Smart and Sustainable Built Environment

The role of facilities managers in sustainable practice in the UK and Ireland

Xianhai Meng
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Xianhai Meng , (2014),"The role of facilities managers in sustainable practice in the UK and Ireland", Smart
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Role of facilities
The role of facilities managers managers
in sustainable practice in the
UK and Ireland
Xianhai Meng 23
School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering,
Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of facilities managers in sustainable
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practice. It also analyzes the change in facilities management (FM) in terms of sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach – This research adopted a combination of literature review and
expert interviews. Empirical data were collected through in-depth interviews with 40 industrial
experts in the UK and Ireland.
Findings – The analysis of interview results shows a sustainable movement in the context of FM.
Facilities managers play important roles in sustainable practice, including integrating all sustainability
considerations, linking strategic level with operational level, incorporating FM knowledge and experience
into design, disseminating sustainable knowledge and educating people and encouraging sustainability
through innovation.
Research limitations/implications – This research goes beyond the limitations of existing studies
that are characterized by a lack of positioning facilities managers in sustainability.
Practical implications – Sustainable delivery represents a direction of FM development. This research
describes what facilities managers can do and how they should do for sustainable delivery of FM,
based on which improvements are made and benefits are maximized.
Originality/value – This research provides a deeper insight into the FM role in the sustainable
agenda. The findings of this research help industrial practitioners and academic researchers to better
understand sustainable FM.
Keywords Facilities manager, FM development, Key role, Sustainable practice
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Since its naissance, the facilities management (FM) profession has witnessed a rapid
development. According to the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM),
FM has become one of the fastest growing professions in the UK (British Institute of
Facilities Management, 2013a). The definitions of FM are diverse. The International
Facility Management Association defines FM as a profession that encompasses
multiple disciplines to ensure functionality of the built environment by integrating
people, place, process and technology (International Facility Management Association,
2013). Similarly, the BIFM considers FM as the encompassment of multi-disciplinary
activities within the built environment and the management of their impact on people
and workplace (British Institute of Facilities Management, 2013b). FM can be classified
into hard FM and soft FM (Campbell et al., 2011). Hard FM is related to the operation
and maintenance of building facilities while soft FM means various support services,
Smart and Sustainable Built
Environment
Vol. 3 No. 1, 2014
The author would like to acknowledge the participation of anonymous interviewees in this research. pp. 23-34
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
In addition to the interviewees from the industry, thanks should also be given to the postgraduate 2046-6099
research students at the Queen’s University Belfast for their help during the interviews. DOI 10.1108/SASBE-03-2013-0012
 SASBE such as catering, cleaning, security and waste disposal. In recent years, there has
3,1 been an increasing recognition of sustainable FM in both industry and academia.
The embrace of sustainable practice can be regarded as a strategic response of FM
to sustainable development and climate change (Kwawu and Elmualim, 2011). It also
reflects the change in FM that is still a relatively new profession.
Over the past few decades, sustainability has evolved into a global mainstream
24 (Yang, 2012). In the meantime, it has significantly influenced building design and
construction. Subsequent to sustainable design and construction, the importance of
sustainable FM has been gradually recognized. Sustainability can be defined in many
ways. In the simplest terms, it is “the capacity to endure” (Wals and Corcoran, 2012).
Sustainable FM integrates FM and sustainability. There are few studies that provide the
definition of sustainable FM. It is defined by Shah (2007) as the delivery of sustainability
within FM. The reason behind the increasing recognition of sustainable FM is the
challenges in the natural and built environments today. For example, the built
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environment in the UK is responsible for nearly half of the country’s carbon emissions,
half of water consumption, about one-third of landfill waste and one-quarter of all raw
materials used in the economy (Price et al., 2011). FM represents operation, maintenance
and service provision in day-to-day practice. In order to meet the challenges mentioned
above, embracing the concept of sustainable FM becomes an inevitable choice.
Individual managers’ commitment is an important part of corporate sustainability
(Visser and Crane, 2010). Facilities managers are in the forefront of delivering sustainable
management in practice (Elmualim et al., 2010). They can make a significant difference
by applying sustainable management in many areas of their responsibility
(British Institute of Facilities Management, 2013c). However, few studies to date
have explored the role of a facilities manager in sustainable practice. Among existing
research efforts, some of them focus on the generic duties of facilities managers.
For example, Williams and Sutrisna (2010) identified the generic duties of facilities
managers, including full responsibility of business premises, planning and provision
of accommodation and support services to business and occupants, building security
and maintenance, management of people, time, cost and building performance, etc.
Although other studies may have relevance to the specific roles of facilities managers
in sustainable practice, they only cover a single aspect of sustainability. For example,
Khalil et al. (2011) described what facilities managers can do to address environmental
problems. As a result, there is a knowledge gap in this field. This research attempts to
bridge the gap through a series of expert interviews. Interviewing industrial experts
enables us to generate an overall picture of facilities managers in sustainable practice.
Based on in-depth information collected from the interviewees, it is also possible to
analyze the change in FM in terms of sustainability.

