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The recession in the late 1990s in Hong Kong has triggered many commercial building owners to cut operation and maintenance (O&M) cost via outsourcing. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dominant expenditure on O&M service and examine the relation between extent of outsourcing and rental income of the buildings.

Experienced O&M practitioners were interviewed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data of the commercial buildings they looked after. The in‐house and outsourced O&M costs, air‐conditioning energy costs, rental incomes, and management and air‐conditioning fees for the buildings were analysed.

The total air‐conditioning O&M cost is the principal cost item, with the energy cost being the dominant element. The analysis reveals that the extent of outsourcing bore little correlation with the air‐conditioning O&M cost and the rental income.

Further work may take a similar approach to identify the extent and effect of outsourcing other kinds of services that underpin the core business of an organisation.

Varying the extent of outsourcing O&M service was found to be unpromising for enhancing rental performance or cutting O&M expenditure. This is an important point that the building managers should address when considering whether to go for outsourcing.

The findings imply that in the building O&M service industry, it would be more economical to outsource or undertake in‐house the vast majority of O&M work. The focus for cost minimization should be to improve building energy performance rather than reducing labour resources through outsourcing.

The paper aims to describe a research study on the impacts of different facility service procurement methods on the perceived performance of hospital engineering services (HES). The procurement methods examined include in‐house organization by hospital staff and through a service level agreement with a government agency, each with and without outsourcing from private sector services providers works for some trades of HES.

Performance of HES was measured by end‐users' perception obtained through a questionnaire survey. Statistical analysis of the perceived performance scores given in the 444 questionnaire returns was carried out to yield evidence in support of the hypotheses under test.

The main hypothesis tested was that given the unified management and monitoring system used among the hospitals and the low tolerance for inadequate HES performance in healthcare settings, there should be minimal differences in the perceived performance of the HES despite the fact that facility services for the HES were procured through different methods, which was shown to be largely valid by the survey findings. The second hypothesis tested was that good or poor performance would be dominated by the nature of different trades of HES, which was also validated by the survey findings.

Due to the small number of users involved for some trades of HES, the uncertainties in some mean performance scores are relatively large.

The findings allowed the hospital administration to focus on costs in measuring the cost effectiveness of HES provisions in its hospitals.

A situation that involves co‐existence of different procurement methods is hard to find, and thus the findings are valuable. The performance scores found in the study can be used for benchmarking performance of HES in future.

To explain the recent emergence of the trend of outsourcing for building services operation and maintenance (O&M) work for commercial buildings in Hong Kong and to predict its future development.

Based on economic theories, the authors' understanding of buildings and building services O&M in Hong Kong and information regarding property, companies and manpower statistics, the increasing use of outsourcing is explained with a prediction of its implications for industry stakeholders and future trends.

Reports the common operation and maintenance organization for small, medium and large commercial buildings and explains the relation between outsourcing and the recent economic downturn and sharp cuts in O&M expenditure. Analyses the factors influencing O&M costs and predicts that the trend of outsourcing will continue if contractors keep on upgrading their knowledge and skills to provide quality services more economically than the in‐house workforce.

The explanation and prediction rely greatly on economic theories and the authors' knowledge and observations from industry, yet the reason for outsourcing and the factors influencing O&M costs are unveiled.

The findings have exposed implications for building owners and O&M practitioners as a result of the outsourcing trend, on top of establishing a rigid framework for future practical research in the area.

This paper explains the prime motive for outsourcing building services O&M work for commercial buildings, predicts future trends and reveals the implications for stakeholders in the O&M industry in Hong Kong.

To investigate the knowledge and perception of serving and prospective operation and maintenance (O&M) practitioners about the key aspects of sustainable buildings, and to study the contribution of the current education and training means to their knowledge level.

A self‐administered questionnaire survey was conducted on full‐time practitioners attending continuous professional development (CPD) courses related to building services engineering (BSE) or facilities management (FM); full‐time practitioners studying part‐time on undergraduate BSE/FM courses; and full‐time undergraduate BSE/FM students. A total of 168 responses were collected and analysed.

The respondents were largely unaware of the initiatives for promoting building environmental performance and sustainability. Their knowledge level about sustainable buildings was generally low and bore little correlation with their work experience, attendance to CPD training and undergraduate studies that they attended. Good O&M for buildings was perceived by both O&M practitioners and building designers to be highly relevant to sustainable buildings.

Further research is required to study how the education and training means should be revamped and coordinated to tailor for the O&M practitioners. More stringent CPD requirements by relevant professional bodies would help motivate the practitioners to continuously acquire knowledge which is essential for making buildings sustainable.

The findings have unveiled the need for tailor‐made undergraduate and CPD training programmes to effectively enhance the knowledge of O&M practitioners.

This paper presents an unpopular but important research which uncovered the state of knowledge and perception of O&M practitioners, who play a crucial role in realizing the goal of sustainable buildings.

The purpose of this paper is to narrow the diverse views of the industry stakeholders on two controversial issues, namely the scope of core competence of building services engineers (BSEs) and the statutory role that they should play, which were encountered in an extensive research study on the building services profession of Hong Kong.

An expert panel was formed and the Delphi method was applied to resolve the controversies. In the Delphi process, every panel member was provided with complete opinions expressed by all other panel members in each round of the deliberation.

Sufficient support was found for the proposition that professional BSEs should be competent in handling air‐conditioning, electrical, fire services, and plumbing & drainage works, and that the government authorities should mandate the design and compliance certification of electrical and fire services installations by BSEs.

Although the Delphi method has not been hitherto applied to resolve the controversies addressed in the study, it was proven to be a very effective tool in seeking majority opinions from a group of experts. The same approach may be taken in similar studies in future.

