Greening the Curricula within Construction Programmes

Abstract

Improving the knowledge and understanding that construction managers possess of sustainable construction techniques and systems could lead to significant improvements in the environmental performance of the industry. Incorporating environmental issues within the construction education curricula provides an ideal mechanism for achieving this goal. It could be argued that a multi-stakeholder perspective is an effective facet of curriculum development, and that the curriculum be negotiated with interested parties. These parties have been identified as academia, government, industry and industry professional bodies. The perspectives of academia have been reviewed alongside government recommendations, and findings tested for validity via the analysis of primary quantitative data that has been collected.The data generated has illustrated that there are a number of differences in the approach to curriculum design, and that there is no ‘best practice’ clearly identifiable. This paper outlines the conclusions formed to date and describes the methodology to be used for the next stage of data collection.