE techniques and make recommendations to organisations and national construction regulatory bodies, to standardise VE practices. A decision-making formula is introduced to determine profitability of VE applications prior to implementation.

A broad literature review and six case study projects that applied VE were selected. Thirty-nine semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather data within cases. Six expert interviews were conducted as confirmatory interviews to clarify and validate research outcome. Content analysis and cognitive mapping were used to analyse data among case studies.

Application, knowledge and experience on VE techniques among construction professionals are unsatisfactory. Recommendations include reducing contractor’s design responsibility, introducing proper VE guidelines and statutory regulations. A framework is introduced to assist authorities to standardise application of VE techniques. A decision-making formula is suggested to determine margins of contractor’s portion due to VE techniques and original profits gained.

The formula can be used as a decision-making tool by construction industry practitioners to determine successfulness of proposed VE techniques, and the proposed framework can be used to guide construction professional bodies to standardise VE practices.

The successful continuation of green certification in the Sri Lankan hotel sector is vital for tourism industry as well as the economy of the country as it balances the economic interests with social and environmental responsibilities. However, it has become an issue in the Sri Lankan hospitality and tourism industry to sustain green certification due to many challenges. The prevailing situation highlights the need of exploring long-term strategies to mitigate challenges in sustaining green certification which has not been researched to date. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to propose strategies to mitigate challenges in sustaining green certification in the hotel sector in Sri Lanka.

In total, 3 hotels were selected as cases of the study and 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted with engineers, maintenance managers and supervisors, who are responsible for sustaining green certificates at such hotels. The collected data were subjected to cross-case analysis to determine challenges in sustaining green certification. The findings were analysed with the support of the QSR.NVivo version 11.0 computer software.

Challenges were identified in detail under five main categories. They are technical, managerial, political and legal, environment and biological and social and cultural. Such challenges include design and construction defects, use of poor quality building and other materials, improper maintenance practices, incomplete and unclear construction documents, plans and specifications, resource limitations, insufficient budget allocations, government intervention, legal constraints, lack of user awareness and natural environmental conditions. Finally, strategies to mitigate such challenges are proposed based on empirical research findings.

Only the Green Globe certified hotels in Sri Lanka were selected considering their need to renew certification annually. Further, interviewees were selected mainly focusing on the operational phase of a building. Hence, the findings were mostly limited to the perceptions and knowledge areas of selected interviewees. This can be highlighted as a primary limitation of the research, where a further study should be carried out on the perceptions of design stage professionals incorporating design stage challenges and strategies into the study.

The proposed strategies can be pursued by hoteliers to mitigate challenges in sustaining green certification, which will ultimately facilitate to balance economic interests with social and environmental responsibilities.

From May 2024, Victoria (Australia) will mandatorily raise the minimum house energy rating standards from 6 to 7 stars. However, the latest data shows that only 5.73% of new Victorian houses were designed beyond 7-star. While previous literature indicates the issue’s link to the compliance behaviour of building practitioners in the design phase, the underlying behavioural determinants are rarely explored. This study thus preliminarily examines building practitioners’ compliance behaviour with 7-star Australian house energy ratings and beyond.

Using a widely-applied method to initially examine an under-explored phenomenon, eight expert interviews were conducted with building practitioners, a state-level industry regulator and a leading national building energy policy researcher. The study triangulated the data with government-led research reports.

The experts indicate that most building practitioners involved in mainstream volume projects do not go for 7 stars, mainly due to perceived compliance costs and reliance on standardized designs. In contrast, those who work on custom projects are more willing to go beyond 7-star mostly due to the moral norms for a low-carbon environment. The experts further agree that four behavioural determinants (attitudes towards compliance, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and personal norms) co-shape building practitioners’ compliance behaviour. Interventions targeting these behavioural determinants are recommended for achieving 7 stars and beyond.

This study demonstrates the behavioural determinants that influence building practitioners’ compliance decisions, and offers insight regarding how far they will go to meet 7 stars. It can facilitate the transition to 7 stars by informing policymakers of customized interventions to trigger behaviour change.

Sustainability in construction is a challenging task for contractors due to diminishing natural resources and increasing energy costs. The purpose of this paper is to identify key issues that affect the adaptation of sustainable construction practices by Sri Lankan contracting organisations and propose a framework for successful adaptation.

Eight semi-structured interviews are conducted from three selected case studies to gather data on sustainable construction practices and related issues in contracting organisations in Sri Lanka. The proposed framework is validated and enhanced by interviews conducted with seven industry experts in Sri Lanka and the Persian Gulf region. A cross-case with code-based content analysis is used to analyse the data.

Gaps in the legal framework and weak enforcement of prevailing rules, less institutional intervention, less commitment of people especially key stakeholders, wrong perceptions on capital costs, and low levels of education and experience on sustainable construction are identified as key issues, similar to the Persian Gulf region. The proposed framework presents suggestions for successful adaptation of sustainable construction practices in the following eight key areas: legal framework, standards, guidelines or policies, design, procurement, technology, processes and innovations, people and organisational structure, education and training, and measurements and reporting.

