A Contribution to the Sustainable Construction Indicators Evaluation in Developing Countries: The Case of Cameroon

Abstract

The concept of sustainability involves three exigencies, which are related to the environment, the social and the economy. The application of the sustainable development in the construction sector is more complex for the developing countries and the five major emerging national economies (BRICS including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), partially due to the great implication of the informal construction sector. For Cameroon, the aim to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals is well defined, but their implementation in the construction sector is still insignificant. Our aim in this study is to propose a methodology of an implementation of sustainable construction indicators for social infrastructures. To this end, we have first of all identified some objectives of the sustainable development related to the construction sector. From the choice of those objectives, we have elaborated some indicators, which are decomposed into sub-indicators according to selected criteria. We have aggregated the sub-indicators using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. The normalization of the indicators enables us to represent them on a suitable scale for their valuation with respect to each project. This evaluation has been applied to a construction project.