Kang, Y; Kim, C; Son, H; Lee, S and Limsawasd, C (2013) Comparison of preproject planning for green and conventional buildings. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 139(11): 4013018, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
The importance of green buildings has been frequently highlighted. However, barriers such as greater complexity, lack of understanding of sustainability, and the perception of a greater possibility of cost overrun have hindered the dissemination of green buildings. More planning efforts for green buildings can presumably help mitigate these barriers. This paper investigates preproject planning efforts for green and conventional building projects. Project-level data were collected (124 in total, 71 from conventional building projects and 53 from green building projects), with project data consisting of general information about the project, a Project Definition Rate Index (PDRI) survey, and cost performance. The project data were categorized into four groups based on their project type (green and conventional) and cost performance (actual cost on/under budget and over budget). For the four groups, a two-way analysis of variance test was used to compare the degree of preproject planning efforts measured by PDRI. The analysis indicated that green projects tend to have more investment in preproject planning efforts than conventional projects, and the difference was marginally statistically significant at the level of α=0.05. In addition, a comparison of the mean PDRI values of the four groups revealed that green projects with a superior cost performance invest more in preproject planning efforts than other groups, and the difference was statistically meaningful. From the interaction effect, we also found that the impact of preproject planning on cost performance is more critical for green projects than for conventional projects. Regarding the preproject planning category, we found that green projects with superior cost performance tend to involve more planning with regard to business strategy, project requirements, site information, building programming, and building/project design parameters. These findings make two contributions. First, the findings help practitioners justify additional preproject planning efforts for green projects. Second, some of the results of this study will be useful to practitioners initiating sustainable projects by helping with the determination of which aspects of green buildings should involve more extensive planning. These findings will help reduce the possibility of cost overruns and allow more green projects to be deployed in order to address the need for sustainability.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | cost performance; green building; preproject planning; project definition rate index; sustainability |
| Index terms: | actual cost, project data, business strategy, survey, dissemination, programming, green building, practitioner, cost performance, complexity, variance, project design, cost overrun, interaction |
| Subjects: | financial and cost management, contractual arrangements, practitioner, programming, business, data collection methods, behavioral psychology, systems engineering, measurement and scaling, knowledge translation, economics, design practice |
| Topics: | Digital Applications, Design Practice, Cost Management, Business Strategy, Engineering Principles, Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Procurement |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here