Sustainable Procurement in Construction

The award of the first doctorate degree in the University of Paris in the twelfth century has led to the creation of different doctoral programmes in different universities in Europe, America and around the world. The doctorate degree has been held as the highest and most prestigious academic award. Most popular of such degrees is the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) which allows a close research-based focus on the candidate’s chosen subject area to gain more expertise in the area.
Other form of doctorate have emerged since the first half of the twentieth century known as professional doctorates. The professional doctorate is a combination of both research project and research training with taught components or modules. These candidates are usually based at their work place or non-academic environment where they try to make a contribution to professional knowledge. This exist in different areas or disciplines.
While this paper makes mention of the different professional doctorate programmes, it duel much on the professional doctorate in built environment abbreviated as DBEnv or DBE which have being emerging in the recent past.
In the United Kingdom (UK), the term built environment have been used to denote different range of practice - oriented disciplines such as Management, Economics, Law, Technology and Design.
Scientist understanding of the built environment have undergone several changes with regards to different areas or discipline. This has led to the emergence of different definitions of the built environment from different disciplines or areas such as the social science, landscape architecture and public health. Some of the definition such as that of Griffiths (2004) is considered as not making any reference to the theoretical qualities of its knowledge base but it is rather limited to areas of professional practice within the built environment at undergraduate and master’s levels.
This paper explodes how universities are carrying out more research within the built environment at doctoral level to complement its professional practice with knowledge base with theoretical qualities. Knowledge and knowledge production within the professional doctorate in built environment is done both tacitly and explicitly.
There have been the question if there is a need for a theory in built environment. Different theories have been postulated using different approaches. This has led to a search of a unified theory within the built environment.
Van de Ven and Poole (2005), acknowledged the ambiguity and complex problems in the built environment research and called for a multi-paradigmatic research to address such problems. As a result of arguments raised by different authors about a unified theory in construction management research, Raftery et al. (1997) advocate the need of bringing different paradigms to allow a more unified approach to analysing the complex nature of the built environment.

The purpose of this study is to examine the possibility of using plastic bottles in concrete block. The plastic bottles were used to create voids at equal distance between them in the masonry units. Concrete was placed around each bottle to encase it in the masonry units. The study utilized 500-mL plastic bottles placed inside concrete masonry units and analyzed the compressive strength. The testing for compressive strength was determined according to the ASTM C140 standard. Results from this study were deemed reasonable due to the testing of concrete cylinders as a control of compressive strength for the concrete blocks from Oman " s market. This study shows 57% improvement of strength by using plastic bottles compared to local concrete blocks. This proves the necessity for further research regarding concrete mix design , amount of cement and properties of local concrete blocks as well as other technical and non-technical aspects to determine the appropriate mix design and feasibility in the production industry.

Over the last three decades, numerous procurement techniques have been one of the highlights of the Construction Management (CM) for ventures, administration contracting, venture management as well as design and construct. Due to the development and utilization of those techniques, various researchers have explored the criteria for their choice and their execution in terms of time, cost and quality. Nevertheless, there is a lack of giving an account on the relationship between the procurement techniques and the progressed related issues, for example, supply chain, sustainability, innovation and technology development, lean construction, constructability, value management, Building Information Modelling (BIM) as well as e-procurement. Through chosen papers from the reputable CM-related academic journals, the specified scopes of these issues are methodically assessed with the objective to explore the status and trend in procurement related research. The result of this paper contributes theoretically as well as practically to the researchers and industrialist in order to be aware and appreciate the development of procurement techniques. .

