Examining the barriers to successful onsite construction environmental management operations

With the introduction of ecologically sustainable development (ESD) and subsequent legislative regulations throughout Australia, effective environmental management across the construction sector should occur. In reality, construction operations continue to have detrimental environmental impacts. Within New South Wales the primary legislation governing development control, for the purpose of ESD, has produced a complex legislative system that its ability to achieve the objectives of environmental protection remains questionable. Large scale development projects may evoke need for associated environmental regulatory controls; however, such rules are generally not applicable to small and medium scale developments. Yet, these types of projects make up a significant amount of the development market and collectively a major contribution to detrimental environmental impacts. Given each construction project is unique, the application of complex regulatory controls may result in notably different levels of environmental protection between developments. Inconsistency may be seen with regulatory interpretation, implementation, monitoring and associated processes of enforcement. Using a systemic lens this research linked the efficacy of regulation, monitoring, and information flow to explain variability in the outcomes of onsite environmental management operations. The paper reports preliminary findings of a two stage qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with key project stakeholders (e.g. government regulatory officers, construction managers) and case study examination of four medium scale development projects. Using a phenomenological coding approach, preliminary analysis identified a number of themes that impact effective onsite environmental management including: environmental interpretation and assessment, compliance and enforcement, external influences, collaboration and engagement.