Methodology
This research started with a comprehensive review of the literature on FM and
sustainability. The literature review provided an up-to-date understanding of existing
research efforts. It also helped to identify the need for the current research.
In management science, there are three different ways of collecting empirical data:
questionnaire survey, expert interview and case study. Some researchers are more
interested in the questionnaire methodology. For example, Lai and Yik (2006)
conducted a questionnaire survey to investigate the knowledge and perception of
operation and maintenance practitioners in Hong Kong about sustainable buildings.
Although a questionnaire survey is advantageous of having access to many people,
 it is difficult for this methodology to collect in-depth information from respondents Role of facilities
(Gillham, 2000). Other researchers prefer case studies. For example, Ren et al. (2012) managers
presented a hotel project in South Wales to measure the carbon performance of
construction activities. Obviously, the use of case studies makes it possible to collect
in-depth information. However, this methodology is often criticized for a lack of
generalizability (Gray, 2004). In order to overcome the above difficulties, this research
adopted a series of interviews with industrial experts in the UK and Ireland. Similar to 25
the use of case studies, the interview methodology is good at collecting in-depth
information. If the sample size is large enough, there is no problem to ensure the
generalization of interview results.
Compared to other methodologies, such as a questionnaire survey, an interview
takes advantage of the direct interaction between the two sides: interviewer and
interviewee (Seale, 2004). Although interviewing is usually recognized as a qualitative
methodology, it is possible to make a quantitative analysis of interview results.
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Based on the interview results in this research, for example, the percentage of the
interviewees who identified each key role of facilities managers in sustainable practice
is analyzed later in this paper. All these explain why this research adopted expert
interview as the main methodology. The focus of an interview was on the exploration
of key roles of facilities managers in sustainable practice. In addition to the exploration
of key roles, the implementation of sustainable practice was also identified
through each interview. All the industrial experts were interviewed individually.
Each interview lasted around an hour. An industrial expert was interviewed either
face-to-face or through telephone. During each interview, there was a good interaction
between the interviewer and the interviewee.
The interviews were semi-structured. An interview guide was developed to conduct
semi-structured interviews. It had three sections: Section 1 referred to the adoption of
sustainable FM in an interviewee’s company/organization and in the FM industry
sector; Section 2 focussed on the role of facilities managers in sustainable practice; and
Section 3 was related to the role play of facilities managers and the implementation
of sustainable FM. Each section consisted of several open-ended questions. No options
were provided for any interview questions. For example, no questions like “Do you
think that incorporating FM knowledge and experience into design is a key role of
facilities managers?” or “Could you select the roles of facilities managers from the
following options?” were asked during each interview. Instead, the interviewees were
asked to answer such questions as “What are the key roles of a facilities manager in
sustainable practice?” “Why are these roles important for a facilities manager and
sustainable FM?” and “How does a facilities manager play his roles in sustainable
practice?” As a result, it was possible for the interviewees to fully express their
perceptions and viewpoints rather than limit themselves to given options. Obviously,
the well-prepared interviews ensured the reliability and validity of this research.
In total, 40 FM-related professionals were interviewed in this research. The interviewees
were selected through industrial contacts and the list of FM organizations provided by
professional associations. They covered different regions of the UK, such as England,
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as Ireland. In order to ensure a good
sample, the interviewees were selected from different types of organizations in relation
to FM: five interviewees (12.5 percent) from local authorities or city councils; eight
interviewees (20.0 percent) from estate management departments of hospitals,
universities, hotels or shopping centers; 23 interviewees (57.5 percent) from FM service
providers; and four interviewees (10.0 percent) from FM consultancies. Most of them
 SASBE held the BIFM’s individual membership or the individual membership of the Royal
3,1 Institution of Chartered Surveyors in the UK as well as the individual membership
of the Irish Property and Facility Management Association. All the interviewees
had more than five years’ working experience in the industry. They were also
experienced in sustainable FM. The positions of the interviewees within their
companies/organizations included facilities manager, managing director, contracts
26 manager, head of sustainability, environmental manager, executive engineer and
others, accounting for 40.0, 15.0, 12.5, 10.0, 7.5, 5.0 and 10.0 percent, respectively.
As a result, a good sample was provided for this empirical research.