NEGOTIATING ACCESS INTO FIRMS: OBSTACLES AND STRATEGIES

Samuel Laryea
University of Reading, Reading
s.laryea@reading.ac.uk
Will Hughes
University of Reading, Reading
w.p.hughes@reading.ac.uk

Researchers often experience difficulties with the negotiation of access into firms for the purpose of data collection.  The question we explore is: What are the main obstacles associated with access negotiation into firms; and what strategies do researchers employ to increase their chances of success?  Our research work on the tendering process of contractors took place between 2006 and 2008.  We successfully negotiated access into four firms (two each in Ghana and the UK) to observe live examples of tender preparation  The techniques we employed in negotiating access were personal contacts, contacting firms through online details and professional institutions, etc.  With all of this effort, our average success rate was less than 5 per cent.  The main obstacles encountered were firms’ reluctance because of commercial sensitiveness and fear that the data could eventually be divulged to their competitors or end up in the public domain.  However, some firms agreed mainly because of the written assurances of confidentiality and anonymity in reporting the study; reputation of the researchers’ academic institution; gatekeepers who spoke to their colleagues on our behalf; academic purpose of the study; and a feedback report which was promised in return for access to the case studies.  Although the access through personal contacts is by far the easiest, it is not always possible.  Researchers can approach firms as complete strangers, especially in a foreign country, and that could make the firms more likely to assist the research.

KEYWORDS: access, access negotiation, data collection, Ghana, UK

A B S T R A C T Disputes are common problems in the construction industry. The unclear contract underlines in most practiced procurement systems lead to various disputes among stakeholders. In order to minimise the problem, it is interesting to identify the disputes and conflict arises in the industry. This paper explore the pattern of construction disputes occurrence in Malaysia through legal cases synthesis extracted from available data bases such as Construction Law Report and Building Report. Result identified six (6) categories of disputes happen in the Malaysian construction industry that are people/stakeholders/ organisation, nature of the work and project administration, contractual and procurement, poor workmanship, design and external factors. These factors are worth to be considered in proposing new procurement system for sustainable Malaysian construction industry.

The emergence of sustainable construction has been described as the largest innovation within the global construction industry at the end of last century. However, there are various concepts of sustainable construction and it is difficult to define the term in a simple uniform sentence. Basically, sustainable construction has four dimensions: environmental, social, economical and technical. While the literature establishes several diverse explanations of both ecological and technical principles, it often fails to consider economic concepts. From an economic point of view, sustainable construction is an unusual activity, which changes business patterns from a linear to a cyclic process. As the original stimulant, it is essential to detail the economic principles of sustainable construction and investigate their application in practice. This paper examines the concepts of sustainable construction and sets out the underlying economic principles and themes which apply to it. Furthermore, it highlights some economic challenges to sustainable construction: higher capital cost; lack of accurate cost information; unreliable long-term profits and invisible market value. Finally, it concludes that it is crucial to develop a green market in the built environment and a clear sustainable business strategy for construction companies who seek to implement sustainable construction.

PhD Fellow) is a PhD student in project planning and management besides being a part time lecturer in a number of universities in Kenya. He is a freelance researcher and runs a research firm in Kenya. He can be reached at any time for research work, data analysis, interpretation and data management, journals development and publishing etc. Contact: martinotundo@gmail.com, +254721246744 FOUNDATION INSTRUCTIONS: In this assignment you will integrate procurement tasks into a project. Consider the given case study (Procuring textiles made from recycled fibres: Ministry of Defence of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (MODNL); PDF file) and answer the following questions: 1. Explain each part of the "Flowchart for Optimal Utilization of Market Intelligence to Address Sourcing Challenges".

Purpose: Most barriers and enablers of sustainable projects are related to procurement. This study
proposes a framework for evaluating green procurement practices throughout the lifecycle of road
construction projects and demonstrates its application through an Australian case study.
Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on linking the phases of road construction with
incentive mechanisms for proactively motivating behavioural change. A holistic view on utilised and
potential incentives is attempted with a literature review and a state-of-practice review. The latter is
based on interviews and 90 policy and procurement documents across five Australian states.
Findings: An evaluation framework with seven procurement stages is suggested to describe current
state green procurement incentives throughout the delivery lifecycle of road construction projects.
The Australian case study was found to provide useful data to identify gaps and strong points of the
different states regarding their level of integration of sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions
(GHG) reduction elements in their procurement practices. This understanding was used to draw
recommendations on future advancement of green procurement.
Originality/value: Government entities across the globe can impact considerably the achievement of
sustainability and GHG targets, by using their procurement practices and requirements to create
incentives for contractors and suppliers to engage in more GHG conscious practices. The present
study provides a systematic account of how green procurement practices can be underpinned using
the Australian road construction industry as a case study, and distinguish between strong and weak
links in the green procurement chain to draw recommendations for future initiatives.

