Quick Take
Implementing sustainability on a project level could be verified by acquiring a building certificate such as LEED or BREEAM which requires you to follow sustainability practices.
Project level
Challenges:
Be trying to acquire a sustainability certificate
Extra costs and time are required on the project to optimize the design for improved sustainability
High Resource use: Software subscriptions and extra man-hours are required as whole life assessment is complicated as a lot of topics and a lot of data should be analyzed and collected to be able to acquire a certificate that is complex in nature
Challenge of passing the sustainable certification
A long-term benefit of social impact but costs is high in capital cost
Hard, more expensive, and time-consuming to educate stakeholders and supply chain to be more sustainable to bring the overall impact of the project lower
Finding sustainable materials is hard to find based on the geographical location of the project, if it is a developing country is hard to find sustainable material
Higher risk and uncertainty of the results as innovative solutions/nonstandardized methods of design are used
Ensuring financial viability against sustainability implementation could be a barrier to acquiring financing for the project
Site availability such as sun available to implement solar panels for energy savings however environment the asset is being built in has limitations on the level and things possible to be done to reduce the environmental impact
Benefits:
Encourages decision-making at the concept stage of a project which promotes sustainability
Increase of financial profits from revenues as a higher standard of the final product
The high social reputation of the developer of the asset demonstrates a commitment to sustainability as a company
Sell expertise of knowledge of sustainable development to win future work
Is recognized by global standards by acquiring the certificates such as BREEAM
Decrease whole life costs
Less waste on-site and reduced operational costs as well as energy savings of energy loss from buildings
Automation that can increase the efficiency of material selection with sustainability in mind can also reduce simultaneously costs
Projects are more resilience for future weather events as sustainability principles will be implemented in the design and more resilient construction of the asset will be implemented
The project becomes more attractive and can get planning permission easier if it is a sustainable project
Attracts more people to leave in that project if it is a residential building
Brings a positive impact to the environment compared to other more heavy-impact projects
Organizational level
Challenges:
Common sense of objectives and collaboration is hard as people want to implement sustainability but not always to the extent of level that everyone agrees
Increase of overall costs as it requires extra thinking meaning extra billable hours
Behavioral change of people, such as time is required to train people to change perspective and start thinking more sustainably
Innovative new solutions may be hard for regulatory and standards and may increase the risk to the company to implementing these new solutions
Automations may be hard to implement in company systems such as automated calculation of carbon emissions of options, however, REVIT and BIM extensions can be optimized to do so but require expertise and a trained workforce
Politically need to change the viewpoint of sustainability as the majority of big meaningful projects are carried out by the public and they provide the majority of funding and direction of new developments
Benefits:
Reputational boost as ESG proactive corporation and cares about sustainability
Increase profitability through sustainability however it should be pointed out that pushing sustainability too hard may increase costs, this is a debate
Implementing sustainability will introduce new innovative solutions as engineers and designers need to think outside the box
More attractive to investors and attract funding internationally as sustainable developments are something everyone wants to be associated with