Moving toward sustainable FM

Following the rapid development of FM over the past two decades, sustainable FM is
becoming increasingly prevalent in practice. This was a common understanding of the
interviewees. They identified market competition as a key driver for the adoption of
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sustainable FM. By introducing sustainable practice, FM organizations establish better

corporate images so that they keep one step ahead of their competitors who are
reluctant to embrace the concept of sustainability. Traditional FM is provided by
in-house teams. There is an increasing trend for organizations to outsource non-core
business activities to external service providers (Cigolini et al., 2009). No matter
whether FM is in-house or outsourced, corporate images are always important.
This is because a good corporate image contributes to the robust development
of an organization if FM is retained in-house. For an outsourced FM service provider,
on the other hand, a good corporate image generally means competitive advantages,
client satisfaction and future business opportunities. Government legislation was
identified by the interviewees as another key driver for the adoption of sustainable FM.
Compliance with legal requirements brings increasing pressure on organizations to act
more responsibly by reducing carbon emissions, improving energy efficiency,
using renewable technologies, cutting landfill waste, etc. In response to the EU’s call for
energy conservation, for example, the UK government released the Energy Performance
of Building Regulations in 2007. The regulations require public buildings beyond a certain
size to display their energy performance rating (Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 2007).
By doing so, public awareness of energy saving is enhanced and sustainable performance
of FM is stressed. In addition to market competition and legal enforcement, other
identified drivers include technological advances, economic pressure, cultural change and
green procurement.
Compared to other professions, such as construction and property, FM is still
relatively new. Since its naissance, the FM profession has been changing. A major
change in recent years is the increasing adoption of sustainability. The interviewees
believed that the sustainable facet of FM is becoming more and more important.
This can be described as “sustainable movement” for FM today. The FM profession
is responsible for managing buildings: both facilities and services (Atkin and
Brooks, 2009). Due to the unique position within organizations, the FM profession
can and should make significant contributions to organizations in terms of
sustainability. According to the interviewees, the implementation of sustainable
practice is not easy or straightforward. In order to pursue sustainable practice, there
is a need for sustainable facilities managers. This is because as the leader of a FM
team the facilities manager takes the overall responsibility of transforming
sustainable theory into sustainable practice on a day-to-day basis. Only if facilities
managers can fully play their roles, is it possible to ensure the success of sustainable
 practice. As for the roles of facilities managers in sustainable practice, they will be Role of facilities
discussed in detail in the next section. managers
Role of facilities managers in sustainable practice
The analysis of interview results reveals that facilities managers play important
roles in sustainable practice. The top five roles are listed in Table I. They are
discussed below one by one. Each of them was identified by at least 50 percent of the 27
interviewees. The percentage of the interviewees who identified each key role
determines its ranking in Table I.