Appreciating the value of effective and efficient procurement strategies, major construction industry reports and practitioners have either proposed new procurement strategies or improvised the current practice. The relational approach and especially relationship contracting as part of contemporary procurement strategies have been advocated in pursuit of a more sustainable procurement culture as well as a more sustainable built environment. Although different relational contracting methodologies such as partnering, alliancing and joint ventures have been advocated the actual conceptualization and assessment of relationships seems to be weak in the construction industry. Looking at marketing and business research context where a move form transactional to relational has been made the systematic framework of relationship quality is inspired and introduced for construction. This framework comprises of a high order construct involving antecedents, measures and outcomes for the system. Conflict and dispute are considered as the main corresponding antecedents to relationship quality in construction, complemented by performance and relationship status impacting sustainability as the outcomes of the system. It is demonstrated that the changes in contracting circumstances, built environment culture may affect the different layers of the systematic framework for relationship quality in construction projects then modifications are implemented and corresponding constructs are driven for two different construction cases. This illustrates the variations to the relationship quality’s systematic construct as the result of the changing contract conditions and built environment. The driven variable systematic construct for relationship quality may provide an assessment tool for evaluating the relationships created by contracting procedures in different built environments. Through examining system reliability theories a fault tree is derived for the systematic framework of relationship quality. Possible combinations of components, causes and events for the two mentioned construction project cases are illustrated through Fault Tree Analysis. The fault tree analysis primarily indicates the combination of events leading to relationship deterioration and also provides a monitoring tool for relationship quality in different circumstances, the ability to have such indications about relationship quality may help increase performance alongside stirring sustainable procurement.

The construction industry should play a vital role in helping efforts towards the attainment of sustainable development in the world. It is therefore becoming a key requirement for construction organizations to deliver projects that address the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of sustainability. The aim of this paper is to examine how UK construction organizations are actively engaged in sustainability practices. This paper presents the results of an
investigation using a mixed methods approach of both qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Data collection
involved phases of detailed semi-structured interviews, followed by an industry-wide survey of 200 intra-organizational leaders in UK contractor and consultant organizations. The analysis of the collected data revealed that construction organizations are engaged in sustainability practices such as procurement, design, waste management, whole life costing, materials and resources use, corporate social responsibility, and community engagement in the delivery of construction projects. The survey results show that construction organizations in UK are actively engaged in sustainable waste management followed by sustainable design. The results show where construction organizations are doing well and where organizations need to double their efforts in terms of implementing sustainability practices

Abstract
Quality of construction is a key component of perceived value to both clients and contractors. The International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) noted that “lack of quality in construction is manifested in poor or non-sustainable workmanship, and unsafe structures; and in delays, cost overruns and disputes in construction contracts”. Value and quality of construction are of concern to both public and private sector clients.
The procurement process in the construction industry is plagued with a number of problems and challenges. Some of the challenges and problems faced by the construction industry in Cameroon and Africa that leads to the delivery of projects of poor quality standards are discussed in this write up. The study investigates the factors that are posing a negative impact on construction quality through the value chain in creating new capital works such as design, procurement and construction. Concerns had been based on the principal issues like; Construction, design and procurement related factors. Furthermore, issues like weak capacity, corruption and embezzlement, finance related issues like budget and funding, procuring design quality, material quality, planning challenges, cultural, human resources and contractor performance issues have been reviewed. These problems have been identified through a critical literature review and field experience drawn from the Cameroon and Africa context and attempts have been made to analyse each of the problems or challenges that lead to the delivery of poor quality projects. Value and quality of construction are of concern to both clients and contractor in both the public and private sector. Against this background, this study has been undertaken on the quality of construction in Africa in general and Cameroon in particular.
The construction projects referred to in this paper deals with all types of building and civil engineering projects.

