Essay: SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION OBSTACLES TO EDUCATIONAL BUILDINGS IN EGYPT

SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION OBSTACLES TO EDUCATIONAL BUILDINGS IN EGYPT
 
ABSTRACT
The main goal of this research is to highlight on obstacles facing the application of sustainability and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) requirements to the construction of educational buildings in Egypt. The research methodology utilized the method of questionnaire surveys to collect the required data. Following a thorough literature review and interviews with professionals and experts who have work experience in the field of educational buildings construction in Egypt. Obstacles list was identified and categorized into ten groups with total twenty-nine obstacles. Forty-six questionnaires were distributed, a descriptive and deductive statistics are analyzed the data collected through the questionnaire survey to perform qualitative evaluation for the degree to each obstacle.
Based on the statistical analysis the study concluded and illustrated the top ten obstacles facing the sustainable construction of educational buildings in Egypt, according to the rank of significance index to each obstacle.
Keywords: Sustainable Construction; Obstacles; Educational Buildings.
Introduction
Construction industry constituents more than half of the national capital of most countries and represents as much as 10% of gross national income, and availability jobs about 7% (Djokoto et al., 2014). Construction industry impacts the environment not only out of its produce, but also during the implementation. Buildings deplete almost about 45-50% of energy and 50% of water resources (Chan et al., 2008). Emitted into the atmosphere about a ton of carbon dioxide, to produce each ton of the cement. Concrete effect is a double of the all materials used in building. Steel is also one of the most energy-intensive materials and for that reason contributed immensely to climate and environment changes. The usage of these materials leads to the ruin of the environment, through pollution (both in extracting raw materials or building construction), dust and serious contamination through poisonous waste (CIB Report, 1999). The main and essential to land dereliction is the source of non-renewable materials and the pollution of air and water, is considered the construction industry. Therefore, half of all waste materials are due to building activities (Williams & Dair, 2007).
Literature Review
Applying sustainability and (LEED) requirements to the construction of educational buildings reduce a lot of undesirable environmental effects to construction. Where, the research attempts to identify the existing obstacles for applying sustainable construction for the educational buildings in Egypt.
Djokoto et al. (2014 (studied the meaning of sustainable construction industry in Ghanaian with the goal of recognizing potential obstacles to sustainable construction in the Ghanaian construction industry. The researcher dependent a questionnaire survey to collect the data from experts in the construction industry in Ghana. Data collected was mainly analyzed and identified the barriers. The results illustrated the obstacles to sustainable construction are lack of strategy to promote sustainable construction, lack of demand for sustainable buildings, lack of public awareness and lack of government backing for this types of buildings.
Szydlik (2014) presented and dealt with the factors facing sustainable construction in USA based on the requirements and certification of (LEED 2009). The research filled the holes in current practice for fulfill (LEED) certification and provide a construction management process for decision makers in order to achieve successfully a LEED project on time, and with high performance impact to quality. The research presented and identified the obstacles through a survey conducted to identify the obstacles to sustainable construction.
Sustainable Construction Obstacles for Educational Buildings
In order to push the application of sustainable construction within the Egypt Construction Industry, the obstacles that restrain these practices must specified at the first. A list of sustainable construction obstacles for educational buildings (presented in Table 2) categorized in ten main groups as follows:
Financial Obstacles
The risk of higher investment costs for sustainable construction compared with traditional construction and the hazards of unexpected costs predominantly classified as Obstacles for sustainable buildings (Hakkinen, & Belloni, 2011). The shortage of previous experience, additional testing and inspection in construction, a shortage of industrialist and supplier support, and a shortage of execution information.
Implementation Obstacles
The construction industry process has been used through the past contracts as such it submits itself as a sector which is traditionally very difficult to change particularly regarding to the techniques of the construction and building materials used and applied. Williams and Dair (2007) identified shortage of sustainability measure by decision maker as by far the most generally recorded obstacle and further stated the shortage of demand by the owner as a generally recognized obstacle.
Practical Obstacles
The shortage of ability to the construction sector to apply sustainable practices is considered the one of the most known obstacle to sustainable construction (CIB Report, 1999). Sustainable buildings can be prevented by unawareness or a shortage of common understanding about sustainability (Hakkinen, & Belloni, 2011).
Construction Waste Management
A properly conceived waste management plan allows a construction manager to select economical alternatives in project waste management. A variety of wastes sources are generated through a different types of construction and demolition on site. In developing a waste management plan, there are choices to consider, including waste minimization, reuse, salvaging, recycling and landfilling (Mills & Showalter, 1999).
