Sustainable Practices in Construction SMEs in the UAE - A Scoping Study

The construction industry is considered one of the main consumers to scarce resources and raw materials and massively contributes to the total carbon emissions. As such, the awareness of sustainable development is progressively being adopted internationally by large construction companies, nevertheless, construction SMEs face complex issues as they try to implement sustainability in terms of maintaining cost control, preserving efficient energy consumption, implementation of new technologies, and maintaining effective processes with their suppliers. Moreover, SMEs contribute to society environmentally, socially and sustains economic profitability, while their role in the United Arab Emirates are considered significant for the economy's growth and they contribute to making national human resources. However, there is a noticeable lack of studies related to SMEs in the constructions sector with the focus of research of sustainable development construction SMEs, as well as explorations of the sustainability concerns in the construction industry for SMEs. This paper therefore shares the results of a scoping study that explores identifies the main pillars of sustainability within the construction industry to evaluate the level of their utilization within the UAE construction SMEs and assess the stakeholders' perceptions of the factors that are most likely to contribute to practices within the SME construction companies in the UAE. To achieve its aim, the paper shares the results of AHP analysis used to conduct a pairwise comparison of the social, economic, and environmental factor identified from literature while targeting stakeholders from SME construction companies in the UAE.