Construction Management and Economics (April 2007) 25, 399–408

Sustainable development policy perceptions and

practice in the UK social housing sector
KATE CARTER* and CHRIS FORTUNE
School of the Built Environment, Heriot-Watt University, Edwin Chadwick Building, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK

Received 1 June 2006; accepted 20 July 2006

Massive investment has been allocated by the UK government to improve the quality of its programme of
rented social housing over the next five years. Central to the achievement of this aim will be the incorporation of
sustainability features within the building projects associated with this development programme. A sustainable
development policy that addresses environment, economy and society in equal measure is a new funding
requirement for social housing projects. There is a gap between policy and practice in two areas: (i) the
possession or otherwise of a sustainable development (SD) policy; and (ii) the relative importance given to
differing features of sustainability. The perceptions and practice of built environment professionals involved in
the procurement of sustainable housing schemes has been gauged regarding SD policy. Quantitative data were
collected from a randomized sample of 338 developing registered social landlords (RSLs). The results show
that only a minority of respondent organizations have developed a sustainable development policy and that
environmental, economical and societal aspects of sustainability are not given equal weighting. This does not
reflect governmental policy and suggests that sustainability is not being fully addressed in the procurement of
social housing projects. Further work is needed to evaluate the links between sustainability and procurement
approaches, and to model the benefits of delivering sustainable housing projects for RSLs in the UK.

