Sustainability and investment appraisal for housing regeneration projects

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the selection and use, in practice, of appraisal frameworks regarding sustainability evaluation in UK social housing sector projects, which have been advocated by academics as a means of ensuring that business decisions related to potential built environment projects are driven by best value rather than lowest cost. It also seeks to identity the key features of sustainability as assessed at the project feasibility stage. The research context is housing regeneration projects undertaken by UK social housing providers. Design/methodology/approach – Using a quantitative approach, a survey was conducted of 481 built environment professionals working within the UK social housing sector, which generated an overall response rate of 24 per cent. Findings – The survey results revealed that few toolkits and models developed by academe to facilitate the development and evaluation of sustainability-led building projects have so far been adopted. The impact of organisati...