THE STUDY OF SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION PRACTICES IN INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS

Sustainable construction is the kind of construction aiming to reduce the environmental impacts of a building over its entire lifetime while optimizing the economic viability, safety and comfort of its occupants. In different types of infrastructure projects, sustainability is important in ensuring the efficiency of the particular infrastructure in the long term while reducing pollution and waste to the environment. The purpose of this research is to study the sustainable construction practices in all types of infrastructure projects and how it affects the environment, social and economy. Besides that, problems of ineffective construction in infrastructure projects are discussed. Solutions to solving these ineffective constructions are deliberated. All the data obtained is analysed into different forms using selected methodology namely research, data collection and analysis. Relative importance index (RII) is calculated for each cause and effect of unsustainable infrastructures and we can determine the top 3 causes and effects. SPSS software is used to the analyse the data where the mean and standard deviation is calculated and standard deviation is used to determine the higher ranking of causes and effects to unsustainable infrastructures if there are any factors with the same value of relative importance index. The top three causes of unsustainable infrastructures are lack of communication, inadequacy of standards and regulations and high initial cost of the infrastructures. The top three effects of unsustainable infrastructures are annihilation of natural habitats, increase of logging activities or replacement of old buildings and high energy consumption in buildings. Levels of success of proposed solutions are determined and the top 5 solutions are maintaining the biodiversity and ecology near the site location, use of renewable energy with least environmental effects, use of recycled building components that are bio-degradable, design infrastructures for adaptability and disassembly and optimizing the infrastructure configuration for optical performance. These causes and effects of unsustainable infrastructures are important for us to determine the solutions from the top ranked factors and to successfully apply sustainable construction practices into infrastructure projects to preserve the environment, securing the economy and promoting social development.