Sustainable construction practices: Contractors' perceptions of awareness and participation

The U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system is the current industry standard for sustainable building practices. This study employed an online survey instrument to collect data from contractor members of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). The instrument asked respondents to score their firm's awareness of LEED green building practices and the firm's participation in projects using these practices.; According to the AGC, its leadership intends to work with USGBC to build the construction industry's awareness of and participation in LEED specifically and sustainable construction in general. By conducting a survey of 4232 contractor members of the AGC, this study has established current levels of contractors' awareness of LEED practices and their participation in projects that employ LEED methods.; Correlation analysis was employed to calculate the degree of correlation between scores in the response categories of "Awareness" and "Participation." Means analysis addressed research questions regarding differences in the means of LEED awareness and LEED participation responses within selected demographic categories.; Spearman's rho analysis produced results indicating correlation between awareness and participation scores. ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc analyses indicated significant differences in the mean responses for the demographic categories of; (a) type of firm, (b) annual dollar volume and (c) company size.