Integrating all sustainability considerations

Among the interviewees, there was an absolute consensus on the role of a facilities
manager in integrating all sustainability considerations. Although economic,
environmental and social are usually described as three pillars of sustainability,
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quite a lot of early studies, such as Frej et al. (2005), focussed on the environmental
aspect when discussing sustainable FM. The consensus among the interviewees
corrects the misconception. It indicates that a facilities manager should act as an
integrator of sustainability in different dimensions and sustainable FM should be
economically efficient, environmentally friendly and socially responsible at the same
time. Integrating all sustainability considerations also reflects the importance of
achieving economic, environmental and social objectives in a balanced way. This is
because any aspect of sustainability cannot be ignored or compromised in practice.
On the other hand, the success of sustainable FM will be affected if a facilities manager
is biased toward one or two aspects. For example, it is not possible to get social support
if a facilities manager only considers economic and environmental issues. Without
social support, it is also difficult to successfully achieve economic and environmental
objectives. By comparison, it is the biggest failure if a facilities manager concentrates
on economic benefits with little or no attention to environmental and social benefits.
In order to integrate the system, the interviewees suggested that all necessary
indicators should be considered when measuring sustainable performance, e.g. cost
saving and profit making for economic sustainability, release of greenhouse gas, water
consumption, release of waste water, energy use and waste recycling for environmental
sustainability and occupant satisfaction and partnership with community for social
sustainability. According to the interviewees, carbon footprint reduction has become
a buzzword in recent years, which is vital to sustainable FM. In addition, increasing
energy efficiency was identified to have a significant effect on carbon footprint
reduction. The identification is consistent with previous studies, such as Kibert (2012),
that addressed energy saving and low carbon together. The interviewees pointed out
that a facilities manager often plays a role of “energy champion” in practice. In many

% of interviewees who
Key role identify the role Ranking

Integrating all sustainability considerations 100.0 1

Linking strategic level with operational level 82.5 2 Table I.
Incorporating FM knowledge and experience into design 75.0 3 Key roles of facilities
Disseminating sustainable knowledge and educating people 67.5 4 managers in
Encouraging sustainability through innovation 50.0 5 sustainable practice
 SASBE instances, a facilities manager has to “double up” as an energy manager. In terms of
3,1 energy management, the duties of facilities managers may include implementing the
energy policy, raising the awareness of energy saving, monitoring the use of energy, etc.
Energy management is significantly associated with both economic and environmental
sustainability. Successful energy management also needs social involvement, e.g.
switch-off when lights are not in use. Only if economic, environmental and social
28 matters are all taken into consideration, is it possible to make energy management
effective and efficient.
Some researchers and practitioners, such as Shah (2007), did not include health and
safety (H&S) when discussing sustainable FM. Others, such as Kwawu and Elmualim
(2011), considered H&S as a key element of sustainability in FM. As a result, there was
a debate about H&S. In this research, many interviewees stated that H&S are placed
under the sustainability umbrella within their companies/organizations. H&S draw the
same attention from facilities managers as other sustainable issues, such as energy
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saving and waste reduction. In practice, facilities managers are often influenced by
increasing H&S acts and regulations. The interviewees recognized occupant well-being
as the main objective of social sustainability. Comfortable, healthy and safe workplace
is a good indication of occupant well-being. Although “environment” often refers to
the natural environment, it can be divided into the natural environment and the
built environment that provides workplace for occupants. As a result, H&S can be
considered as an intersection of environmental and social sustainability. In a general
sense, one aspect of sustainability is often intersected with another. The intersection
demonstrates that it is appropriate for facilities managers to look at different aspects of
sustainability in an integrated way rather than in an isolated way.

