Coordination perspective-based model for assessing dynamic sustainability of construction projects

Construction projects usually cover long implementing periods, and exert profound influence on human society and development, therefore leading to increasing concerns on dynamic sustainability over their life cycle. Sustainability of construction projects can only be achieved when the sustainability in economic, social and environmental dimensions are adequately addressed. It is therefore important to develop an effective model for understanding dynamic sustainability of construction projects with coordination perspective incorporated. In this paper, the dynamic sustainability assessment model of construction projects is proposed by adopting system dynamic and coupling coordination degree methods collectively, and the weighting values between dimensions are assigned from coordination perspective. The sustainability of a construction project is measured not only by the total value of sustainability in all dimensions, but also the coordination of sustainability between various dimensions. Moreover, according to the assessment results, an adjustment procedure is designed for simulating the formulation process of improvement strategy. The effectiveness of the developed sustainability assessment model is demonstrated with its application in three scenarios based on a case study. The results of case demonstration show that the overall sustainability value of case project is 0.63, and this value can be increased to 0.69 when effective strategies are adopted. Sustainability of the case project in environmental and social dimensions at operation and demolition stages should be enhanced. In applying the assessment model, dynamic sustainability of construction projects can be properly realized by project managers, and therefore proposing effective strategies to improve their sustainability and raise long-term value. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]