Addressing the capital cost barrier to sustainable construction

This paper aims to address the capital cost barrier to sustainable construction (SC). Concepts and processes associated with sustainable construction, value management (VM) and total quality management (TQM) have been integrated into a novel approach to whole life cost reduction based on a framework and three supporting processes aimed at improving project management understanding and decision making. Data collection was a triangulated approach across three stages: focus groups (23 participants); Delphi study (8 participants – 2 rounds); and validation questionnaire (20 respondents). The research revealed that the capital cost of a LEED silver certified building in Jordan is around 20–25% over the traditional buildings' capital cost. However, the increased capital cost that clients’ in Jordan consider being acceptable for LEED is 5–10% - irrespective of the savings in operational costs.