Stakeholders' Perception of Sustainable Built Environment in Oman: Components and Priorities.

The intimate link between the built environment and sustainable development agenda is widely acknowledged. In Oman, sustainable development lies at the heart of the National Strategic Development Plans 2020 and 2040. In spite of this, there is no systematic study that investigated Omani stakeholders? perception of sustainable built environment nor their priorities for sustainability components. The term ?sustainability? is still an ill-defined term as it could mean different things to different people in different situations, context and cultural settings. The proposed study aims therefore to elicit the Omani stakeholders? perception of sustainable built environment and identify its components using the social constructionism theory and consensus development methods i.e. Freelisting and Pile Sorting with Multi-dimensional Scaling; and prioritize the elicited components in terms of their relative importances using a more advanced statistical data collection and analysis methodology i.e. Conjoint Analysis. It is expected that the outcome of this study will provide essential evidence-based findings for future research in the field of sustainable built environment in Oman; as well as provide informative data for policy-makers when forming, implementing and monitoring policies related to sustainable built environment. Doing so helps to fine-tune policies to meet the actual needs of the Omani society while preserving their values and preferences. It is anticipated also that the result of this work will contribute to the on-going debate on the development of sustainability rating system in Oman.

The intimate link between the built environment and sustainable development agenda is widely acknowledged. In Oman, sustainable development lies at the heart of the National Strategic Development Plans 2020 and 2040. In spite of this, there is no systematic study that investigated Omani stakeholders? perception of sustainable built environment nor their priorities for sustainability components. The term ?sustainability? is still an ill-defined term as it could mean different things to different people in different situations, context and cultural settings. The proposed study aims therefore to elicit the Omani stakeholders? perception of sustainable built environment and identify its components using the social constructionism theory and consensus development methods i.e. Freelisting and Pile Sorting with Multi-dimensional Scaling; and prioritize the elicited components in terms of their relative importances using a more advanced statistical data collection and analysis methodology i.e. Conjoint Analysis. It is expected that the outcome of this study will provide essential evidence-based findings for future research in the field of sustainable built environment in Oman; as well as provide informative data for policy-makers when forming, implementing and monitoring policies related to sustainable built environment. Doing so helps to fine-tune policies to meet the actual needs of the Omani society while preserving their values and preferences. It is anticipated also that the result of this work will contribute to the on-going debate on the development of sustainability rating system in Oman.