The scope of this research is limited to the data gathered from C1 category construction contractors in Sri Lanka and similar category in the United Arab Emirates of the Persian Gulf region.

The framework for the enhancement of sustainable construction practices via contracting organisations is proposed as an inaugural step to establishing a country-based and industry-specific model to achieve sustainability in the Sri Lankan construction industry.

Homogeneity in the main business of renting office spaces among commercial facilities has led to fierce competition. To retain tenant attractiveness, many are now concerned about the quality of facilities management (FM) services in addition to the rent, office space and location. The quality of FM service can be attained with successful service encounters. Thus, this paper aims to establish an initial platform on which tenant satisfaction in FM service encounters can be achieved.

The preliminary survey focused on gaining insights into FM encounters in commercial sector and applicability of service attributes under SERVQUAL model. The detailed survey concentrated on determining tenant perceptions on satisfactory levels of service attributes developed in the preliminary study and relationships between FM encounters and different service attributes. The collection of descriptive and inferential statistics was used to analyze the results.

This study’s findings reveal assurance and empathy to be highly correlated to tenant satisfaction, while other attributes are less correlated. However, perceptions of satisfaction levels of tenants on tangibility and reliability provides contradictory results to its correlation values. Satisfaction level in remote service encounters is lower compared to phone and face-to-face encounters. Complexity and management concerns toward physical facilities are imperative to uplift satisfaction in remote encounters.

The scope of study was limited to FM encounters in Sri Lankan Grade “A” commercial office properties with high quality standard finishes, state-of-the-art systems, exceptional accessibility and a definite market presence in Colombo.

The study developed a preliminary framework that guides users to identify the best combinations of service attributes with respective FM encounters, where tenant satisfaction needs to be achieved.

The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical framework for capacity building in post disaster construction and demolition (C & D) waste management at a national level to address the identified capacity gaps in managing disaster waste resulting from natural hazards.

Data were gathered through pilot interviews, case studies and expert opinion surveys representing government, non-government and other sector organisations involved in post disaster waste management.

The study revealed unavailability of a single point of responsibility and provision for disaster waste in existing policies and capacity constraints in prevailing peace time solid waste management practices which were identified as major capacity gaps. Establishment of a regulatory body and enforceable rules and regulations with necessary levels of capacities was identified and presented in a theoretical framework comprising of seven identified areas for capacity building in post disaster waste management.

This study is limited to disaster C & D waste as debris generated from totally or partially damaged buildings and infrastructure as a direct impact of natural hazards or from demolished buildings and infrastructure at rehabilitation or early recovery stages. Waste generated during reconstruction phase of post disaster management cycle is not considered as disaster C & D waste for purposes of this study.

The research enabled analysis of existing capacities and presents approaches for capacity building for identified gaps in post disaster C & D waste management to attain sustainable post disaster waste management for future resilience.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the identification of the existing capacities of post disaster C & D waste management in developing countries, with a special emphasis on Sri Lanka to determine the capacity gaps and related influencing factors.

Multiple case studies and expert interviews were conducted to gather primary information on the existing capacities of disaster C & D waste management. Three case studies, including 15 individuals and six experts representing government, non-government institutions and others, were selected.

The results revealed the existing capacities, capacity gaps and influencing factors for post disaster C & D waste management in the areas of skills and confidence building, links and collaborations, continuity and sustainability, research and development, communication and coordination, organisational implementation and investment in infrastructure.

This study limited disaster C & D waste to debris generated from totally or partially damaged buildings and infrastructure as a direct impact of natural disasters or from demolished buildings and infrastructure at rehabilitation or at early recovery stages.

The research enabled an analysis of existing capacities and identified capacity gaps in post disaster C & D waste management with influencing factors developing countries.

Sustainable construction (SC) is a vital requirement to safeguard the world for future generations. However, there are several potential barriers such as initial costs of implementation of sustainability concepts (approaches used to safeguard three dimensions of sustainability, namely environmental, social and economical). The purpose of this paper is to integrate sustainability concepts to value planning (VP) which attracts clients as it is used to reduce unnecessary costs.

A comprehensive literature survey was carried out to develop a conceptual linkage between SC and VP disciplines. This was followed by a questionnaire survey with 40 respondents and 16 semi-structured expert interviews to ascertain prevailing status of these concepts in the Sri Lankan construction industry. Data were analyzed using statistical and content analysis, respectively.

Findings revealed even though knowledge is fairly good, application and experience of experts are not satisfactory regarding these concepts. However, it is established that there is a huge requirement to apply these concepts in local construction projects. In order to overcome barriers identified, a framework has been developed to integrate sustainability concepts and VP disciplines in construction projects.

The framework can be used as a guide by construction industry practitioners for betterment of construction projects, ultimately steering the industry toward sustainability.