Keywords: Sustainability, housing development, policy, housing associations

Introduction involved in the procurement of sustainable social

housing projects.
The UK government is committed to addressing the Massive investment has been allocated by the UK
concept of sustainability in all publicly funded procure- government to improve the quality of its rented social
ment and it is developing strategies and policies to housing over the next five years. In England £38 billion
shape action on sustainable development (SD). Owing is to be invested through the ‘sustainable communities
to the deep connections between sustainability and plan’ by 2010, which includes constructing 84,000 new
housing (Ekins, 2000), the social housing sector has homes by 2008 (Housing Corporation, 2006). In
been central to the development of sustainable devel- Scotland £1.2 billion is being invested to build 21,500
opment policy. The range of principles, toolkits, new and improved homes over the next two years
definitions and agendas relating to sustainability is (Communities Scotland, 2006). The funding is to be
considerable. Most of them give equal weighting to delivered through the government’s housing agencies to
economic, social and environmental aspects. However, the many registered social landlords (RSLs) involved in
many of the toolkits so far developed are either too development projects. RSL organizations are involved
broad—aimed at policy level thinking; or overly in the commission, development, management and
complex—detailing vast lists of actions appropriate to maintenance of socially owned rented properties in the
improving sustainability. As a result there is a lack of a UK. Government funding for such projects requires
common structure or framework to assist project teams RSL organizations to ensure that sustainability issues
are addressed through the development and implemen-
tation of organizational sustainable development (SD)
*Author for correspondence. E-mail: k.carter@sbe.hw.ac.uk policies.
Construction Management and Economics
ISSN 0144-6193 print/ISSN 1466-433X online # 2007 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
DOI: 10.1080/01446190600922578
400
The requirement to deliver sustainable social housing
building projects presents challenges to the built
environment professionals involved. Translating policy
into practice requires a common understanding of the
individual features of SD policies and how these are
addressed at the building project level. In addition
there is a need to appraise which of the individual
features of sustainability are likely to be more important
to the client organizations involved. The resolution of
such challenges will contribute to the pre-contract
evaluation of sustainable projects and facilitate its
subsequent incorporation into the procurement pro-
cesses devised to deliver sustainability.
The existence and characteristics of SD policies held
by RSLs establishes the framework that these organiza-
tions apply to the delivery of sustainability in social
housing projects. Quantitative data from a large
representative sample of developing RSLs were col-
lected to analyse the balance of SD policies with respect
to economic, social and environmental factors and to
further explore the specific issues that are considered
most important to the delivery of sustainability. This
platform of current perceptions and practice in the UK
social housing sector facilitates further research related
to issues such as sustainable project procurement and
pre-contract benefit evaluation.
Literature review
The 1998 CIB World Building Congress focused on
the issue of procurement and the role it plays in the
delivery of sustainability. Pollington (1999) called for
environmental standards and ethical issues to be fully
integrated into the procurement system. Later work by
Sterner (2002) showed that as yet only 21% of clients
stipulated ‘environmental requirements’ within their
procurement strategies. However, in the UK it is the
government and its funding agencies that are cham-
pioning change by adopting sustainable development
(SD) policies themselves and looking to their project
supply chain organizations to adopt more sustainable
construction practices and processes in the delivery of
their projects. This issue was addressed by the UK
government in Building a Better Quality of Life (DETR,
2000). This report was a milestone in the development
of a more socially and environmentally responsible,
better-regarded construction industry. This publication
encouraged organizations to introduce their own SD
policies. RSLs who receive funding for social housing
developments through the government’s funding agen-
cies were at the forefront of this change.
Housing is considered to be central to the successful
delivery of sustainability. It affects quality of life and
Carter and Fortune
has implications beyond housing, affecting transport,
health, employment and community (Stevenson and
Williams, 2000). Social housing construction repre-
sents a relatively large proportion of public procure-
ment and has been recognized for its ability to address
innovation (Goodchild and Chamberlain, 1999).
Increased public funding into the UK social housing
sector coincided with a high profile campaign to
improve the sustainability of housing. The requirement
to deliver sustainable development presents a challenge
to those involved in the procurement of social housing.
World summits through the 1990s brought the issue
of sustainability into mainstream consideration and
there has been much research undertaken to align
construction industry practice with general concern for
the environment and society’s responsibility towards
future generations’ well-being and health. The
Brundtland report (1987), and the subsequent United
Nations, Agenda 21 initiative (WCED, 1993) each
indicate that sustainability needs to consider environ-
mental, economical and societal well-being with equal
weighting. Hill and Bowen’s (1997) seminal work
proposed a four pillar approach which divided environ-
mental sustainability into (i) technical, and (ii) biophy-
sical sustainability, as well as the ‘softer’ (iii) economic,
and (iv) societal aspects. The approach suggested was
supported by a lengthy and detailed framework for
attaining sustainability at construction project level.
Bourdeau (1999) acknowledged that the shortcomings
of existing knowledge relating to the ‘softer’ issues of
sustainability precluded their full consideration when
seeking to make informed decisions. Sjöström and
Bakens (1999) also called for non-technical or ‘soft’
issues relating to economic and societal impact to be
recognized at project level as they asserted that such
issues were ‘at least as crucial for a sustainable
development in construction [as technical issues]’. Du
Plessis was also deeply critical of the way in which
sustainability, at project level, was being developed
without due regard to the social impact it had. She
argued that sustainable development was in danger of
becoming just more politically correct jargon (1999,
p. 388). Venables et al. (2000) and Addis and Talbot
(2001) both maintain that a bias towards environ-
mental concerns still dominates even though policies
advocate a balanced approach to environment, econ-
omy and society. Evidence for this view was found in
Howard’s (2000) empirical study on the construction
industry’s perspective on sustainability. Environmental
factors were found to constitute five areas of concern,
while economic and social factors accounted for one
area each.
Since 1998 the social housing sector has been
inundated with advice and guidance on how to deliver
sustainability. The Housing Corporation has supported
Sustainability in the UK social housing sector
26 Innovation and Good Practice (IGP) projects
focused on sustainable development over the past year
(Housing Corporation, 2004). The Housing Forum
has 49 demonstration projects relating to sustainability,
the majority of which are social housing projects. There
is political and policy support for the goal of sustainable
development yet there is evidence that in general
practice it is a concept that is still misunderstood and
unsupported by many stakeholders in the procurement
system (Sustainable Homes, 2004, p. 2; Harris and
Holt, 1999, p. 207).
The Sustainable Housing Design Guide for Scotland
(Stevenson and Williams, 2000), the Sustainability
Policy Wizard (Talbot, 2002) and Six Steps to
Sustainable Development for Housing Associations
(Beyond Green, 2004) provide the social housing
sector a wealth of information and approaches to
addressing sustainability. The disadvantage to these
resources is that they present every possible opportu-
nity to deliver a more sustainable housing project. It is
an impossible task to incorporate all good practice into
a single project and the housing associations are left
with the difficult decision of adopting some measures
and rejecting others. In addition there are commercially
available toolkits such as BREEAM (Building Research
Establishment Environmental Assessment Method)
developed by BRE. EcoHomes is a version of
BREEAM, specifically designed for housing evaluation
(Rao et al., 2000). This assessment tool aims to balance
environmental performance with quality of life indica-
tors. The issues assessed are grouped into seven
categories: energy; water; pollution; materials; trans-
port; ecology and land use; health and well-being. The
EcoHomes tool has been well received as it provides a
grading system for potential schemes to be compared,
but it focuses heavily on environmental issues and its
output, in the form of a total score, is capable of
masking parts of the development that are not
sustainable. A further toolkit developed by Long
(2001) specifically for RSLs, consists of nine factors
aimed at the wider context of community. Core factors:
demand; reputation; and crime, reflect its broader
application and usefulness for high level strategic
decision making. The common failing of all the toolkits
considered is their focus on either broad strategic issues
or in-depth complexities. The result is a lack of a
structured framework to assist project teams involved in
the procurement of a sustainable building project.
Kibert et al. (2000) confirm that there is much to be
done to deliver sustainable construction practice at
project level as in a review of action on sustainability, it
was concluded that despite all the initiatives and
toolkits that have been developed ‘the sustainable
construction movement has barely scratched the sur-
face of creating buildings that can be remotely called
401
sustainable’. Lombardi and Brandon (2002) asserted
that the available toolkits do not address the specific
needs of an individual project. They maintained that a
suitable framework which enabled decision makers to
understand the implications of sustainability was still
needed.
The gap between the UK government policies,
strategies, initiatives, toolkits, frameworks and the
approach adopted by the social housing sector was
explored by Carter and Fortune (2006). Qualitative
data were gathered from a small number (eight) of built
environment professionals involved in the development
of sustainable housing projects for RSLs. A grounded
theory approach was taken to the identification of
real issues that project stakeholders considered in the
development of sustainable housing projects. Fourteen
features of sustainability emerged: energy efficiency;
building standards; quality of specification; mainte-
nance; insulation; funding; feedback; involvement of
tenants; fuel poverty; rent levels; mixed tenure; mixed
development; community facilities; and recycling. To
establish their applicability to the UK social housing
sector further empirical work was undertaken.
Empirical research involves the observation of real
world experiences, evidence and information (Punch,
1998). A survey questionnaire was used to examine the
emphasis these features of sustainability are given in SD
policy. Analysis provided perception of how SD policy
reflects the ‘triple bottom line’. This gave a valuable
insight into the profile of SD policy in the social
housing sector.
Survey design
Oppenheim (1992) sets out best practice in the design
of surveys in the following terms: establishing the aim
of the survey; designing and piloting the measuring
instrument; administering the survey; analysing and
disseminating the results. The aims of the survey were
established as (i) to collect data from the real world that
could be used to assess the significance of individual
features of sustainability; and (ii) to ascertain the
emphasis, in terms of environmental, social and
economic aspects of SD policies developed and used
by RSL organizations involved in developing sustain-
able rented housing projects in the UK. The design of
the questionnaire allowed data to be collected around
these key themes.
The questionnaire was concerned with the collection
of perception and meaning in the subjective area of
sustainability and its understanding and application.
The scale of the survey and the underlying aim of
ranking sustainability features called for the use of
402 Carter and Fortune