LEED Guidance
LEED is a voluntary sustainability evaluation methodology and covers all types of buildings against a wide range of environmental and sustainability issues, covering the following categories:
Location and Transportation (LT) introduce studied decisions about building location, with credits that promote built-in improvement, connection with amenities and options of alternative transportation as parks and restaurants (U.S. Green Building Council, 2016).
Sustainable sites (SS) highlights and introduce studied decisions about the environment around the building, with credits that make sure the active relationships between ecosystem services and buildings. It highlights on the project site elements, merging the site with local and regional ecosystems, and preserving the biodiversity that natural systems rely on (U.S. Green Building Council, 2016).
Water Efficiency (WE) addresses water comprehensively, looking at indoor use, outdoor use, specialized uses, and metering. It is based on “competence at first” process to water save (U.S. Green Building Council, 2016).
Energy and Atmosphere (EA) approaches energy highlights on decreasing the uses of energy, saving of energy design approaches, and renewable energy sources. Energy efficiency in sustainable buildings starting from the highlight on design that reduce total energy requirements (U.S. Green Building Council, 2016).
Materials and Resources (MR) is a category highlights on reducing the embodied energy and other effects related to the extraction, managing, transport, maintenance, and dealing with demolished building materials. The requirements are designed to support a life-cycle attitude to develop the performance and promotes resource effectiveness (U.S. Green Building Council, 2016).
Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Sustainable buildings with a better indoor environmental quality keep the health and relief of building user. First-class indoor environments also improve efficiency, absence reduction, develop the building’s value, and decrease responsibility for building designers and owners (U.S. Green Building Council, 2016).
Sample size
Out of the 120 questionnaires sent out, 46 sets of completed survey questionnaires were received and analyzed. The responses rate were relatively low since the replies that were not completed or properly answered were rejected. In addition, only responses from respondents who had experience and had clear understanding of sustainable construction were used. Under the respondent’s profile the information sought were professional background, year of experience and type of projects respondents usually undertake in their individual companies.
Representative Role
The participating companies represent role was one of the three following types: (1) contractor, (2) consultant, and (3) owner (educational buildings authority (. educational buildings authority was the most frequent type, as shown in Figure (1). Respondent designation of experts who participated was one of the four following four types: (1) General Manager (2) Project Manager, (3) Design Engineer, and (4) Site Engineer, as shown in Figure 4.2 most of respondent designation were site engineer.
Figure 1: Percentage and Frequency Histogram for The numbers of Representative Role
Figure 2: Percentage and Frequency Histogram for The numbers of Respondent Designation
Respondent Experience of Experts
Respondent experience of experts which participated was one of the following five types: (1) 5 years (2) 10 years, (3) 15 years, (4) 20 years, (5) 25 years, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 4.3: Percentage and Frequency Histogram for The numbers of Respondent Experience
Questionnaire Scale
The degree of obstacle for each factor were categorized on a five-point scale. As follows: very low, low, medium, high, and very high (on 1 to 5-point scale) as shown in Table (1). It is worth noting that the used scales were adopted after from (Ugwu & Haupt 2007).
Table 1: Scale Used to Target Obstacle Degree (Ugwu & Haupt 2007)
Obstacle Degree Weigh Numerical Scale
Very low 1 (from 0 – to 20) %
Low 2 (from 21 – to 40) %
Moderate 3 (from 41 – to 60) %
High 4 (from 61 – to 80) %
Very high 5 (from 81 – to 100) %
Statistical Analysis of Data
Important statistical parameters (validity, reliability, mean, standard error, standard deviation and relative importance index) were calculated for each obstacle.
Reliability (R): The range to which results are regular over time and an accurate representation of the total experts under study is indicate to as reliability and if the results of a study can be reproduced through a similar methodology give the same results. (Joppe, 2000).
The reliability is calculated as the following equation:
R = n/((n-1) )   ( 1-(∑▒〖S(i)^2〗)/(S(t)^2) )                                                                                              Eq. (1)
where:
n = Number of respondents
S(i): Total element variances
S(t): Total degree variation
Validity (V): determines the truth of the research results and whether the questionnaire really determines that which it was meant to measure. Researchers generally measure validity through asking a group of questions, and will overwhelmingly look for the answers in others research.
