Peter S. P. Wong

Can a Carbon Tax Push the Australian Construction Sector toward Self-Regulation? Lessons Learned from European Union Experiences

In Australia, the introduction of a carbon tax has been coined as a righteous response to climate change. However, recent industry reports indicate that construction practitioners are opposed to the carbon tax and argue that it would be revenue-neutral. Whereas anecdotal evidence and facts about the effect of a carbon tax coexist, pragmatic solutions may be difficult to collate. This paper reports research intended to investigate the effects of the carbon tax on the Australian construction sector. Lessons learned from the European Union (EU) were reviewed. The findings from the literature review suggest that the carbon tax may provide a positive impulse for benchmarking emissions driven from construction activities. However, the experience from the EU also indicates that in response to the new tax, carbon emission-intensive industries such as construction are keen to find leeway to evade their responsibility. Whereas the carbon tax may arouse concerns within the construction sector, such concerns may not necessarily be integrated with behavioral change.

Examining the drivers and states of organizational change for greater use of prefabrication in construction projects

AbstractMany studies have focused on the technologies and reasoning behind off-site construction and failed to address the implications to organizational change. This papaer aims to investigate the...

Trusting Behaviours in Construction Contracting

Construction contracting is typically subjected to monitoring and control mechanisms. This policing contracting environment reflects the inherent distrust among the contracting parties. Paradoxically, construction project teams work best in a trusting environment because the members are mutually dependent on each other. Furthermore, where flexibility in performance is needed as in case of long-term or complex projects, trust is the necessary condition to suppress opportunism and avoid dispute. Whilst engendering trust is advocated in many industry reviews, trust in construction contracting is a myth remains the majority view within the construction community. This chapter explores the existence of trust in construction projects. Observations of trusting behaviours in construction contracting are solicited and analysed to unveil the bases on which trust can develop.

An Empirical Analysis of the Effect of Prefabrication on Fostering Sustainable Construction

While the industry professionals and government bodies have been advocating the use of prefabrication as a more sustainable option, literature indicates reducing construction time and the reliance of labours may be the true motives for pushing prefabrication forward. This study aims to investigate the roles of prefabrication in fostering sustainable construction. The effectiveness of prefabrication on fostering sustainable construction was evaluated on the five aspects enlisted by the UK’s Green Construction Board: Biodiversity, Carbon, Materials, Waste and Water. An industry survey was conducted. 200 questionnaires were sent to industry practitioners in greater Melbourne region in Australia. The results indicate that prefabrication is effective in reducing waste and fostering the use of more environmental friendly construction materials. However, respondents do not have high regard for seeing prefabrication as a way to reduce carbon, avoid water pollution and reduce the impact of the projects on biodiversity. The results from the Analysis of Variance further indicate significant different views between the developers/consultants and the contractors on the effect of prefabrication on waste reduction and the use of more environmental friendly materials. It is suggested that proactive actions should be taken at the design stage to unleash the potential of prefabrication in construction.

The Need for the Graduate Attribute Assessment Tool (GAAT)

Universities have developed sets of Graduate Attributes (GAs) to be achieved by their graduates across all programs. GAs are often associated with development of ‘sustainability’ capabilities. However, there is little indication that sustainability GAs are assessed to determine the extent of achievement, application, relevance to professional practice or to provide feed-back into curriculum design. This paper reports on the development of the Graduate Attributes Assessment Tool (GAAT) to determine achievement of the sustainability GA. The research developed, in 2016, a tool to assess the level of graduate attainment, application and use of a sustainability GA in a graduate’s workplace. The GAAT is unique as it is founded in the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The tool was trailed on a sample of RMIT graduates and assessed to determine if it was an appropriate tool. The complex nature of the sustainability GA meant that a modified version of the TPB was required. This resulted in the development of questions that required participants to reflect on their behaviour in their workplace in relation to a specific scenario. Additional questions were included to enable feed-back on curriculum to allow for modification to assist sustainability GA achievement. The GAAT pilot indicated that it provided valid outcomes of the achievement of the sustainability GA and insight for curriculum review. Development of the GAAT and its piloting have provided the basis for a practical, flexible tool for assessing sustainability GAs, and has potential for further development into a tool for assessing the wide range of university GAs.

Does carbon accounting have an impact on decision-making in building design?

ABSTRACT Carbon accounting allows for an estimation of the embodied carbon amount associated with the construction stage of project development. However, in Australia such practice is not mandatory. This research investigates if carbon accounting can affect decisions in building design. Semi-structured interviews of project managers were conducted in Melbourne, Australia. While respondents showed good understanding of energy efficiency and life-cycle costing, they appeared to have misconceptions about carbon accounting. The results of this study reveal more energy efficient building may also be more embodied carbon consuming to construct. Interviewees recognized a need for carbon accounting and suggested this would improve the scientific credibility of decision-making in building designs. However, unless required by the government regulations, carbon accounting may not attract the attention that may help drive better decisions in building designs.

