INTEGRATING SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY: BENEFITS AND BARRIERS

Abstract

The concept of social sustainability often appears to be neglected in the construction industry’s quest to optimally mainstream sustainability. The paucity of studies on this concept, especially in the developing country context, is indicative of this neglect. Reasons adduced for this neglect include the inability of stakeholders to identify benefits associated with social sustainability and the opportunities available for its integration during project procurement and delivery. This observation makes this study, imperative. This phenomenological study set out to identify benefits associated with the integration of social sustainability into delivery of infrastructure projects from a client’s perspective. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from a purposively selected sample of infrastructure clients. Subsequently, the data was analysed using thematic analysis. Findings indicate that social sustainability integration in projects had the potential to bring about significant benefits, such as increased respect for people, sufficient buy-in by community, hence enabling successful project performance. Also, it was discovered that opportunities for such integration was available throughout the project delivery life-cycle. However, a low level of awareness pertaining to social sustainability in the South African construction industry was observed. It is expected that the study’s findings will contribute to engendering improved levels of awareness among infrastructure clients on the utility of such integration in their projects, especially within the South African construction industry context.