Environmental management in construction: trends, management levels, indicators

Abstract

Preservation of the natural environment largely depends on increasing the environmental responsibility of construction organizations. Statistical data show that recent years are characterized by an increase in the volume of work in the type of economic activity “Construction”, which requires organizational, legal, economic, technological, and technical measures implemented at the state, sectoral levels and in the management system of construction organizations aimed at rational environmental management. These measures relate not only to the stage of construction of facilities, but also to the period of operation of real estate, which is due to the significant resource intensity of real estate both during construction and operation throughout the life cycle. The study of the problem leads to the conclusion that the mechanism of environmental management should be formed taking into account the specifics of construction activities, ensuring safety at the stage of designing facilities, organization of the construction site, development of the construction area, implementation of process innovations in construction. In resource saving management, in addition to the investment value of an object, it is necessary to manage the costs of operating the object, which account for 75 % of the cost of ownership of the object. The principles of environmental efficiency should be reflected in the evaluation indicators of investment projects. Environmentally responsible investment can become one of the trends in the implementation of national projects, since the goals of national projects correspond to the concept of sustainable development and the balance of economic, social and environmental factors. Barriers to ESG investment in the domestic economy were identified, in particular, underestimation of the impact of these factors on the long-term financial performance of the organizations themselves. To organize an environmental management system in construction organizations, it is necessary to form a system of indicators (sustainability indicators), the presence of which will allow modelling the environmental profile of the organization. The environmental profile allows to establish a balance between external requests and the real capabilities of the organization itself. This requires not only a balanced system of environmental indicators of the organization, but also reference values of indicators that ensure the organization's competitiveness in the contract market.