Linking strategic level and operational level

The role of a facilities manager in linking strategic level and operational level was agreed
by 82.5 percent of the interviewees in this research. FM used to be based on brick and
mortar ideas. In recent years, FM has been moving from the operational to the strategic,
especially in large organizations. The facilities manager is usually viewed as an
intermediate management position. As shown in Figure 1, the interviewees suggested
that a facilities manager should be involved in policy making and strategic planning of
sustainability. The involvement of a facilities manager allows him to influence the
decision makers of an organization and take FM comments on board during senior
management meetings. On the other hand, a facilities manager has a critical role to play in
implementing sustainable policies and strategies. For this reason, he must be able to break
down sustainable plans into manageable tasks and translate sustainable policies and
strategies into appropriate actions. In order for a facilities manage to better play his roles,
empowerment is needed from senior management at the strategic level. If a facilities
manager is empowered to coordinate various efforts for sustainability throughout the
organization, for example, he can take more responsibilities to pursue best practice. In this
case, he can be regarded as a sustainable manager.
According to the interviewees who identified this key role, sustainability must be
implemented from the top to the bottom. Although sustainable policies and strategies
may have been established at the strategic level, an important task of the facilities
manager is to attract people at the operational level to follow him in day-to-day
practice. In order to achieve this, the facilities manager needs leadership skills.
The team led by the facilities manager should meet legal requirements and output
specifications. The facilities manager and his team must also ensure that sustainable
 Role of facilities
Strategic level
Policy making and strategy planning
managers

Involvement Empowerment 29

Facilities manager
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Management Feedback

Figure 1.
Operational level
Linking strategic level
Operation, maintenance and service provision with operational level

policies and strategies are implemented across all elements of operation, maintenance and
service provision. Sustainable practice is an integrated management process, during
which collecting and analyzing economic, environmental and social information on
a regular basis is important. The information is collected from team members and
analyzed by the facilities manager. Based on the analysis of real information, the facilities
manager determines whether the team performs satisfactorily or not and what
improvements need to be made. For example, he should identify any problems, such as
water over-consumption, energy over-use and greenhouse gas over-emissions, as early
as possible and make reasonable adjustments to address the problems. In addition,
he should report up-to-date information to senior management so that they can better
understand the implementation of sustainable policies and strategies.

Incorporating FM knowledge and experience into design

Figure 2 shows that the life cycle of a project can be broken down into a series of phases
from inception to occupation. Traditionally, FM represents a post-occupancy profession.
FM issues are often ignored during early project phases, e.g. design. As a result, there are

Early involvement of facilities manager in design

Tender/ Commission/
Briefing/
Inception
Feasibility
Design Construction Construction
Handover
Occupation Figure 2.
preparation Project life cycle and
early involvement
of facilities manager
Where FM is based
 SASBE many problems for designed facilities, such as the lack of operability, maintainability and
3,1 serviceability. In this research, 75.0 percent of the interviewees recognized the importance
of involving facilities managers in the design process. Although early involvement of
facilities managers in design is still uncommon in today’s practice, it has attracted
increasing attention in recent years from practitioners and researchers and will become
more and more popular in the future. The adoption of this new concept makes it possible
30 to incorporate FM knowledge and experience into the design process and avoid the
problems mentioned above as early as possible. Otherwise, hidden design problems will
come out during operation, maintenance and service provision and minor issues may
develop into major problems. For example, a lot of additional work and money will be
needed for the maintenance or the replacement of external insulation, boiling system
and other components if materials and equipment are not selected appropriately
during design. Early involvement of facilities managers changes the FM profession from
a post-occupancy and reactive role to a pre-occupancy and proactive role. It also links
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early project phases with late project phases. More importantly, it enables sustainability to
be better applicable to the delivery of FM.
According to the interviewees who identified this key role, early involvement of
facilities managers will influence every aspect of sustainability: economic, environmental
and social. By comparison, it has a greater contribution to the embrace of whole life
costing. This is because FM input helps to design building facilities successfully so that
they function in the most effective and efficient way over their lifetime. Based on early
involvement in design, facilities managers play a significant role in lowering costs during
the project mainly through the appropriate selection of materials, equipment and
methods. Architects and designers usually look at the design on paper. With the help of
facilities managers, they better understand how designed facilities will work in practice
and how cost effectiveness and efficiency can be achieved. Cost effectiveness and
efficiency represent value for money that is the main concern of a client. For clients,
especially for end clients, involving facilities managers early in design not only provides
better opportunities to meet their requirements but also indicates more likelihood to
increase value for money in the long term.