Evolution of environmental sensitivity and spreading of the consciousness of a socially sustainable common acting, economically and technologically, supported by the acknowledgment of a few European and domestic laws, led to definitions of a few local normative tools for the preliminary definition and control of building activity in energy and environment vision. The current experimentations highlight as to make sure that the sustainable building becomes a diffuse and constant practice it is necessary, by the local governments, a deep revision of the methodologies up to today adopted as usual general procedures and in the editing of the urban and implementing planning tools.

The Australian Government and most Australian road authorities have set ambitious greenhouse gas emission (GHGe) reduction targets for the near future, many of which have translated into action plans. However, previous research has shown that the various Australian state road authorities are at different stages of implementing ‘green’ initiatives in construction planning and development, with considerable gaps in their monitoring, tendering, and contracting. This study illustrates the differences between procurement standards and project specific practices that aim to reduce GHGe from road construction projects in three of the largest Australian road construction clients, with a focus on the tools used, contract type and incentives for better performance.

Construction scholars suggest that procurement processes can be used as mechanisms to change construction industry practices. This paper discusses industry changes as a response to the calls for integration of sustainability ideals into construction practices. Because major infrastructure construction has been identified as a key producer of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE), this study explores collaborative procurement models that have been used to facilitate mitigation of GHGE. The study focuses on the application of non-price incentives and rewards that work together as a binary mechanism. Data were collected using mixed-methods: government document content analysis was complemented with data collected through focus groups and individual interviews with both clients and contractors. This report includes examples of greening procurement agendas for three Australian road authorities relating to collaborative procurement project delivery models. Three collaborative procurement models, Alliance Consortium, Early Contractor Involvement and Public Private Partnerships provide evidence of construction projects that were completed early. It can also be argued that both clients and contractors are rewarded through collaborative project delivery. The incentive of early completion is rewarded with reduction of GHGE. This positive environmental outcome, based on a dual benefit and non-price sustainability criteria, suggests a step towards changed industry practices though the use of green procurement models.

Recent UK government polices have identified that the construction industry plays a significant role in the evolution of sustainable development. PFI, as the most active public procurement approach, is potentially a good mechanism for delivering sustainable buildings. The benefits of sustainable construction, for example, in terms of long term cost savings, resource and energy efficiency using and productivity improvement will provide more reliable and sustainable profits for both purchaser and suppliers during the whole contract period. However, the fearing of higher capital cost; lack of government policy; lack of client awareness and demand; and finance incentive has worked against PFI projects embracing towards sustainability. This paper, based on an initial survey, analyses both the advantages and disadvantages of integrating sustainable construction into the PFI process. It concludes that most stakeholders understand the concepts of sustainability, but the balance of these advantages is unclear. Further research is required to evaluate the current sustainable construction experiences in the PFI market.

Sanchez, Adriana & Hampson, Keith D. (2012) Sustainable road infrastructure procurement in Australia. In Procurement, Innovation and Green Growth : the Story Continues. International Institute for Sustainable Development, Winnipeg, Canada, pp. 33-37.

As a modern public procurement system, the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was established in 1990s and rapidly developed during the last ten years. It is now seen as an essential item in delivering public services in the UK. PFI changes the conventional method of delivering estate facilities to concentrating in supplying public services. This change shows that PFI has the responsibility to take care of the output performance in a long-term (say 30 years) contract rather than a short-term construction period. Sustainable construction is a new concept and now widely accepted by the construction industry. However it is not yet implemented widely in practice. In order to motivate sustainable construction, the UK government has the responsibility to lead this revolution. Meanwhile, PFI has been seen as one of the potential methods to deliver sustainable construction by the government. Is PFI a good mechanism for this transition? Or is PFI industry willing for this challenge? Based on a national questionnaire survey, this paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using PFI to deliver sustainable construction. The result presents that PFI has a natural relationship with sustainability and the industry positively agrees with this integration. Furthermore, the investigation of how to implement the green procurement principles into PFI method is now emerging. Designing a stakeholder involvement method for the sustainable solution in PFI projects is urgently required.

