Non-profit organizations (NPOs) support economically disadvantaged communities by improving housing conditions and building homes, despite limited resources. With rising housing costs and poverty causing homelessness and poor housing quality, NPOs’ efforts are crucial. However, operating constraints (such as financial, policy, and others), often lead NPOs to prioritize initial costs over sustainability and environmental impacts. Therefore, this research investigated the adoption, implementation, and routinization patterns for sustainability and green efforts in Mississippi (US) by a leading NPO. The research used a two-phased combined design methodology, with the first phase involving explorative design that involved the identification of criteria that led to selecting the affiliates of Habitat for Humanity (HFH) as the unit of analysis. The selected NPO (HFH) had 38 affiliates across Mississippi, US, at the time of the study. The second phase involved a cross-sectional design, with data collected by utilizing a structured telephone survey. All collected data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics, and thematic analysis. Twenty-five affiliates (66% response rate) participated in the study, and the results indicate that a small proportion of affiliates were actively adopting sustainability practices for projects constructed, and most were located in the southern part of the state. The research identified factors that lead to the routinization of sustainability practices, the most commonly used third-party benchmarking tools, and perceptions of NPOs towards such tools to evaluate the greenness of residential projects. Some crucial implications were identifying uneven project completion within HFH, limited adoption of green strategies, and perception of green certification as non-vital.

Various societies across the globe, including that in the United States, encounter difficulties fulfilling freshwater consumption needs. Implementation of decentralized systems, such as rainwater-harvesting technologies and strategies (RwHTS), in capital projects not only alleviates developmental patterns of humans on water resources but also helps facilities achieve net-zero resource consumption. However, implementation of RwHTS can quickly become complex because of multiple factors associated with the design of the capital facility. Although building information modeling (BIM) possesses inherent capabilities to reduce the complexity of systems, the impact it has on the adoption of RwHTS needs to be assessed. This research characterized implementation patterns for RwHTS and BIM by architectural firms for facilities constructed between 2000 and 2010 in six southeastern states and Washington, DC, using electronic surveys. In addition, the authors analyzed the relationship between the implementation...

COVID-19 impacted academia across the globe. Given the scale and sudden pandemic onset, limited empirical studies identify the transition’s impact on the US construction educators and education imparted. The study determined the pedagogical responses of educators associated with construction programs within the US during COVID-19 and tested six relationships in the areas of university support, technological access and infrastructure, and educator proficiency improvements. An online survey method was utilized with the instrument emailed to nearly 1,883 educators associated with construction programs/departments across the US. The study used 163 complete responses from US educators based on predefined parameters and identified the baseline operational paradigm (pre-COVID) for construction educators and programs across the US. The study determined the changes after the transition and investigated the impacts of the transition on faculty proficiency with online teaching, existing technological infrastructure, and communication with students. The study identified a moderate relationship between the University’s level of support and educators’ experiences in developing and delivering online materials during the transition. A moderate relationship was also identified between proficiency with online content delivery and total teaching experience. Finally, only a few respondents felt construction education could be delivered entirely online, based on their experiences.