Sustainability Rating System for Construction Corporations: A Best Practice Review

The incorporation of sustainability principles into project design and operation processes has been profoundly changing the construction industry. This change has caused an increasing number of projects to pursue a green certification, such as the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) and Green Globes certifications for building projects or the Green Leadership In Transportation Environmental Sustainability (GreenLITES) and Illinois-Livable and Sustainable Transportation (I-LAST) certifications for transportation and highways projects. While a great body of knowledge has been established at the construction project level, little is known regarding social and environmental responsibility at the construction corporation level. As many modern construction projects have started to favor green contractors and encourage green processes, such ignorance is cause for concern. Therefore, based on the extensive review of sustainable rating practices in other industries, such as financial services, retail industries, universities, and standardization organizations, this paper proposes a framework for a Sustainability Rating System for Construction Corporations (SRSCC) and 77 key sustainability indicators covering three dimensions of sustainability (social, environmental, and economic) and four elements of construction corporation (service/product, operation process, administration, stakeholder). With comparing this framework to existing sustainable rating systems in the construction industry, this paper delivers four insightful results, which could be used to improve the sustainable performance measurement both for the entitle construction industry and the individual corporation.