سیستم مدیریت زیست محیطی در مقابل مشخصات سبز : چگونه آنها در صنعت ساخت و ساز مکمل یکدیگر هستند ؟

Environmental Management System (EMS) has been one of the important tools for sustainable construction for around two decades. However, many issues concerning sustainable development have not been properly addressed, and there is a need for the introduction of green specifications to advance green performance in construction through contract management. This paper defines green specifications, identifies the reasons for adopting green specifications and highlights the environmental issues that may not be addressed by solely adopting EMS. It also presents the results of a recent survey of practitioners concerning their opinions towards green specifications and possible impacts arising from their adoption. From the results of the survey, a framework for developing green specifications is deemed valuable for the cities striving for sustainability. Interestingly, the level of acceptable changes brought about by green specifications as perceived by different industry stakeholders is found to be unrelated to whether they were from organizations implementing EMS or not.

During the three decades after the introduction of the well-known definition of ”Sustainable Development” in the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987), extensive literature has covered the principles and possible frameworks for sustainable construction, such as that of Kibert, 1994 and Hill and Bowen, 1997 and Ofori (1998). Yet, there are still discrepancies between the ideal form of sustainable development and existing construction because of the practical difficulties in realizing the concepts of sustainability. Since the International Organization for Standardization issued the ISO 14000 series with principles similar to the previous British Standards, Specification for Environmental Management System (BS7750, 1992 and 1994) in the 1990s, Environmental Management System (EMS) has been recognized as a way to achieve sustainable development in the construction industry. Hill and Bowen (1997) discussed comprehensively the significance of using EMS in construction and proposed a framework for providing a strong impact in the field of construction towards EMS. Many other studies, including Tan et al. (1999), Ball (2002) and MacDonald (2005), were concerned with applying EMS along with other tools, such as Environmental Impact Assessment and Eco-labelling, to promote sustainable construction in the recent decades. Although EMS has profound positive environmental influence within the construction industry, it is clear that optimal environmental performance may not be guaranteed by the implementation of EMS (ISO 14001, 2004) alone. Therefore, Robert (2000) and many others have attempted to fix the intrinsic problem of EMS by identifying some frameworks for sustainable development. In this paper, the term “Green Specifications” is defined and the background and current practices of EMS are reviewed. The important environmental issues which have not been addressed by merely implementing EMS in current construction are investigated. Hence, green specifications are proposed to promote sustainable construction along with EMS. In addition, the results of a recent postal survey exploring the attitudes of stakeholders towards environmental considerations in specifications and the level of acceptable changes concomitant with the implementation of green specifications in Hong Kong are presented. Comparisons of these considerations in EMS and non-EMS organizations are also made. In the conclusion, the cost implications of green specifications on the construction industry are indicated, and the need for a green specification framework has been highlighted.

Although EMS is widely used in the construction industry, there is some room for improvement. As an important component of project management, green specifications should be able to compensate for some of the intrinsic weaknesses of EMS. The results of a postal survey show that the respondents both from companies with and from those without EMS have similar attitudes towards green specifications and the level of change in project performance brought about by their use. The only statistically significant difference is that the respondents from companies implementing EMS concurred more with the statement about the availability of database concerning green specifications in their companies. Moreover, the shift of stakeholders’ attitudes towards environmental issues and the provision of increased resources for a sustainable environment in the construction industry should be possible. However, some issues concerning sustainability of construction may still need to be addressed by green specifiers rather than EMS and the current form of specifications may not have sufficient green considerations by only promoting EMS in construction industry. Among the five performance factors in projects which may be affected because of the adoption of green specifications in Hong Kong, construction cost is identified to be the factor having the highest acceptable change. Moreover the stakeholders in Hong Kong have diverse expectations towards the impact of maintenance cost. The differences of the responses are more pronounced when respondents are grouped based on their roles in the construction industry than the availability of EMS in their companies. Contractors expect longer project periods due to the introduction of green specifications as compared to Clients and Consultants; and E&M subcontractors expect higher maintenance cost compared with consultants. Therefore, in conclusion green specifications should have an important role in achieving sustainable construction on top of EMS. A framework of green specifications for general use is worth developing along with promoting EMS in construction. Furthermore, the needs of each type of stakeholders, the possible barriers and the cost for green specifications are important considerations in developing such a framework.