Critical factors for environmental performance assessment (EPA) in the Hong Kong construction industry

With the rise in the public concern on environmental protection, more construction firms start to apply environmental management for their construction activities. As a result, environmental management systems (EMS) have been implemented in construction. However, to improve the construction environment in Hong Kong, environmental performance assessment (EPA) has been designed for reviewing, monitoring, checking and evaluating environmental performance. A list of evaluation factors for EPA are identified and grouped into seven major factors: management and training; air and noise; auditing; waste and water; cost saving on resources; energy; and regulation. The results from a survey highlight that the most important evaluation factor is management and training and the least significant result is regulation. A voluntary approach has been promoted instead of the traditional mandatory system. Furthermore, three case studies are used to test the reliability with seven groups of evaluation factors in measuring the environmental performance for construction. The results from the case study analysis proved the effectiveness of the developed environmental performance assessment. Therefore, the developed environmental performance assessment can benefit the construction industry and help to achieve continuous improvement on environmental performance.