Leblanc, H; Nitithamyong, P and Thomson, C (2010) Developing a knowledge management framework to promote sustainable social housing refurbishment practices. In: Egbu, C (ed.) Proceedings of 26th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-8 September 2010, Leeds, UK.
Abstract
In the UK, new builds add, at most, 1% per year to existing building stock, representing a microcosm of the total stock. To achieve the government’s ambitious carbon emission reduction targets over the next decade the existing stock must therefore be treated as a priority. However, sustainable refurbishment practices remain underdeveloped and relatively limited, particularly within the social housing sector. Despite its recognized capacity for innovation, this sector has not implemented sustainable principles at the core of its refurbishment practices despite changes in public procurement designed to encourage such principles. This is partly because of the limited and ineffective communication of information and knowledge regarding sustainability between social housing practitioners. This paper presents a methodology for developing a framework to improve knowledge management (KM) for social housing practitioners. The framework is focused on facilitating the sharing of sustainability information and knowledge during the undertaking of refurbishment projects. The paper also discusses the preliminary findings of recent research based on semi-structured interviews undertaken on a sample of social housing experts to examine the rationale for refurbishment, procurement strategies, and types of refurbishment projects. The findings identify eight main drivers for refurbishment and five social housing refurbishment (SHR) project types and they reveal that social housing providers use different competitive procurement strategies to achieve sustainable practices.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | knowledge management; project process; refurbishment; social housing; sustainability |
| Index terms: | social housing, refurbishment project, knowledge management, methodology, practitioner, building stock, new build, procurement strategy, interview, sustainable practice, carbon emission |
| Subjects: | infrastructure engineering, professional development, research methods, construction integration, asset management, sustainable practices, housing and residential development, practitioner, climate science, data collection methods, contractual arrangements |
| Topics: | Urban Studies, Procurement, Sustainability, Roles and Professions, Research Practice, Information Management, Engineering Principles, Business Strategy |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
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