A Maturity Model for a Sustainable Construction Industry

A MATURITY MODEL FOR A SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

by

Taha Mohamad Dahabra

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the

American University of Sharjah

College of Engineering

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Master of Science in

Engineering Systems Management

Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

May 2013

© 2013. Taha M. Dahabra. All Rights Reserved

Approval Signatures

We, the undersigned, approve the Master’s Thesis of Taha Mohamad Dahabra

Title: A Maturity Model for a Sustainable Construction Industry

Signature                                                                Date of Signature

___________________________                                        _______________

Dr. Adil Al Tamimi

Professor                                                        

Department of Civil Engineering

Thesis Advisor

___________________________                                        _______________

Dr. Salwa El Beheiry                                                        

Assistant Professor

Department of Civil Engineering

Graduate Committee

___________________________                                        _______________

Dr. Zied Bahroun

Visiting Associate Professor

Engineering Systems Management Graduate Program                                         

Graduate Committee

___________________________                                                    _______________

Dr. Md. Maruf Mortula

Associate Professor

Department of Civil Engineering                                                        

Graduate Committee

_________________________        _                                                _______________

Dr. Moncer Hariga

Engineering Systems Management Graduate Program

__________________________                                                 _______________

Dr. Hany El- Kadi

Associate Dean

College of Engineering

__________________________                                        _______________

Dr. Leland Black

Interim Dean

College of Engineering

___________________________                                        _______________

Dr. Khaled Assaleh

Director of Graduate Studies

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to extend my profound thanks and gratitude to Allah for enabling me to achieve this work in spite of the various commitments. I want to extend my special thanks to my advisor Professor Adil Al Tamimi for his guidance since the very outset. I would like also to thank my committee members Dr. Salwa Al Behiery, Dr. Md. Maruf Mortula, and Dr. Zied Bahroun for their valuable comments, reviews and suggestions that greatly helped shape this work. Finally, I wish to express my great love and sincere appreciation to my beloved parents, wife and all my family for their endless support and extraordinary patience and understanding throughout this research.

DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated to my father, role model, and best friend Mohamad Taha Dahabra, to my mother Fawzie Dahabra, and my wife Nadia Azzam. This work wouldn’t have been completed without their sacrifice, encouragement, and limitless belief in me. Dad, Mom, and my beloved wife, I will be in your debt forever. May Allah bless you All.

Abstract

Although the construction industry has provided societies with facilities and infrastructure projects that meet their needs and fulfill their requirements, created up to 7 % of the world's job opportunities, made around one-tenth of the world's Gross Domestic Product and stimulated growth of other industries, it also, in the other hand, has been proven to have a negative impact on the environment (Mthalane, 2009). The construction industry accounts for 40% of the CO2 emission worldwide, 30% of Raw material usage, 40% of energy consumption and 20% of fresh water consumption (Wilkinson and Reed, 2006).The world's countries have achieved varying levels of success in implementing sustainability in their local construction industries. However, it is still difficult to rank them based on their achievements due to the absence of a clear defined scale that all the countries can be compared to.  This thesis develops a new concept called a Mature Sustainability in Construction Industry. It also proposes a Maturity Model that can be used as a scale to evaluate how mature a country is in regard to its sustainability adaption in the local construction industry. The Model is created by studying different maturity models from other industries, and understanding how they define maturity. Furthermore, the thesis proposes a rating system that can determine a country's sustainability level using mathematical equations, and it includes a case study in which the United Arab Emirates is rated in order to show how the rating system works. The input data of the rating system was obtained by conducting a survey on different construction companies and the local public of UAE. The rating example found out that the UAE belongs to level 2, which is the "Satisfactory Level, and a Deviation from the Ideal Mature Level of 2.427.