The structure is the first concept, idea, question or assumption that define which data is to be collected and how it is to be collected, the proved that quantitative researchers actively cause the interplay between construct and data in order to check  their investigation, generally application the test to other process (Wainer & Braun, 1998). In this meaning, the participation of the researchers in the research process would decrease the validity of a test (Joppe, 2000).
The validity is calculated as the following equation:
V = √R                                                                                                                       Eq. (2)
Where: (R) is the reliability.
Mean (M): for given data, the mean is calculated by summing the data values and divided by the number of values.
Standard deviation (SD): the standard deviation is a common measure of variability. It is determine in both as separate entity and as a part of another analysis.
The standard deviation is calculated as the following equation:
Std. Dev. (σ) =√((∑▒〖(Xj-X)^2〗)/n)                                                                                         Eq. (3)
Where:
For obstacles factor j
n = Number of respondents
X = Mean
Xj = values of the obstacles factor j
Standard error of the mean (SE): the standard deviation of the sampling distribution of the mean, a measure of the extent to which we expect the means from different samples to vary from the population, owing to the chance error in the sampling process Abdul Gawad (2005) demonstrated that, the calculated standard error was then compared to 0.2, as this value is argued to indicate a relatively precise point estimate of the results.  If standard error (SE) < 0.2 then according to this rule, the assessment of the collected data implies an acceptable agreement among experts on the risk significance.  The results of this part of study provide statistical analysis for probability of occurrence and cost impact. Table (2) demonstrates that all values of standard error are less than 0.2.
The standard error of the mean is calculated as the following equation:
Eq. (4)
where:
SEx̄ = Standard Error of the Mean
s = Standard Deviation of the Mean
n = Number of Observations of the Sample
Relative Importance Index (RII): The relative importance index is technique, which has been used widely in different types of questionnaire to rate each factor based on the weight given by the respondents (Holt 1997).
The Index is computed as:
RII=(5N5+4N4+3N3+2N2+1N1)/5(N5+N4+N3+N2+N1)                                                                                  Eq. (5)
Where:
N1: expert’s number who answered “very low”
N2: expert’s number who answered “low”
N3: expert’s number who answered “medium”
N4: expert’s number who answered “high”
N5: expert’s number who answered “very high”
The statistical analysis was done using (SPSS 20) Statistics is a software package used for statistical analysis. Long produced by SPSS 20 Inc. Table (2) shows the results of reliability, validity, mean, standard deviation, standard error of the mean, relative importance index and the rank for each obstacles.
Table 2: The Results of Statistical Analysis
No. Obstacles R V M SD SE RII Rank
G1  Financial  Obstacles
1 High initial cost of construction. 0.793 0.891 4.63 0.48 0.07 0.93 1st
2 Shortage of sustainable construction cost analysis before construction. 0.797 0.893 3.28 0.54 0.08 0.66 13th
3 Shortage of sustainable construction running cost analysis. 0.790 0.889 3.15 0.59 0.08 0.63 14th
4 Inadequate funding to government educational building. 0.785 0.886 4.33 0.72 0.10 0.87 4th
5 Hazard of investment for sustainable construction of private educational building. 0.775 0.880 4.20 0.65 0.09 0.84 5th
G2 Implement Obstacles
6 Shortage of public knowledge to sustainable construction. 0.805 0.897 4.54 0.54 0.08 0.91 2nd
7 Shortage of sustainable construction codes and legislation for educational buildings in Egypt. 0.800 0.894 3.33 0.55 0.08 0.67 12th
8 Shortage of strategy to encourage sustainable construction of educational buildings in Egypt. 0.769 0.877 4.07 0.76 0.10 0.81 6th
G3 Practical Obstacles
9 Shortage of design and construction team for sustainable educational buildings. 0.798 0.893 1.30 0.46 0.06 0.26 29th
10 Shortage of professionals with sustainable design and construction to educational buildings. 0.773 0.879 2.07 0.76 0.10 0.41 22th
11 Change refused to sustainable design and construction to educational buildings. 0.795 0.892 4.39 0.61 0.08 0.88 3rd
12 Shortage of training to sustainable design and construction to educational buildings. 0.793 0.891 3.07 0.53 0.07 0.61 15th
G4 Construction Waste Management
13 Increase of waste in construction materials. 0.778 0.882 3.74 0.79 0.10 0.75 10th
14 High depreciation of construction equipment. 0.770 0.877 1.93 0.82 0.11 0.39 23th