Disseminating sustainable knowledge and educating people

Sustainability is characterized by addressing innovative, systematic and challenging
issues. For this reason, almost all the interviewees expressed that facilities managers
themselves must be knowledgeable, experienced and skilled enough in order to pursue
sustainable practice. Having education and training is a possible way of making them
knowledgeable, experienced and skilled. It is also possible for them to improve
themselves through absorbing their past and learning from successful peers. Both the
experience of success and the lessons of failure are useful for them to become mature
and competent. On the other hand, 67.5 percent of the interviewees identified that
a facilities manager plays an important role in disseminating sustainable knowledge
and educating other people. As for what people need knowledge and education from
facilities managers, their opinions were something different. Some interviewees argued
that a facilities manager is more likely to train FM staff. Others contended that
facilities managers with service provider background should make more efforts for
educating clients, especially the clients who have not yet realized the importance
of sustainable FM and the clients who are not experienced in the implementation of
sustainable practice. In addition, both groups agreed that it is possible for facilities
managers to transfer sustainable knowledge to other stakeholders, such as occupants.
 Getting everyone involved in the sustainable agenda is the goal of disseminating Role of facilities
knowledge and educating people. This was the common viewpoint for both groups. managers
In reality, however, it is not easy to achieve the goal. A lack of knowledge was identified
by Elmualim et al. (2010) as a main barrier of the FM profession to the implementation of
sustainable practice. Similarly, the first group of interviewees revealed that selling what
a facilities manager is trying to do to FM staff is sometimes a challenge because of their
poor awareness of sustainability. It explains why this group emphasized that more 31
attention should be paid to training FM staff. Training should be continuous.
For example, some interviewees illustrated that their companies/organizations invite
people from the industry to deliver presentation on best practice for sustainable FM every
couple of months. If further analysis is made, it is found that the interviewees in this
group had different backgrounds and were at different levels, demonstrating that training
FM staff is widely supported.
Unlike the first group, the second group of interviewees was more concerned about
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educating clients although they did not disagree with training FM staff. In this group,
there was a consensus that the relationship between clients and facilities managers
with service provider background is twofold. In many cases, clients are the initiator
of sustainable practice. However, it is not always the case. For the clients who have not yet
realized the importance of sustainable FM, the most important for facilities managers is to
demonstrate the benefits from adopting sustainable FM. By comparison, it is relatively
easier for facilities managers to educate the clients who have realized the importance but
are not experienced in the implementation of sustainable practice. For such clients,
facilities managers should help them to understand what need to be required for
sustainability and how to support sustainable FM. When analyzing the interviewees in
the second group, an interesting finding is that almost all of them had external
backgrounds: either external service providers or external management consultants.
Educating clients can be explained by the importance of clients’ commitment to
sustainable FM from the external perspective. It can also be used to reflect the willingness
of external players to take active part in sustainable efforts.

