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Sustainability Management Activity Zone (SMAZ)
Malik Khalfan (Salford)
Tasks related to sustainability were identified and refined for the whole construction process at project level and were integrated with the Process Protocol (a generic design and construction process map). The overall aim was to develop these activities thus bringing awareness of sustainability to the construction process and its practice at a specific project level. The main purpose of developing SMAZ was to make sustainability one of the management areas within the Process Protocol, which would then drive all construction projects towards more sustainable construction practices.
Development of SMAZ
SMAZ was first developed in the form of a matrix and then further refined into a full activity zone within the Process Protocol at Loughborough University, UK.
The final version of SMAZ’s first and second level of activities is the outcome of the following: a literature review; analysis of C-SanD Project’s first and second round of interviews; participation in real project meetings of industrial partners; review of available sustainability checklists, indicators and assessment tools; in-house workshops with the C-SanD project team at Loughborough University; and further validation with 20 construction related organisations. The criteria, which was used to identify and putting the activities in place, was to see the relevance in terms of; how those activities affect the whole or part of construction process at project level; how the affects and changes be measured and monitored; how they are related to the wider sustainability objectives; and how they fulfil the needs/requirements of client/customers and current legislation.
Once the basic framework was developed and checked through in-house workshops, it was validated within the construction industry to check its relevance, practicality, and use. Organisations such as local councils, consultants, contractors, etc. took part in the validation process. The validation was done in two stages: the first stage involved about half of the selected organisations and resulted in an interim version of SMAZ; the second stage then involved the rest for further refinements. The selection of the organisations was random, except for the C-SanD project partners.
Download pdfs of SMAZ activities