15 Labors West during construction. 0.787 0.887 1.41 0.53 0.07 0.28 27th
No. Obstacles R V M SD SE RII Rank
16 Construction method and management. 0.768 0.876 4.00 0.88 0.11 0.80 7th
LEED guidance
G5 Location and Transportation
17 Access to the site using mass transit, walking and cycling. 0.792 0.890 2.54 0.68 0.09 0.51 19th
G6 Sustainable sites
18 Construction in environmentally sensitive areas. 0.791 0.889 2.72 0.65 0.08 0.54 18th
G7 Water Efficiency
19 Monitoring water consumption performance. 0.774 0.880 2.20 0.77 0.10 0.44 21th
20 Reducing potable water consumption. 0.786 0.887 2.85 0.69 0.09 0.57 17th
21 Apply efficient equipment in water use. 0.786 0.887 1.33 0.47 0.06 0.27 28th
G8 Energy and Atmosphere
22 Renewable and clean energy sources use. 0.791 0.889 3.02 0.57 0.07 0.60 16th
23 Improved indoor air quality. 0.786 0.887 1.46 0.68 0.08 0.29 26th
24 Energy savings/Reduced energy use. 0.813 0.902 3.61 0.82 0.10 0.72 11th
G9 Materials and Resources
25 Preserve the raw materials used and reused. 0.810 0.900 3.04 1.12 0.13 0.61 9th
26 Shortage of a plan for waste management of construction and demolition. 0.769 0.877 3.87 0.90 0.11 0.77 8th
G10 Indoor Environmental Quality
27 Storing materials methods to prevent the introduction of moisture and accumulation dust. 0.781 0.884 2.37 0.67 0.08 0.47 20th
28 The effect of construction materials emissions. 0.765 0.875 1.63 0.84 0.10 0.33 25th
29 Protection of HVAC system components prior to installation and during construction. 0.764 0.874 1.76 0.86 0.10 0.35 24th
Results
The results indicate the top ten obstacles that facing the application of sustainable construction to educational buildings in Egypt, ranked according to the highly Relative Importance Index (RII) as shown in table (3). The obstacles are categorized in four main points as the flowing:
Knowledge to sustainable construction, naturally demand leads to supply. There is lack of demand from clients and customers when green market is still at initial stage (Zhang et al., 2011(. The most clients are not convinced there is the need to demand for such green buildings. There is an urgent need for demand of sustainable construction because the demand and willingness of clients eventually determine the extent of which sustainable (Owen, 2003).
Financial obstacles, the costs of construction to sustainable buildings is considered a higher on average (Rehm & Ade, 2013). A half dozen California developers in 2001 estimated that sustainable buildings cost 10% to 15% more than conventional buildings (Kats, 2003).
Construction Waste Management, Construction manager is responsible to manage waste; the project team will be less likely to have an effective waste management plan. This conclusion was reached upon the close analysis of a case study on a non-(LEED) certified project (Ilozor, 2009).
Materials and Resources, there are so many different types and uses of materials that go into a building, and they have vastly different values based on weight, cost, or application. Therefore, to determine percentages of materials usages, it is important to define which materials are included in the calculations and what units the calculations are based on (Haselbach, 2008).
Table 3: Highly Ranked Obstacles
No. Obstacles RII Rank
1 High initial cost of construction. 0.93 1st
2 Shortage of public knowledge to sustainable construction. 0.91 2nd
3 Change refused to sustainable design and construction to educational buildings. 0.88 3rd
4 Inadequate funding to government educational building. 0.87 4th
5 Hazard of investment for sustainable construction of private educational building. 0.84 5th
6 Shortage of strategy to encourage sustainable construction of educational buildings in Egypt. 0.81 6th
7 Construction method and management. 0.80 7th
8 Shortage of a plan for waste management of construction and demolition. 0.78 8th
9 Preserve the raw materials used and reused. 0.77 9th
10 Increase of waste in construction materials. 0.75 10th
Conclusion
The focal point of this research is to explore the key to obstacles hinder the application of sustainable construction of educational buildings in Egypt, and identify these obstacles that could be faced. Analysis of these obstacles was carried out to measure their effects on construction of educational buildings. Twenty- nine critical obstacles were identified and categorized into ten categories: financial implementation, practical, construction waste management, and LEED guidance ((LT), (SS), (WE), (EA), MR) and finally (IEQ)). These obstacles were investigated to measure the degree of importance and disability for each obstacle. A top ten obstacles were identified to be considered the most significant obstacles are categorized into four main points 🙁 knowledge to sustainable construction, financial obstacles, construction waste management, materials and resources).