Encouraging sustainability through innovation

Innovation refers to the use of new technologies, materials and methods (Gann et al.,
1998). In this study, 50.0 percent of the interviewees identified innovation as an
important way of pursuing sustainability. Six of them who represented outsourced FM
experienced advising their clients to replace the traditional lighting with the light
emitting diode (LED) technology. Compared to the traditional lighting, the LED
lighting uses much less energy and has much higher longevity although it is more
expensive to purchase. If long term rather than short term was taken into consideration,
their clients benefited much from introducing the LED technology. Traditional energy
sources include gas, oil and coal, namely fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are finite and are going to
run out. For this reason, the interviewees who identified this key role highlighted the
importance of renewable energy from green sources, such as sunlight, wind, rain and
geothermal heat. Renewable energy was also considered by them to have a significant
impact on carbon footprint reduction. Furthermore, five of them took solar and
geothermal energy systems as two examples to show the use of renewable technologies
in their practice. All these demonstrate a significant contribution of innovation to the
success of sustainable FM. As a result, a link is established between sustainability
and innovation, and meanwhile innovating for sustainability can be described as
sustainable innovation.
 SASBE Sustainability needs innovation. Innovation brings about changes. According to the
3,1 interviewees who identified this key role, the majority of people in the industry are still
reluctant to change the traditional way of working with which they are familiar.
Despite that, they believed that changes are inevitable if an FM organization wants to
survive and prosper. This is because the reluctance to change the traditional attitude
leaves FM organizations behind the rapid development of FM. Subsequently,
32 they become less competitive and face the loss of future. In order to keep pace with the
rapid development of FM, facilities managers must be enthusiastic in encouraging
sustainable innovation. Rather than reactive change, proactive change was encouraged
by these interviewees. With FM service provider background, three interviewees
who took this viewpoint provided evidence for proactively encouraging their clients
to replace oil boilers with biomass boilers. In order to ensure the success of the
replacement, they learnt the new boiling system from good examples of its application
in the industry. As a result of the replacement, energy costs were saved and carbon
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emissions were reduced. The successful replacement helped them to gain a good
reputation from their clients and gave them confidence in sustainable innovation.

Further discussion
In this research, some interviewees represented in-house FM while others had
outsourced FM background. The interviewees representing in-house FM expressed
that sustainability should be taken into consideration from the long-term perspective
and therefore it is easier for in-house FM to adopt sustainable practice if the internal
team is knowledgeable, experienced and skilled enough. This is because the internal
team better understands what its own organization wants and what is best for
everyone. Compared to those from in-house FM, the interviewees with outsourced FM
background believed that external service providers are more specialized in FM and
therefore their management is more effective and efficient. If they can establish
long-term business relationships with their clients, there are more possibilities to
achieve the success of sustainable FM. Some organizations may use both in-house and
outsourced FM. In this case, collaborative working between the two teams is really
important for the delivery of sustainable FM.
Most of the interviewees in this research were facilities managers or contracts
managers at the intermediate level. A small proportion of the interviewees were
managing directors or heads of sustainability at the senior management level. On the
whole, there was no big difference between them for the perception of sustainable FM.
By comparison, the interviewees at the senior management level were more concerned
about facilities managers’ competencies. On the other hand, the interviewees at the
intermediate level paid more attention to liaison with senior management and support
from senior management. This further corroborates the study of Elmualim et al. (2010)
in which the lack of senior management commitment is identified as a main barrier of
the FM profession to the implementation of sustainable practice. Again, sustainability
must be implemented from the top to the bottom. Senior management commitment and
support is always crucial to the successful role play of facilities managers.

Conclusions
The FM profession has been growing and maturing. Sustainability is an emerging
focus of FM today. Sustainable FM integrates FM and sustainability. It addresses
sustainable issues during the operation and maintenance of building facilities and the
management of support services. The facilities manager is a key player for sustainable
 delivery of FM. First of all, the facilities manager must balance economic, environmental Role of facilities
and social sustainability and take all of them into consideration. Second, the facilities managers
manager links the strategic level with the operational level and therefore has a pivotal
role to play. Third, the facilities manager can contribute much more to the overall
success of a project if he gets involved early in the design process. Fourth, it is a duty of
the facilities manager to disseminate sustainable knowledge and educate people.
Finally, the facilities manager should encourage sustainability through innovation. 33
The identification of these key roles provides a useful guide for facilities managers to
pursue sustainable practice. In addition to facilities managers, it enables other
stakeholders to become more informed about the implications of sustainable FM.
The concept of sustainability will change over time. This research brings an inspiration,
based on which more and more practitioners and researchers are expected to devote
themselves to the future development of sustainable FM.
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About the author

Dr Xianhai Meng is currently a Lecturer at the Queen’s University Belfast, UK. Previously, he
was an Associate Professor at the Tsinghua University, China. His research interests include
construction project management, building facilities management, supply chain collaboration,
performance measurement and improvement, sustainable design, construction and operation,
etc. Dr Xianhai Meng can be contacted at: x.meng@qub.ac.uk

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