The Promotion of Sustainability Agenda for Facilities Management Through People Capabilities

The increasing awareness of sustainability issues around the world has put a lot of pressure to the construction industry to improve sustainable practices. Sustainability principles need to be adopted not only in design and construction phase, but the entire life cycle of construction projects. Compared to the sustainability efforts at the early phase of development, the velocity to implement sustainability agenda during the operation and maintenance phase was not as fast during past practices of facility management (FM). The literature review shows that sustainable practices in FM activities can bring great benefits such as reducing energy consumption and waste, while increasing productivity, financial statements and positions in society. It also proposes a number of barriers that prevent the implementation of sustainability in FM practices, including lack of knowledge, the discrepancy between ability and skills, and the refusal of the FM personnel and organization to adapt to new routines to implement sustainability in their business. The FM personnel and organization's capabilities has been regarded as the key enablers in managing sustainability agenda. In the context of sustainable development, capabilities are important to the fostering of competency in an organization to innovate in a more sustainable conduct and support the agenda in an organization. In addition, research that focused on the people's ability and skills is still lagging behind the efforts to develop guidelines, technical manuals and knowledge portals. Therefore, it is useful to explore the issues of people capabilities in dealing with the implementation of sustainable practices in FM. This paper introduces a research aimed at establishing a people capabilities framework for the promotion of sustainability agenda in FM practices. It will explore and highlight the challenges to integrate sustainability as well as the personnel and organizational capabilities that are vital in addressing the issues in implementing sustainability agenda in FM practices. The progress to date of the research also reported in this paper. The expected outcomes of this research has the potential to further sustainability efforts in FM practices and at the same time providing a useful knowledge resources for the FM personnel and organization.

[1]  Abbas Elmualim,et al.  Barriers and commitment of facilities management profession to the sustainability agenda , 2010 .

[2]  M. Gloet,et al.  Knowledge management and the links to HRM: Developing leadership and management capabilities to support sustainability , 2006 .

[3]  Annie R. Pearce,et al.  Sustainability in Public Facilities: Analysis of Guidance Documents , 2003 .

[4]  Mark J. Clayton,et al.  Dynamic Knowledge Map: Reusing Experts’ Tacit Knowledge in the AEC Industry , 2004, ACADIA proceedings.

[5]  Peter Brandon,et al.  Smart & sustainable built environments , 2005 .

[6]  Robin Spence,et al.  Sustainable development and the construction industry , 1995 .

[7]  Karin Bredin,et al.  People capability of project-based organisations: A conceptual framework , 2008 .

[8]  Dilanthi Amaratunga,et al.  Knowledge management practices in facilities organisations: a case study , 2008 .

[9]  Francis W.H. Yik,et al.  Knowledge and perception of operation and maintenance practitioners in Hong Kong about sustainable buildings , 2006 .

[10]  Richard P. Haigh,et al.  Tacit knowledge and organisational performance: construction industry perspective , 2007, J. Knowl. Manag..

[11]  Abbas Elmualim,et al.  The Practice of Sustainable Facilities Management: Design Sentiments and the Knowledge Chasm , 2009 .

[12]  Ganesh D. Bhatt,et al.  Managing knowledge through people , 1998 .

[13]  Malik M.A. Khalfan,et al.  MANAGING SUSTAINABILITY WITHIN CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS , 2006 .

[14]  Luc Bourdeau,et al.  Sustainable development and the future of construction: a comparison of visions from various countries , 1999 .

[15]  F. Shafii,et al.  ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION IN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA , 2006 .

[16]  Sunil S. Shah,et al.  The Practice of Sustainable Facilities Management: Design Sentiments and the Knowledge Chasm , 2009 .

[17]  Matthew Tucker.  Sustainable Practice for the Facilities Manager , 2007 .

[18]  G. O’Brien,et al.  Sustainable development: mapping different approaches , 2005 .

[19]  Per Anker Jensen.  Design Integration of Facilities Management: A Challenge of Knowledge Transfer , 2009 .

[20]  Terry Cooke-Davies,et al.  The “real” success factors on projects , 2002 .

[21]  Susanne Balslev Nielsen,et al.  Delivering Sustainable Facilities Management in Danish Housing Estates , 2009 .

[22]  Linda Tay,et al.  Facilities management: a “Jack of all trades”? , 2001 .

[23]  Salwa Mamoun Beheiry,et al.  Understanding and Interpreting Baseline Perceptions of Sustainability in Construction among Civil Engineers in the United States , 2009 .

[24]  Ganesh D. Bhatt,et al.  Knowledge management in organizations: examining the interaction between technologies, techniques, and people , 2001, J. Knowl. Manag..

[25]  K. Bussell.  Post-translational modification: Jack of all trades , 2005, Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology.

[26]  D. Myers.  A review of construction companies' attitudes to sustainability , 2005 .

[27]  J.A.G. van Kleef,et al.  Developing capabilities and competence for sustainable business management as innovation: a research agenda , 2007 .

[28]  Christopher P. Hodges,et al.  A facility manager's approach to sustainability , 2005 .

[29]  Giovanni Dosi,et al.  The nature and dynamics of organizational capabilities , 2001 .