This article deals with sustainable forest management in a legal
perspective, emphasizing its rules, field work aspects and technical standards
governing the matter. It also relates forest management to other issues, such as
reforestation, deforestation and forest certification. The relationship of forest
management with other legal matters, such as the legal protected areas, public
procurement and forest concessions are considered.

To an ingenuous mind, the word ‘innovation’ creates an impression about something fanciful or technical fantasy, so expecting such phenomenon in a Government organization is beyond people’s normal expectation. In reality, however, innovations do take place every day driven by both large and small ideas in any Government Organization.

In a consumer industry, innovation is a creative idea that creates unique and compelling solutions valued by customers, which create real and substantial competitive advantage and creates extraordinary value for our company. But innovation is not limited to such commercial activity only. Innovation encompasses immeasurable value enhancement to customers, talent search and retention, employee satisfaction through opportunity to innovate and also value addition at industry level leading to brand enhancement.

The present paper discusses the forms in which innovation takes place in Government Organizations, particularly in Indian situation. Even with a solid record of innovation in government, the unfortunate reality is that our government employees too often succeed in spite of, not because of, their department’ policies and procedures.

Government systems and structures are fundamentally different than those of the private sector. Namely, our government is designed to perform reliably, not to adapt to changing circumstances. Lack of due care for innovation in Government sector is one of the important reasons for Indian trailing to 76th position in Global Innovation Index (2014). In this paper, such barriers to innovations have been investigated and a course of action to overcome such barriers has been discussed.

In India with its 1.2 billion plus population and 40%GDP as spending in Government sector, it is imperative that due emphasis is given to innovation in Government Organization to ensure sustainable economic growth in highly competitive world global market.

The paper also discusses some trendsetting innovations of Government Organizations, which have made history.

The Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended in 2016 (Act 914) is the fundamental law that regulates public procurement practices in Ghana. This act establishes the Public Procurement Authority, and under it, the Entity Tender committees, Tender Review Boards are formed. Goods, works, and services procurement processes and procedures are detailed in this act. The concept of Sustainable Procurement includes environmental, economic and socio-cultural considerations. Sustainable procurement relates to the practical improvement of sustainable goals and objectives through the procurement and supply chain management. Researchers have identified public procurement as one of the major activities of governments as it has to do with the usage of public funds, advancement of governmental service advantage, and a sustainable environment for the development of the entrepreneurial sector, the procurement route still suffers a lot of inefficiencies. Contract award is mostly based on lowest evaluated bids without attaining environmental and sustainability tenders are the most important basis for contract ward, without considering environmental and sustainability issues such as teenage pregnancy, child labour, health, working conditions, pollution and environmental degradation, which has adverse impact on the tomorrow’s generation. Both private and government organizations procure goods, works and services, while much consideration is not given to the effect of such procurement on the environment and sustainability. Policy makers, contractors and suppliers who engage in public procurement will use the study alongside the public procurement act to ensure sustainability of procurement products on monetary management. There are no clearly stated sustainability procurement laws in Ghana, this makes the implementation of sustainability difficult. The Public Procurement Act (663) of 2003 as amended in 2016 (Act 914), have not mentioned clearly sustainability matters to attain green procurement, thereby making the procurement entities flout over environmentally sustainable procurement guidelines. Whereas sustainable procurement focuses on the effects of procurement on the society, environment, and the economic life of a nation, green procurement relates the effects on the environment and the cost of acquiring the product

U.S. local governments purchase $1.72 trillion of goods and services annually that contribute to global climate change and other environmental problems. Cities that successfully implement environmental purchasing policies can mitigate these environmental concerns while saving money and demonstrating their environmental leadership. However, cities confront numerous challenges when implementing an environmental purchasing policy. This chapter identifies the facilitators and barriers of implementing an environmental purchasing policy. It draws on the experiences within the City of Phoenix as an example and offers eight recommendations for how the City of Phoenix and similar cities can integrate environmental purchasing more fully into their existing purchasing processes.