The core competence identified should be made as a minimum requirement for practitioners who wish to practise as professional BSEs. The views and comments given by the expert panel members are informative references to public policy makers.

This was the first ever study conducted in an attempt to identify the core competence and statutory role of BSEs in Hong Kong.

Worldwide, many carbon audit guidelines have been developed, but comparative reviews of these guidelines and empirical findings of carbon emissions from hotels remain limited. The aim of the study reported here was to bridge these knowledge gaps.

A comparative review of the legislations and guidelines for carbon audits in Australia, the UK and Hong Kong was made. An empirical audit, which entailed a series of site visits and interviews for collecting the record data of a typical hotel in Hong Kong, was conducted to identify the sources and amounts of carbon emissions from the hotel.

Conducting carbon audits for buildings in Hong Kong is entirely voluntary. Reporting of certain scopes of carbon emissions is at the sole discretion of the reporting party. Purchased electricity for the hotel is the dominant source of carbon emissions.

Audits in future may follow the reported audit process to identify carbon emissions from other hotels to enlarge the pool of empirical findings, which is a prerequisite to developing carbon emission benchmarks and carbon footprint analyses.

The suggestions made for overcoming the obstacles found from the audit are crucial for performing smoother and more complete audits in future.

The review findings and the practical problems identified are useful information for the stakeholders of carbon audits, including policy makers and facilities management practitioners.

The survey reported here is intended to obtain an understanding of the general public's perception about building services and building services practitioners in Hong Kong.

Targeting a sampling error of within ±1 per cent at a confidence level of 95 per cent, a team of six surveyors conducted face‐to‐face interviews with 751 laypersons at places around 11 residential estates.

Over 90 per cent of the general public know the presence of various building services installations in buildings and 12 per cent know that building services is the collective name of such installations. The general public are satisfied with the operability and reliability of building services installations but are just marginally satisfied with their performance at higher levels, such as energy conservation and indoor air quality control.

A paucity of teenagers know about building services, which is a concern to the future development of both the building services profession and the facilities management (FM) industry in Hong Kong. Future work may investigate the situation in other regimes with a similar FM setting and study on how the profession is perceived for buildings with restricted access to the general public. Operation and maintenance personnel of the FM offices, who are approached by most people when problems with building services installations arise, are the key on the perceived image of building services professionals.

In addition to informing higher educational institutes the need to reinforcing promotion of building services engineering to school leavers, the findings can help professional institutions in formulating how the social status of building services engineers may be raised.

This paper aims to investigate the main associations between research regarding innovation and green supply chain management (GSCM).

For this the study sought to (1) present the most cited authors in the area; (2) demonstrate the main localities that develop research with this focus; (3) list the main journals with the published research on the themes. The methodology used was a bibliometric survey using the Scopus database as the data source. The VOSviewer® software was used to perform the analysis of the database from the respective DOI® of each article.

As results of the research, it is possible to demonstrate the existence of an agglomeration of countries that are interrelated in the development of research on these themes, especially China, the United States and the United Kingdom as the main foundations of this center.

This paper evidences the direction of scientific research within the analyzed area, demonstrating where there is convergence for innovation in actions related to GSCM. This guidance may demonstrate possible existing and unexplored gaps so that researchers can direct future research or check gaps to be filled by the development of new processes.

Due to the different institutional pressure such as those from market, regulations and competitors, companies have implemented green supply chain management (GSCM). Unfortunately, tens of GSCM practices exist. Whether all companies should implement GSCM and how to achieve both environmental and economic performance are still not clear for many companies. The purpose of this paper is to develop models that can be helpful for companies to identify right GSCM practices and implement GSCM effectively and efficiently.

Based on about 18 years of study on GSCM with four surveys in China in 2001, 2005, 2012 and 2016, as well as numerous site visits and interviews mainly in China but also in Japan, Germany and Canada, this paper explores institutional drivers as well as opportunities and challenges using theoretical analysis and case studies. GSCM is defined considering a product life cycle. A key three-step GSCM approach is theoretically developed considering opportunities and challenges through life cycle analysis (LCA) of a product and position of a company.

All companies should implement GSCM practices to avoid risks. To effectively implement GSCM practices, a company should understand the life cycle of its product and its position in the supply chain. A key three-step LCA-based approach can help companies to identify the critical GSCM practices.

A key three-step LCA-based approach for GSCM implementation is originally developed based on theoretical analysis and eight years of study.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the perception of tradespeople about project-specific constraints (PSCs) influencing construction productivity in Nigeria.

Using a qualitative descriptive survey comprising face-to-face semi-structured interviews and a purposive sampling method, views of eight groups of tradespeople and seven project managers on live construction projects in Nigeria were collected. The study used conventional content analysis with the aid of NVivo 12 pro computer software for the analysis.

The research evaluated the PSCs and their effect on construction productivity of tradespeople. The findings identified five key PSCs, namely: lack of promotions/reward system, unsafe/poor health condition of workers, delay in material availability, inadequate site amenities and an ageing workforce. These results support earlier research on constraints influencing labour productivity, however, the poor health condition of workers and material unavailability appear to be more unique when compared to other previous studies.

The study focussed on the Federal Capital Territory Abuja and the Lagos State of Nigeria. It provides insight into the PSCs influencing the productivity of tradespeople in the Nigerian construction industry. Further research to identify the PSCs in depth, in the Eastern part of Nigeria is necessary.

The PSCs influencing tradespeople’s productivity was identified. The level of the relative impact of the PSCs is expected to guide the project team in addressing the PSCs in a method that is cost effective.

This study is original research that has underlined some areas of improvement in construction project performance.