attitudinal measuring Likert scales. Such scales provide

a number of options for the respondent to select. The
main variable in the survey was identified as being the
respondents’ size of organization.
The survey was piloted among a group of 15 RSLs.
The respondents were asked to complete the ques-
tionnaire and make comments on the content, layout
and rationale of the questions. Each respondent
completed a feedback sheet and the responses and
comments were used to develop the final questionnaire.
The finalized questionnaire was dispatched with a
covering letter that was addressed to the development
manager of each organization included in the sample
frame that explained the purpose of the research.
The UK social housing sector consists of over 1,800
RSLs. The number of developing organizations
amounts to more than half of this total. Therefore a
database of the 998 developing RSLs in the UK was
Figure 1 Number of units owned by the RSL
established from published sources and it was used to
select a randomized sample of 332 developing RSLs
criteria from the housing agencies. This result might
each with a stock of more than 20 dwellings for the
reflect the need for regulatory input in order to effect
survey. The first administration of the survey generated
change or it may indicate that RSLs without a SD
a 25% response rate to the survey which was considered
policy were not intending to remain a developing RSL
to be inadequate. A second administration was under-
into the future.
taken and this increased the final response rate to 36%.
The extent to which SD policies reflect environ-
This level of response, although not high, is typical of
mental, economical and societal aspects of sustainable
survey response rates reported for similar construction
development is a measure of how these factors are
management research. As a result it was deemed
prioritized for typical new housing schemes.
acceptable in terms of providing a reasonable repre-
Respondents were asked to indicate the balance of
sentation of the survey population.
their policy by marking the proportion of segments on
the questionnaire form that was relevant to each aspect
of sustainability within their policy documents
Respondent characteristics
(Figure 2). This was designed to evaluate the emphasis
that their organization put on each of the ‘triple bottom
The number of properties owned by each respondent’s
line’ aspects of sustainability.
organization ranged between 26 and over 10,000 units
The results indicate that there was a predominance
(Figure 1). The majority of respondents owned
of SD policies with significance being given to one or
between 2,500 and 10,000 units. The other respondent
more of the economic, social and environmental
groups were generally almost equal in size (between
aspects of sustainability. Only 37% of respondents
12.5% and 15%). A comparison of the survey results
allocated three segments to each category giving equal
with the profile of developing RSLs held on the
emphasis for their sustainable development policy. The
national database confirmed that the sample of
histogram for environment is skewed to the right and
respondents was representative of that population. Of
represents a tendency for respondents to score envir-
this sample 92% confirmed that they were intending to
onment more highly in their SD policies. The
develop new housing projects and this confirmed the
validity of the sample.

