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Leblanc, H, Nitithamyong, P and Thomson, C (2010) Developing a knowledge management framework to promote sustainable social housing refurbishment practices. In: Egbu, C (Ed.), Proceedings 26th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-8 September 2010, Leeds, UK. Association of Researchers in Construction Management, Vol. 2, 819–28.
- Type: Conference Proceedings
- Keywords: knowledge management; project process; refurbishment; social housing; sustainability
- ISBN/ISSN: 978-0-9552390-4-5
- URL: http://www.arcom.ac.uk/-docs/proceedings/ar2010-0819-0828_Leblanc_Nitithamyong_and_Thomson.pdf
- Abstract:
In the UK, new builds add, at most, 1% per year to existing building stock, representing a microcosm of the total stock. To achieve the government’s ambitious carbon emission reduction targets over the next decade the existing stock must therefore be treated as a priority. However, sustainable refurbishment practices remain underdeveloped and relatively limited, particularly within the social housing sector. Despite its recognized capacity for innovation, this sector has not implemented sustainable principles at the core of its refurbishment practices despite changes in public procurement designed to encourage such principles. This is partly because of the limited and ineffective communication of information and knowledge regarding sustainability between social housing practitioners. This paper presents a methodology for developing a framework to improve knowledge management (KM) for social housing practitioners. The framework is focused on facilitating the sharing of sustainability information and knowledge during the undertaking of refurbishment projects. The paper also discusses the preliminary findings of recent research based on semi-structured interviews undertaken on a sample of social housing experts to examine the rationale for refurbishment, procurement strategies, and types of refurbishment projects. The findings identify eight main drivers for refurbishment and five social housing refurbishment (SHR) project types and they reveal that social housing providers use different competitive procurement strategies to achieve sustainable practices.