Whole Life Project Management Approach to Sustainability

This paper investigates sustainability in building projects from a whole life project management perspective. The objective of the research is to identify unique features of whole life project management and their relationship to building sustainability by using a case study of a social housing project. The procurement method adopted in the case study is private finance initiative (PFI), which requires private contractors to manage the whole life of a project. The project reached a financial close in 2007, with a contract period of 30 years. Data were collected from multiple sources, including interviews, document reviews, and on-site visits during a three-year period. Based on seven microlevel attributes for building sustainability, data were content-analyzed to discover effective strategies used in whole life project management to achieve the sustainability objectives of the client. The PFI procurement process increased the accountability of the private contractor in sustainability, while the whole life project management approaches smoothed the progress in practicing sustainable construction. The analysis results show that the whole life project management of the different project stages contributes to seven sustainable attributes in a variety of forms.