Characteristics of sustainable development

policies

Fewer than half of the respondents (48%) had a SD

policy. Although it was not the case at the time of the Figure 2 Balance of sustainable development policy dia-
survey, a SD policy is now one of the key funding gram (from questionnaire)
Sustainability in the UK social housing sector 403

histograms for social and economic are skewed to the left.

This reflects a tendency to score them less prominently
in the respondent organizations SD policies. Figure 3
shows the mean score for environment was found to be
higher than the scores for social or economic. This
indicates a greater number of respondents placing a
greater emphasis on environment. However, the stan-
dard deviation of 1.1453 indicates the widest spread of
responses.
Figure 4 shows that the mean score for social was the
closest in value to a score of 3 (2.895). This indicates
the largest percentage of respondents scoring 3 for this
aspect. The standard deviation was the lowest of the
three aspects indicating the narrowest range of
responses. Figure 5 shows that the mean score for
economic aspects of 2.579 was the lowest of the three.
There was a higher number of responses lower than 3.
The standard deviation of 0.9518 indicates a spread of
responses greater than environment but less than social.
Figure 4 SD balance: social

(5) to unimportant (1). The neutral category (3) was

Sustainable development features and their
importance ranking
The earlier grounded theory study identified 14
features of sustainability that were considered impor-
tant to the procurement of social housing and the
delivery of sustainability. By assessing each feature of
sustainability and its importance to the sustainable
development policy of their organization, the respon-
dents enabled a more detailed understanding of the SD
policies to emerge. A five-point Likert scale was
adopted for the responses which ranged from essential
important.
The majority of respondents considered all of the
features to be important, very important or essential. Ten
of the 14 features had at least 91% of respondents in
agreement on their importance. This result confirmed
the importance of the features of sustainability to the
social housing sector. A very small percentage of
respondents believed some of the features to be either
secondary or unimportant. These features were (i)
building standards (2%); (ii) funding (9%); (iii) feed-
back (1%); and (iv) involvement of tenants (4%). This

Figure 3 SD balance: environment Figure 5 SD balance: economic

404 Carter and Fortune

further validates the relevance of the features and Primary hypotheses

confirms their overall importance to sustainability in
the procurement process.
To determine the relative importance of each of the
features a simple weighting was attached to each
category in the Likert scale that allocated a score from
one to five. A cumulative score for each feature was
calculated to derive a score to prioritize the features.
Each response rate was multiplied by the weighting
score to establish a score for each category (Table 1).
All the category scores were added together to provide a
total score for each feature. The three most important
features of sustainability emerged as energy efficiency;
building standards; and quality of specification. The
lowest scoring feature was recycling.
The respondents were offered the opportunity to add
any features of sustainability to the list provided in the
questionnaire. Only six respondents provided addi-
tional features and they included issues such as
transport, water efficiency, energy efficiency, commu-
nity centre/facilities, social activities and awareness
raising. The only ‘new’ feature that emerged was
transport, which was considered very important by
only one respondent. The remaining features that
emerged from the questionnaire could be integrated
within the already identified features. This gives more
weight to the set of features established from the
grounded theory work.
Data analysis and discussion
Field (2000) indicates that the results of a data
collection exercise need to be explored to reveal
whether suggested trends in the data indicate signifi-
cant relationships between variables.
The basic hypotheses of the survey were as follows:
(1) SD policies were more likely to be found in large
RSL organizations.
(2) SD policies were based on the triple bottom
line—providing SD policies with equal emphasis
on environmental, economic and social aspects.
Null hypotheses were established for each of the
hypotheses indicated above. Statistical Package for the
Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to determine whether
the probabilities of the results (P-value of 0.05 or less)
could be considered significant. The data collected
were ordinal in nature. A Kolmogorov–Smirnov test
revealed that the survey data were non-normal in their
distribution. As a result it was decided to apply non-
parametric tests. Chi-square, Cramer’s V and Kendall’s
tau tests were used on the data. The chi-square test
measured if there was a significant association between
two variables but not the strength of any association.
The strength of association between two variables was
tested with the Cramer’s V test. The third statistical
test used on the data was the Kendall’s tau test to
determine the strength and direction of any covariance.
Respondent organizational characteristics
The responses to the survey presented data on the size
of the RSL organization. It was decided to group the
categories used in the original data collection into three
organizational size bands—small (23 respondents),
medium (36 respondents) and large (55 respondents).
This recoding was used as a major variable in the
subsequent analysis and it allowed relationships to be

