Case study: measuring sustainability in a Malaysian property and construction company

The property and construction sector is known to be a laggard in the adoption of sustainability practices, possibly due to its fragmented nature. Yet there is an increasing demand from key stakeholders, such as institutional investors, as well as civil society, for greater transparency on sustainability disclosures. This paper highlights a case study conducted in a publicly listed Malaysian property and construction company on their journey towards establishing sustainability measures, in particular: the strategy adopted, the processes put in place in terms of data monitoring, challenges faced and proposed solutions. This company has developed an in-house sustainable development index (SDI) which covers a range of sustainability-related issues. The findings from this study seem to suggest as well that lower SDI scores are associated with lower take-up rates; however, high SDI scores do not necessarily lead to higher take-up rates. The approach taken by this company is comprehensive, and the metrics used, such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index or FTSE4Good Index, could be adopted by third-party rating agencies in evaluating the sustainability performance of property and construction companies. It is expected that the insights from this paper would also be useful to both construction and facility-management practitioners who are interested in benchmarking and improving their own practices.