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The principles underpinning the delivery of socio-economic sustainability for regeneration projects aim to promote a common goal between regeneration practitioners and their beneficiaries. It is also said that ethical and moral reasons can serve as a driver for

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practitioners to adopt and implement sustainability principles on their sustainable regeneration projects. Significant progress towards the delivery of sustainable regeneration can be achieved when practitioners are inclined to discharge such ethical and moral obligations towards the adoption and implementation of the sustainability concept on their projects. The United Nations, for instance, has underscored the need for organisations to pursue such ethical and moral obligations in the discharge of the sustainable development goals for the communities (United Nations, 2010). Many construction organisations who are currently involved in the delivery of sustainable regeneration are being called upon to contribute their quota to the development of the communities in which they operate. They are being urged to look beyond the conventional profit oriented approach often adopted by organisations towards a more generous one, which is aimed at investing in other equally important things on which their organisations’ survival also depend. From the perspective of delivering sustainable regeneration projects, it means that the sustainability practices of construction organisations should be inclined towards the delivery of a wide range of socio-economic sustainability benefits for communities in which the projects are located. Doing so, also implies that they are contributing to the enhancement of the communities, while in the same vein discharging their ethical and moral responsibilities towards such communities.

The views obtained from practitioners through the semi-structured interview in Table 5.1 have shown that some practitioners were being driven by ethical and moral consideration to adopt and implement social and economic sustainability factors on their sustainable regeneration projects. This was evident as 8 (38%) of the 21 practitioners (Table 5.1) indicated that discharging their ethical and moral obligations was a driver for them to adopt and implement socio-economic sustainability factors on their sustainable regeneration projects. Contributing to the discussion during the interview, one practitioner outlined his organisation’s ethical and moral responsibilities by saying:

…As regeneration practitioners, we hold it as an obligation to give something back to the community where we operate. …We do this by providing supports and services to individuals and communities in areas where we work, and that’s how we discharge our ethical and moral obligations as practitioners to society.

To support the above semi-structured interview findings, a questionnaire survey was also conducted with 193 practitioners. The results in Table 5.2 show that 20.7% of the

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practitioners who participated in the questionnaire survey have indicated that ‘ethical and moral obligations’ was a very important driver, while only 3.6% have responded that it was not an important driver for them at all. Furthermore, the results(Table 5.2)suggest that 48.7% of practitioners were either of the view that ‘ethical and moral obligations’ was a very important or important driver, compared to 47.7% who either considered it as fairly important or slightly important. However, the ‘very important or important’ questionnaire survey result obtained (48.7%) did not seem to support the ‘very important or important’ result (38%) obtained from the semi-structured interviews. The reason could possibly be due to the variation in the size of data from which both analyses were conducted.

The result falls short of the author’s expectations, as all the practitioners who took part particularly in the interview, have indicated that delivering sustainability benefits for communities was a good thing to do. The literature review in Chapter 2 has revealed that many practitioners who advocate sustainability principles find it very difficult to put them into practice (Van Bueren and De Jong, 2007). However, the very important or important (48.7%) response obtained from practitioners in the questionnaire survey, provides a good indication that some practitioners are focusing their efforts on contributing to the sustainability of communities in which they are working.

It is often the case for many commercially minded organisations to focus on commercial aspects and, hence, tend to neglect their ethical and moral obligations which enjoin them to adopt and implement the socio-economic sustainability factors on their projects (Rickey and Houghton, 2009). The principles underlying the socio-economic sustainability requirements for sustainable regeneration projects require that practitioners deliver the projects in a manner that promotes society’s social and economic prosperity. Pursuing such objectives calls for the adoption and implementation of socio-economic sustainability practices which enable opportunities to be created to enhance the social and economic conditions of society. For example, by adopting sustainability principles to promote job opportunities, etc, then that organisation can be seen to be discharging its corporate ethical and moral obligations for society (Mason and Simmons, 2014; Okoro, 2012; Martinuzzi et al., 2011; EPH, 2008; ODPM, 2006). Equally, there are also benefits for practitioners’ organisations as well. According to CLG (2008), organisations that are mindful of their ethical and moral obligation towards society are more likely to win the support of that society. Discharging such ethical and moral obligations by delivering a range of socio-economic sustainability benefits for

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communities, Turcsanyi and Sisaye, (2013) and Pitt et al. (2009), believed can also lead to a long term improvement of the overall economic fortune of organisations.