Table 1 Responses and weighted scoring on importance of the features of SD policy

Unimportant Secondary Important V. Important Essential Total score
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Energy efficiency 10 43 45 397
Building standards 1 1 13 40 44 383
Quality of specification 15 43 41 377
Maintenance 22 47 30 338
Insulation 23 47 29 333
Funding 1 8 22 35 32 317
Feedback 1 24 41 30 316
Involving tenants 4 27 32 36 316
Fuel poverty 1 31 46 20 286
Rent levels 1 3 35 36 24 271
Mixed tenure 7 16 24 34 16 255
Mixed development 6 14 31 33 13 231
Community facilities 2 14 39 29 13 211
Recycling 13 51 24 9 167
Other 3 1 2
Sustainability in the UK social housing sector 405

examined between the differing sizes of organization
commonly involved in the delivery of social housing
projects.
SD policies and organizational size
The data results revealed a high percentage of RSLs
without a SD policy. Analysis was conducted
to establish if there was any relationship between
the size of organization and the existence of a
SD policy. Table 2 illustrates a cross tabulation of the
two variables, size of RSL and sustainable development
policy.
The percentages indicate that as the size of organiza-
tion increases a higher percentage have a SD policy.
Only 26% of small RSLs have a SD policy, whereas
55% of large RSLs and 42% of medium RSLs already
have a policy. A Cramer’s V test was conducted to
establish if a significant relationship existed between
the size of organization and the existence of a policy.
The value of the coefficient is low (closer to 0 than 1)
and the significance is more than 0.05. So, although the
figures suggest a correlation, a significant relationship
did not exist between the size of organization and the
existence of a sustainable development policy. This
result may well reflect the funding situation at the time
of the questionnaire’s administration and as such the
result may well alter if the questionnaire were to be
repeated in the current funding climate. The UK
government funding agencies now allocate funds
conditional on the existence of such organizational
SD policies.
SD policies are based on the triple bottom line—providing
equal emphasis on environmental, economic and social
aspects of sustainability
The balance of SD policy was of interest because the
literature reviewed revealed that government housing
agency policies were strongly in support of equal merit
being given to social, economic and environmental
aspects of sustainability. The analysis of the data was
carried out to establish if there was a correlation
between the size of organization and the balance of the
policy.
Owing to the large number of permutations, it was
decided to reorganize the data to define the policy
balance in one of three categories—balanced, small
emphasis and strong emphasis (Figure 6). Balanced
indicated a policy with equal scoring for each aspect of
sustainability, i.e. a 333 segment return (Figure 2).
Small emphasis represented a policy that scored either
plus one or minus one in any aspect away from a
balanced policy position, i.e. 432 or 324. Strong
emphasis represents a policy that scored two or more
in either direction away from a balanced policy
position, i.e. 531 or 711. The total score always added
to nine.
Although balanced policies made up over a third of
all responses (35%), a large proportion of policies had
either a small (31%) or strong emphasis (27%) on one
or more of the aspects of sustainability. Table 3 shows
that the null hypothesis stated that the RSLs would
have policies that were not equally balanced. This null
hypothesis could not be rejected and it is clear that the

