In the quest to promote constant value for money, value management (VM) has been proposed and adopted within the construction industry of countries across the world. To improve the VM process for a more effective outcome, pervasive digital technologies can be employed throughout a project and in the VM process. However, developing countries like South Africa are still lagging in using these emerging technologies. Therefore, this study assessed the digital technologies that can improve the VM process and the barriers hindering their usage within the construction industry. The study adopted a postpositivism philosophical stance with a questionnaire used to gather quantitative data from construction professionals that have participated in VM exercises within the South African construction industry. The data gathered were analysed using mean item score, standard deviation, the Kruskal-Wallis H-test, multiple linear regression and exploratory factor analysis. The study found with high predictive accuracy that digital technologies such as computer-based software, BIM, mobile devices, electronic meeting tools, cloud computing, augmented and virtual realities will significantly impact the overall success of VM practices. Furthermore, the barriers to the effective deployment of these technologies in the VM process can be categorised into (1) cost and awareness, (2) complexities of the VM and digital tools, (3) the construction industry’s digital culture, and (4) the availability of technology and expertise. This study provides a theoretical backdrop for future studies exploring the use of digital technologies for VM practices—an aspect that has not gained significant attention in VM discourse in the construction industry.

Preservation of potatoes in a controlled cool environment (i.e., in cold storage) consumes a substantial amount of energy. The specific energy consumption in Indian cold storage has been estimated to be between 9 and 26 kWh/ton/year. In this article, the potential for minimizing the energy consumption in the refrigeration process of cold storage through passive cooling concepts (i.e., roof evaporative cooling and the earth integration of the storage building) was explored. These passive concepts of cooling have shown significant potential for lowering the cooling loads and the energy consumption in different types of buildings. Therefore, a feasibility analysis for a potato storage building, considering the effect of the passive cooling concepts, was conducted for three different climatic conditions (i.e., hot–dry, warm–humid, and composite) in India. The energy saving potentials in the cold storage were assessed by quantifying the thermal energy exchange between the indoor and outdoor environments using the modified admittance method. The effect of heat transfer through the building envelope on total energy consumption was estimated for the building having various sunken volumes (buried depths) without and with roof evaporative cooling. Further, the economic feasibility of adopting passive concepts was assessed in terms of life cycle saving compared to the base case. Results indicate that earth coupling without and with evaporative cooling has substantial potential to reduce the cooling load and can produce significant savings.