The Health sector can play a significant role towards achieving sustainable development by putting sustainability at the heart of procurement activities. This research analyses the differences relating to how two different National Healthcare Systems (NHS), the Italian and the British, are managing their Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) in terms of supplier's and bidders' sustainable evaluation through specific practices and criteria. The research mainly adopts quantitative inquiry using a survey with procurement professionals from public sector healthcare organisations. A Likert's scale questionnaire was designed to test seven hypotheses covering SPP criteria analysed using Fisher's Exact and Mann-Whitney U tests. While the UK health sector organisations seem to have a propensity for requesting suppliers with an improvement in environmental performances over time and a compliance with voluntary social accountability standards, the Italian organisations seem more focused on the mandatory laws and regulations concerning environment and safety. Other interesting differences lie in the requests to the suppliers of the compliance with voluntary standards related to packaging. The research is just limited to two countries; future studies aimed at comparing SPP criteria for the public healthcare among the other European countries is recommended. Moreover, the findings raised issues such as the trade-off between costs of the product and environmental criteria, the use of national and international standards as supplier's evaluation criteria, the carbon footprint as a way for gaining more trust from local stake-holders and the possible impact of suppliers' ethical scandals in the public sector.

There is a growing trend worldwide, primarily developed and some developing countries, of the public sector moving from conventional procurement system towards the more sustainable and environmental-friendly approach. The need to consider economic, environmental as well as social aspects of projects before embarking on it yield enormous benefits to the present and future generations. This study seeks to assess the level of awareness and readiness of public procurement experts on Sustainability in northeastern Nigeria. The study targeted procurements experts in Bauchi and Gombe state working at Due-process unit, a focal point that ensures efficiency, transparency and effectiveness in all procurements (goods and services), and issue certificate of compliance to across the state. A total of seventy-three (73) questionnaire forms were administered to the respondents to rank, based on their experience, social, economic and environmental factors in a Linkert-like scale of five-point. Fifty-three (53) questionnaires were returned, and Cross-tabulation was used to compare the respondents' background information, which shows that most of those with training on Sustainability are engineers with a bachelor's degree. Descriptive statistics and Friedman's ANOVA were used to, which ranked gender, race, religious discrimination, the factor with highest mean score thus ranked first, while Similar working experience, lowest responsive tender and excellent workmanship were ranked second, third and fourth respectively. Friedman's ANOVA with the stepwise step-down comparison, with a significant factor of 0.05, ranked using energy saver appliance and fair working condition as the most significant factors. The study recommends that other geopolitical zones of the country should also embark on the same study.

 Abstract-Delay in payment to contactors and other relevant parties have caused serious problem on excellent execution of construction projects. It causes several problems to the contractor and other stakeholders. The goal of this work is to investigate the causes of delayed payments in construction project delivery. The objective of this study is to identify the causes of delayed payment. To obtain valid data, questionnaires were designed and distributed to a randomly selected sample of one hundred individuals among contractors, consultants and clients in the Nigerian construction industry. Eighty five completed questionnaires were returned and then analysed. The total mean score was used to determine the ranking of the results of the study. Client's disagreeing on the valuation of work done, slow processing of variation orders by consultants and clients and poor quality of works by the consultants at the design stage and the contractors at the construction stage were the major causes of delayed payment in the study. It was recommended that relevant parties should come together in the execution of the project to limit delays experienced in processing contractors' payment. In conclusion, if the necessary action can be enforced, the problem of delayed payment can be reduced drastically.

Purpose – Most barriers and enablers of sustainable projects are related to procurement. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for evaluating green procurement practices throughout the lifecycle of road construction projects and demonstrates its application through an Australian case study. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on linking the phases of road construction with incentive mechanisms for proactively motivating behavioural change. A holistic view on utilised and potential incentives is attempted with a literature review and a state-of-practice review. The latter is based on interviews and 90 policy and procurement documents across five Australian states. Findings – An evaluation framework with seven procurement stages is suggested to describe current state green procurement incentives throughout the delivery lifecycle of road construction projects. The Australian case study was found to provide useful data to identify gaps and strong points of the...

