Awareness and Perception of Sustainability Concept among Infrastructural Development Professionals in FCC Abuja, Nigeria

Rapid urbanization poses several serious challenges for planning infrastructure and a great challenge for urban sustainability. Thus, this study assessed Awareness and Perception of Sustainability Concept among Infrastructural Development Professionals in FCC Abuja. Its objectives were to assess: sustainable construction awareness, source of knowledge and then evaluate the perceptions of construction professional on integration of sustainability in infrastructural development. Data were collected using questionnaire, interview and focus group discussion. Purposive and stratified sampling techniques were used to select professionals from Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) and six construction companies in FCC. Data were presented in tables and analysed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA. Results show that majority (86.91%) are aware of the concept of sustainable construction. Though, majority are not ignorant of the concept, their level of knowledge is still at low level, as the level of knowledge as affirmed by respondents are 7.42%, 45.01%, 21.23%, 8.18%, 3.07% for very low, low, moderate, good and very good respectively. The main sources of knowledge is books, as less than a quarter (23.19%) learnt concept of sustainable construction from school, only 15.66% learned communication media, while most people 70.18% have read about it from books. There is a significant variation in respondents’ knowledge among the three pillars of sustainability at 95% confidence level. Respondents’ knowledge of sustainable construction is mostly on environmental dimension. Respondents had both negative and positive perception of sustainability integration in infrastructure. On the negative sides, only 15.96% perceive integration of sustainability approach as a setback, 72.89% also sees it as ambiguous. It was concluded that majority of infrastructure development professional are not ignorant of sustainable construction, but their level of knowledge and application are still minimal. Sustainable construction is perceived positively and even negatively among professionals. Public enlightenment and commitment by stakeholders was recommended.