Significant Sustainable Facilities Management (SFM) Practices in the Health Care (HC) Sector

Health Care (HC) is identified as one of the most polluting industries. HC is recognised as the second energy intensive sector emitting 8% out of total 40% of CO₂. HC is also ranked among the top 4 sources in spreading harmful substances in affecting health and wellbeing of the society. Facilities Managers are identified to be in a unique position to manage the building's operations and hence integrating sustainability in the current practice of Facilities Management (FM) in HC sector. However, identification of sustainable FM practices is challenging as FM practice differ in terms of facility type, building engineering system, organisation's business sector and culture. In this regard, the paper investigates the significant FM services and practices in integrating sustainability in HC sector.

The study used a two round Delphi survey involving 10 experts who are specialised in FM and sustainable practices in the HC sector to identify the most significant FM services and sustainability practices. The results identified 8 FM services and 44 sustainability practices as significant. Building services (BS) was identified as the most significant FM service, whist practices such as "identifying applications for energy saving measures" and "ensure appropriate onsite, off-site storage, transport of wastes" were identified as the most important sustainability practices. The results of the study will be further carried forward to a questionnaire survey to rank and assign scores for each significant sustainability practices in order to develop an assessment framework to evaluate the SFM practice in HC sector.