Causes of Disputes in Construction Planning Permit Applications

AbstractThe planning permit mechanism has been adopted to balance the benefits between landowners and the other stakeholders regarding construction development. Like many other construction disputes, planning permit application disputes have been suggested to be resolved by negotiations. In recent years, a considerable amount of dispute cases were referred to the Australian State Civil and Administrative Tribunals that burdened the legal system. This study aims to identify the causes of disputes in planning permit applications via a new approach. Court cases in the State of Victoria, Australia, that are related to the planning permit applications were identified from the Australasian Legal Information Institute (Austlii) database system. A triangulation approach is adopted to identify the causes of planning permit disputes. The following seven major causes of disputes in planning permit applications were identified: ineffective environmental management plans, contamination concerns, pollution concerns, no...

Is mandatory alternative dispute resolution a panacea to attain effective payment dispute resolution

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) techniques like mediation, adjudication, and conciliation often appear as a voluntary option in construction contracts (Cheung 2006; Chau 2007). Essentially, a neutral third party who has relevant experience is invited to give professional advice or decision based upon the evidence and pleadings provided from the disputants (Jones 2006). However, researchers pinpointed that nonbinding decision made by the neutral third party as the major shortfall of applying ADR techniques in resolving construction payment disputes (Kennedy 2006, 2008; Tanielian 2013). In construction contracts, ADR is usually set out as a method that should firstly be adopted before disputants are empowered to proceed to arbitration or litigation. Nevertheless, contract provisions in many building contracts did not restrict main contractors and employers from overriding dissatisfactory decisions made by the neutral third party (Gaitskell 2007). Because mediation, adjudication, and conciliation are not legally binding, there is minimal enforcement to protect and ensure periodic cash flow of the contractors and the subcontractors. With this background, the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act (HGCRA) was enacted in the United Kingdom in the late 1990s. Kennedy (2006) points out that the HGCRA improved the efficiency and productivity of resolving payment disputes by way of: 1. Providing a statutory right to refer disputes to adjudication, 2. Providing the right for periodic, interim or stage payment, 3. Providing a system to determine means of valuing payments, 4. Providing the establishment of the date for payment periods, 5. Prohibiting unfair terms including pay-when-paid clauses in the contract, 6. Providing limited rights to withhold payments, and 7. Providing the right of suspending performance without penalties. Many countries have followed suit and passed their own legislation to impose a statutory use of adjudication to resolve paymentrelated disputes. Australia adopted a similar piece of legislation to tackle the growing frustration and discontent of resolving payment disputes by using arbitration and litigation (Jones 2006). The Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act was enacted in the State of New South Wales in 1999. Other states and territories introduced similar acts during early 2000s. During the same period of time, mandatory adjudication was also introduced into countries like New Zealand and Singapore (Cheung et al. 2010). Research efforts have attempted to investigate the effect of mandatory ADR on resolving payment disputes (Gaitskell 2007; Doncaster 2008). Diverse views were obtained from these studies. Indeed, countries that do not have mandatory ADR have been undergoing different pathways to tackle the problems arising from payment disputes. In the United States, the use of ADR has been confined at the contractual level. If either of the contracting parties refuses, ADR can be bypassed. A recent study also indicated that the practitioners used to rely on sophisticated process like arbitration and litigation to resolve payment disputes (Jaffe and McHugh 2010). In Hong Kong, voluntary mediation has been introduced in the standard forms of construction contracts for public projects since the early 1990s (Cheung 2006). In 2005, the private sector followed the government’s footsteps, and voluntary mediation was for the first time included in the Joint Contract Working Committee’s Standard Form of Building Contract (Cheung et al. 2010). As such, ADR is not mandatory for resolving payment disputes. The fact that different approaches are used to tackle payment disputes makes it interesting to study the underlying reasons. Studies from jurisdictions with statutory ADR suggested diverse views of mandatory use of ADR in construction dispute settlements (Jones 2006; Ndekugri and Russell 2005; Chau 2007). Case studies conducted in Australia indicate that the time limits for responding to claims through adjudication are too restrictive (Jones 2006). Similar findings were reported in a case study conducted in the United Kingdom (Ndekugri and Russell 2005). The findings indicate that some clients defied their subcontractors’ right to adjudicate. Furthermore, the adjudicator’s decisions may not be enforceable (Ndekugri and Russell 2005). Although agreeing that statutory ADR is a practical and equitable solution for resolving construction disputes, Chan (2006) asserted that the legislation inevitably violated the doctrine of freedom of contract in Singapore. As such, is mandatory adjudication a panacea for attaining effective payment dispute resolution? This special issue is aimed at publishing a collection of papers representing current research in payment dispute resolution. It focuses on the practices of payment dispute resolutions; analysis of payment in disputed cases; studying the practicability of the Security of Payment Acts and the like in various jurisdictions; the roles of adjudicators in resolving payment disputes; and the design and application of a decision support model/system in resolving payment disputes. Hopefully the articles published in this special issue can help to gain insights and shape future research direction in resolving payment-related disputes in construction projects.