Environmental sustainability assessment of facilities management: a case of apparel industry in Sri Lanka

Abstract

With the adaptation of businesses to sustainable approaches, facility manager’s role has been expanded to be responsible for the sustainable performance of a building. Specially, escalating changes in the built environment has initiated the need of evaluating environmental sustainability (ES) of building facilities. Specially, apparel industry shows a significant impact to the environment, thus, it highlights the need of having a way to evaluate the environmental sustainability in facilities management (FM) in apparel sector. Therefore, this research was aimed to develop a model to evaluate the environmental sustainability of FM in apparel industry in Sri Lanka. By reviewing key literature, thirty-four (34) environmental sustainability indicators were identified under energy management, water management, waste management, asset management and maintenance management. Under the survey approach, pair-wise comparison through structured questionnaire was used to evaluate the identified indicators. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) tool was used to derive the relative performance scores of each ES indicator and ranked. Energy management was identified as the most significant FM function related to environmental sustainability. Energy sub-metering and application of sub-meter reading on identification of significant energy consumers, availability of waste management policy and availability of environmental impact assessment for the assets were determined as top priority indicators that need to be considered to ensure the ES of FM in apparel industry. Accordingly, the identified performance scores can be used as a basis to evaluate the ES of FM functions in order to formulate the suitable strategies to instigate the environmentally sustainable FM practices in apparel industry in Sri Lanka.