Understanding the implementation of sustainability principles in UK educational building projects

The need for sustainability (or sustainable development) is widely recognised, and the case for it rarely disputed. There is a particular need for action within the construction industry because of the nature and scale of its activities. Commentaries and statistics on the impacts of the industry abound. Nevertheless there continues to be confusion about the application of sustainable development to construction and the built environment. Using an inductive approach, which follows the roadmap set out by Eisenhardt (1989) for building theories from case studies, four UK educational buildings (the Education Resource Centre at the Eden Project, the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge, the Oxstalls Campus at the University of Gloucestershire and the Great Notley Discovery Centre) have been investigated as case studies to address three research questions: What is sustainability in relation to the built environment? Why is it taken into account? and How is it taken into account? Hypotheses have been shaped from analyses of the case studies and evaluated in relation to the literature. It is proposed that for sustainability to be successfully taken into account in a building project there must be a client-driven agenda, an appropriate culture, clear definitions, a means of measurement and the use of tools. It is suggested that this can be undertaken within any contractual form. However, definitions of sustainability in relation to building projects need to be broadened beyond those aspects currently given prominence in the literature.