Opinions of Saudi Construction Professionals on Selection of Sustainable Construction Materials

Abstract

Saudi Government has increased concerns about construction companies involved in construction activities with negative environmental effects. The trend in Saudi Arabia these days is to have sustainable construction works using sustainable materials aiming to provide sustainable housing to Saudis. More efforts are needed to encourage Saudi construction companies to use sustainable construction materials in public and private projects. Therefore, this research is conducted to explore opinions of Saudi construction professionals about sustainability and using sustainable materials in construction.
Questionnaire is used to collect the data. It was filled in by construction professionals working in Saudi construction industry. Most of them deal with selection of building materials. In total, 50 professional from private and public construction companies at Riyadh (capital city of Saudi Arabia) participated this study. They were asked to give their opinions. Amongst the participants, 14 (28%) are from public and 36 (72%) from private companies. Amongst them also, 4 (8%) are from small companies, 8 (16%) from companies of 25 and 50 staff, and 8 (16%) from companies of 50 to 75 staff. In addition, 11 (22%) are from companies of 75 to 100 staff and 19 (38%) are from companies of more than 100 staff. Only 4 female (8%) participated whereas the majority were 46 male individuals (92%). More than half of participants (27 (54%)) are university educated. Meanwhile, 7 participants (14%) are of below university education and 16 (32%) are highly educated (MSc and PhD).
The results show that only 10 participants (20%) have excellent knowledge about the environmental problems caused by construction. More than half of them (52%) are of moderate knowledge about this and more than quarter (28%) has slight knowledge. Only 12 participants (24%) are of excellent knowledge about selection of construction materials good for environment. Meanwhile, about two thirds (62%) are of sufficient knowledge about this but there are 5 participants (10%) are of poor knowledge. The majority of participants (32 strongly agree (64%), and 16 (32%) agree) that Saudi government should support more sustainability within construction industry. Moreover, 30 participants (60%) agree that the efforts of Saudi government are not enough to ensure satisfactory implantation of sustainable measures in Saudi construction industry. The results also demonstrated that, the execution time is the most important objective of construction project followed by lower environmental effects and then compliance with regulations. The least important were client satisfaction and the least importance is lower costs. The results also show that the majority of participants (34 in total (68%)) reported no use of any sustainability construction codes by their companies. Meanwhile, 16 (32%) reported the use of the American standard (LEED) as sustainability code. No other codes have been reported
Based on the results, more efforts are needed to improve knowledge on environmental problems caused by construction activities. This can be done by training programmes or workshops. It is recommended to change the culture amongst construction professionals through laws and regulations along with penalties on using harmful materials. It is also recommended to increase the sample size of this study to include more participants to assist reaching robust results.