Responsible Design and Delivery of the Constructed Project Edited by Abdul-Malak, M., Khoury, H., Singh, A., and Yazdani, S. Copyright © 2018 ISEC Press ISBN: 978-0-9960437-5-5 PRO-04-1 RESPONSIBLE DELIVERY OF THE BUILT PROJECT: WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY IS IT? MAYSSA KALACH, MOHAMED-ASEM ABDUL-MALAK, and ISSAM SROUR Civil and Environmental Engineering, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon Several procurement approaches have evolved over the years to suit the delivery of the ever increasing complexity and size of construction projects, coupled with the increasing pressure to embrace green methodologies as part of any such approach. Many of these available approaches reflect various levels of integration that may be desired to achieve in respect of critical project aspects, including: design, construction, operation, and finance. Decisions as to the most suitable delivery approach are to be made by project owners/developers, while being often assisted by market analysts, project management professionals, and other specialty consultants. While it is established that such a decision-making process does not follow an exact science, this paper tackles the issue of where responsibility truly rests for ensuring that the preferred or adopted project procurement strategy is consciously argued for with the interests of all involved stakeholders in mind. It touches on (1) the roles of the public and development policies and regulations prevailing in the locality of the intended project as well as (2) the capabilities and readiness of concerned project participants in enforcing, or at least, promoting more environmental, social, and economic consciousness into the procurement approach decision-making process. Keywords: Integration, Project procurement, Green policies, Sustainability. 1 BACKGROUND The construction industry makes a vital contribution to the social and economic development of every country and has a major impact on its environment. To set the elements of sustainable development in an engineering context, twelve guiding principles were published by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE). Such principles advocate forward looking advices such as: “Innovate and be creative”, “Seek engagement from all stakeholders”, “Make sure you know the needs and wants”, and “Do things right, having decided on the right thing to do” (Dodds and Venables 2005). Aiming for a successful built project, owners/developers are increasingly realizing that focusing on the delivery process of the project may be as important as focusing on its technical aspect. A project delivery system is defined as a system that determines (1) the relationships between the different project stakeholders and (2) their timing of engagement in the process of providing the intended built facility (El Asmar et al. 2013). To suit the delivery of the ever-increasing complexity and size of construction projects, several procurement approaches have evolved over the years to replace the conventional Design-Bid-Build (DBB) method. These methods include the fast-track oriented methods (i.e., the Construction Manager at Risk (CMR) and the Design-Build (DB) method) and the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD). As for the DBB and the CMR, in both methods the owner contracts separately with the designer and the contractor for design and construction services. However, the CMR approach is characterized by