Table 2 Size of RSL sustainable development policy: cross-tabulation

Sust. development policy Total
Yes No No response
Small RSLs Count 6 16 1 23
Expected count 10.3 12.5 0.2 23.0
% within recode to SML 26.1% 69.6% 4.3% 100.0%
Medium RSLs Count 15 21 0 36
Expected count 16.1 19.6 0.3 36.0
% within recode to SML 41.7% 58.3% 0.0% 100.0%
Large RSLs Count 30 25 0 55
Expected count 24.6 29.9 0.5 55.0
% within recode to SML 54.5% 45.5% 0.0% 100.0%
Total Count 51 62 1 114
Expected count 51.0 62.0 1.0 114.0
% within recode to SML 44.7% 54.4% 0.9% 100.0%
% of total 44.7% 54.4% 0.9% 100.0%
Statistics Value Approx. sig.
Nominal by nominal Phi 0.279 0.064
Cramer’s V 0.197 0.064
Contingency Coefficient .269 0.064
N of valid cases 114
406 Carter and Fortune

if the policies that had strong emphasis in any particular

aspect were linked to the age of a policy, but there was
no significant relationship. The Kendall’s tau-b test
resulted in a very small positive correlation of 0.019
with a P of 0.832.
The three main aspects of sustainability were in effect
in competition with one another within SD policies. A
high incidence of policies had emphasis on one of the
main aspects of sustainability. Investigation into the
way in which respondents sacrificed one aspect in
favour of another allows us to understand the strength
of relationships between aspects of sustainability.
Table 4 shows the results of a Kendall’s tau-b test
and demonstrates that the relationship between envir-
onment and the other two aspects of sustainability were
the strongest and were statistically significant. Both
correlations were negative, as would be suspected, and
economic had the highest likelihood of being sacrificed
in favour of the environment. The relationship between
social and economic aspects within SD policy balance
was found to be not significant.

Conclusions

Figure 6 Balance of SD policy by size of RSL
balanced approach promoted by the housing agencies
was not being implemented as standard by the survey’s
respondents. A correlation was conducted to determine
The RSL sector has a well-developed SD policy
framework supported by a broad range of guidance.
Despite this there is still a gap between policy and
practice. The SD policies emerging from individual
RSLs are emphasizing environmental aspects of

Table 3 Correlation of policy emphasis and size of RSL

Policy emphasis Total
Strong emphasis Small emphasis Balance
Recode to SML Small RSLs 2 7 5 14
Medium RSLs 10 11 9 30
Large RSLs 15 13 21 49
Total 27 31 35 93
Value Approx. T(b) Approx. sig.
Ordinal by ordinal Kendall’s tau-b 0.019 0.212 0.832

Table 4 Correlation of social, economic and environmental aspects of SD policies

Kendall’s tau-b Social Economic Environment
Social Correlation coefficient 1.000 20.167 20.407(**)
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.062 0.000
N 95 95 95
Economic Correlation coefficient 20.167 1.000 20.547(**)
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.062 0.000
N 95 95 95
Environment Correlation coefficient 20.407(**) 20.547(**) 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.000 0.000
N 95 95 95
Sustainability in the UK social housing sector
sustainability while social and economic aspects were
sacrificed. Balanced policies were found in only a third
of all cases.
Practitioners prioritizing individual features of sus-
tainability consistently ranked environmental features
more highly than a range of social and economic
features. This imbalance is found repeatedly in the
literature on sustainability. However, in the context of
social housing it is surprizing that social factors are not
ranked more highly. This may be explained by the
intrinsic ‘social’ nature of the housing projects and that
it is not perceived necessary to prioritize this through a
separate sustainable development policy. Economic
factors were generally ranked in the middle. Many of
the highly ranked environmental features had a strong
technical bias which reflects the fourth ‘pillar’ advo-
cated by Hill and Bowen (1997). This suggests that the
‘triple bottom line’ needs to be expanded to include the
technical bias of construction procurement delivery.
In order to address the ‘gap’ that exists between
established policy and practice, there must be cogni-
sance of the fact that not all features of sustainability
considered ‘important’ can be prioritized. Individual
projects will have specific issues that are of particular
importance. A framework is required to map project-
specific issues against policy issues. This will enable an
assessment of progress in each individual project
towards overarching policy objectives.
Large RSLs were more likely to have a SD policy.
They are better equipped to respond to policy devel-
opment and are increasing their share of the overall
social housing development programme. Funding
regimes appear to be increasingly aligned to asset-
based strength which will continue this trend. In the
future this will impact on the way in which sustain-
ability is addressed in social housing. Small scale
projects which have traditionally encouraged innova-
tion will become less evident.
A similar study to establish and evaluate the links
between sustainability and certain procurement
approaches, such as partnering, could provide a useful
insight into the perceptions of where sustainability can
be best delivered in socially owned housing projects.
The establishment of the most important features of
sustainability and their relative significance in the SD
policies of housing project client organizations provides
a platform for further research into modelling the
benefits of delivering sustainable housing projects for
RSLs in the UK.
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