Disputes are common problems in the construction industry. The unclear contract underlines in most practiced procurement systems lead to various disputes among stakeholders . In order to minimise the problem, it is interesting to identify the disputes and conflict arises in the industry. This paper exp lore the pattern of construction disputes occurrence in Malaysia through legal cases synthesis extracted from available data bases such as Construction Law Report and Building Report. Result identified six (6) categories of disputes happen in the Malaysian construction industry that are people/stakeholders/ organisation, nature of the work and project administration, contractual and procurement, poor workmanship, design and external f actors. These factors are worth to be considered in proposing new procurement system for sustainable Malaysian construction industry.

Beam deflection analysis is a crucial aspect in building and construction and is vital in  ensuring that the structural elements are safely supported under the serviceability  conditions. The main objective of this dissertation is to combine structural optimisation  with an iterative methodology to predict the load<deflection response of fabric formed  reinforced concrete beams under different loading regimes. Previous studies on fabric  formed beams were mainly focused on the improvement of the casting procedure rather  than the mechanical optimisation of the variable<section geometries. Several algorithms  have been developed to iteratively predict variable sections in fabric formed elements  but the geometrical complexity of such algorithms make them almost unfeasible for  inclusion of engineering considerations.
Therefore there is a great scope in development of more efficient and coherent  techniques for the use of engineers. To this end, a simple rational method for  optimisation of conventional rectangular beams is developed. This is achieved by  producing an iterative computational framework using Excel spreadsheet, which  estimates the required variation of sections under a user defined loading envelope and  predicts the deflection of the fully optimised beam. The procedure allows optimisation  of the variable<section beams by taking into account the detailed characteristics of the  reinforced concrete elements, such as properties of reinforcing materials and various  loading envelopes. Finally, the results were checked against the previous experimental  data to ascertain their validity.

The Health sector can play a significant role towards achieving sustainable development by putting sustainability at the heart of procurement activities. This research analyses the differences relating to how two different National Healthcare Systems (NHS), the Italian and the British, are managing their Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) in terms of supplier's and bidders' sustainable evaluation through specific practices and criteria. The research mainly adopts quantitative inquiry using a survey with procurement professionals from public sector healthcare organisations. A Likert's scale questionnaire was designed to test seven hypotheses covering SPP criteria analysed using Fisher's Exact and Mann-Whitney U tests. While the UK health sector organisations seem to have a propensity for requesting suppliers with an improvement in environmental performances over time and a compliance with voluntary social accountability standards, the Italian organisations seem more focused on the mandatory laws and regulations concerning environment and safety. Other interesting differences lie in the requests to the suppliers of the compliance with voluntary standards related to packaging. The research is just limited to two countries; future studies aimed at comparing SPP criteria for the public healthcare among the other European countries is recommended. Moreover, the findings raised issues such as the trade-off between costs of the product and environmental criteria, the use of national and international standards as supplier's evaluation criteria, the carbon footprint as a way for gaining more trust from local stakeholders and the possible impact of suppliers' ethical scandals in the public sector.

Purpose – Most barriers and enablers of sustainable projects are related to procurement. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for evaluating green procurement practices throughout the lifecycle of road construction projects and demonstrates its application through an Australian case study. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on linking the phases of road construction with incentive mechanisms for proactively motivating behavioural change. A holistic view on utilised and potential incentives is attempted with a literature review and a state-of-practice review. The latter is based on interviews and 90 policy and procurement documents across five Australian states. Findings – An evaluation framework with seven procurement stages is suggested to describe current state green procurement incentives throughout the delivery lifecycle of road construction projects. The Australian case study was found to provide useful data to identify gaps and strong points of the...

Delay in payment to contactors and other relevant parties have caused serious problem on the successful execution of construction projects in the country. It causes several problems to the contractor and other participants. The aim of this study is to determine the causes of delayed payments in the construction industry. The objective of this study is to identify the causes of delayed payment. In order to obtain valid data for the study, questionnaires were designed and distributed to a randomly selected sample of one hundred individuals among contractors, subcontractors, consultant and clients in the Nigerian construction industry. In total, eighty five completed questionnaires were returned and then analysed statistically. The total mean score was used to determine the ranking of the results of the study. Client’s disagreeing on the valuation of work done, slow processing of variation orders and poor quality of works were the major causes of delayed payment identified in the study...