Effects of natural resource and environmental related regulations on the construction industry

Abstract

Construction is an industry which plays a dynamic role in development of any country. Construction industry helps to bring the development goals of the country by developing infrastructure technology, machinery, engineering and services. It creates employment opportunities. The contribution of the construction industry to the Sri Lankan economy was recorded as 6.6% in 2009 to 7.6% in 2016 towards the overall GDP during the past seven years’ time interval. Thus the industry has shown a significant impact to the country’s economy. Construction is an industry which uses natural resources in large amounts. Natural resource and environmental related regulations are implemented by the government to protect and manage the environment and natural resources efficiently and effectively. Due to the high demand of natural resources, environmental and natural resource regulation implementing agencies has been failed to manage the natural resources and environment in efficient and effective manner. Hence this study was aimed to evaluate the effect of natural resource and environmental related regulations on construction industry and to overcome the negative effects of such regulations in the construction industry. This study shows that, the National Environmental Act No 47 of 1980 has average impact to every factors in construction projects such as project cost and project quality, geographical setting of the project, and procurement of materials. This act has higher impact on the project duration. Central Environmental Authority (CEA) has been frequently engaged in the construction industry than other agencies. Over 75% of the respondents says that the application of environmental and natural recourses laws is time consuming. Further over 70% of the respondents recommend that implementing an online system is the best solution to overcome such issues. Also over 80% of the respondents ranked that the identifying the relevant criteria needed to choose the ‘’Best’’ policy including those related to political/power brings the benefits of reform process of regulation.