SUSTAINABILITY BEST PRACTICES IN SMALL CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES: ANALYSIS CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES FROM CEARÁ, BRAZIL

Purpose: This study aims to aimed to analyze sustainability practices in Micro and Small Companies from the construction sector. Method: A qualitative study was conducted with three Micro and Small Construction Companies. The study involved analyzing content from in-depth interviews and field observations. The observations were conducted using a checklist developed to evaluate sustainable practices and applied to construction sites, complementing the evidence from interviews. Results and conclusion: As results, the managers' perception of the meaning of sustainability and good practices, their benefits, barriers, and feasibility of adoption in the MSC context were highlighted. With the developed tool, it was possible to identify sustainable best practices on construction sites and evaluate their impact in terms of economic, environmental, and social dimensions. Evidence showed that companies are committed to implementing sustainable practices, and there was an underestimation of the practices carried out by managers, indicating a cognitive barrier regarding the topic. Originality/value: This research introduces innovation by conducting an analysis of the adoption of water reuse in buildings based on the multi-level perspective of socio-technical transitions towards sustainability. It focuses on a state in the Brazilian Northeast, whose territory is primarily situated in the Caatinga biome, characterized by a semi-arid climate and a history of severe drought cycles. Research implications: The developed checklist is a practical and easy-to-use tool for identifying and assessing sustainable best practices, aiding in the awareness, management, and improvement of sustainable performance in Micro and Small Companies within the construction sector.


INTRODUCTION
Civil Construction is known for its great impact on the environment (high raw material consumption, waste generation and loss of materials) (Passuello et al., 2014).It is estimated that about 30% of global energy consumption (Darko et al., 2017) in the construction sector, in addition to the high CO2 emissions that the sector has (Vigoderis, 2024), placing it as one of the three key sectors to address climate change challenges (European Commission, 2011).
In this context, awareness of the importance of more sustainable construction enterprises has increased (Ayman et al., 2020) and driven a growing number of construction companies to seek ways to offset or reduce the impact of their actions (Agopyan & John, 2011;Chang & Liao, 2023).For example, companies are looking for alternative technologies to reduce their emissions (Vigoderis, 2024) or reducing the consumption of other pressing resources such as water (Rodrigues et al., 2024).
However, this concern is not so evident when one considers the micro and small enterprises (SMEs) in the sector.Are classified as MPE, companies whose annual gross income is greater than R $ 360.000,00 and less or equal to R $ 4.800.000,00(Brazil, 2006).In the construction sector, companies of this size represent 42% of the active companies (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, 2020), revealing the importance of this size for the sector.
In spite of this, studies about construction management in SMEs are scarce, especially because the greatest concentration of technical professionals has always occurred in the big cities, specifically in medium and large constructions (Cruz et al., 2017), which contributes to the technological and managerial gap (Maciel et al., 2019).
In general, CRMs have as their outstanding characteristics the low quality of administrative management, resistance and difficulties in incorporating new technologies and little capital for investments (Guerra & Teixeira, 2010;Santini et al., 2015).Such features can also be found in the construction sector (Sousa et al., 2019) and may condition the sector's SMEs in the quest for financial survival, leaving in the background, or even totally neglecting, social and environmental issues.
Thus, efforts to achieve sustainable performance in a systematic manner are still underway (Vasconcelos et al., 2020), the low incorporation of sustainability strategies in buildings (Villa et al., 2018), and due to the lack of studies on CRMs in the construction sector in general (Cruz et al., 2017;Sousa et al., 2019)  To this end, the cases of three small construction companies in the interior of the state of Ceará were analyzed.As a contribution, in addition to providing empirical evidence of sustainability in CRM of the construction sector, it was possible to understand the meaning of sustainability for CRM managers, as well as to develop a tool to identify and assess the potential impact of practices on the economic, social and environmental dimensions.Such an instrument can be used in other cases in order to allow for a sustainable assessment in other CRMs and thus induce sustainability in this size of companies.

THEORETICAL FRAME
This section presents the theoretical framework.Sustainability and its operationalization in the construction sector is conceptualized, and good sustainability practices in construction sites are highlighted.

SUSTAINABILITY IN CONSTRUCTION
The quest for sustainable development has been going on since the 1960s Egri & Pinfield, 1998.His concept went through several phases until it emerged as one that meets the needs of the present without compromising the possibility of future generations to meet their own needs (Carrieri, 2000).
In the business field, this concept has been translated from the tripod of sustainability, encompassing environmental, social and economic perspectives (Elkington, 1999).Its operationalization has been sought in several economic sectors, in the face of the growing demand of society for sustainable products and services (Pardini, 2009), which is also perceived in the construction sector.
In this sector, according to Vasconcelos, Cândido and Heineck (2020), economic sustainability is linked to the organization of work with the rationalization of the layout of the site and the reduction or elimination of activities that do not add value.Environmental sustainability is related to the proper use of natural resources, so as not to exhaust them, worrying about the use of the land and altering the local ecology, energy, water and materials (Almeida & Picchi, 2018).
The social dimension comprises a broader category with impacts on workers and society (community, customers and suppliers) Vilhena, 2007.It encompasses the quality of the internal and external environment, the reduction of informality, both of companies and of workers, as well as guidelines for Quality of Life at Work (QVT) (Vasconcelos et al., 2020).Second Agopyan and John (2011)However, the discussion of social tensions passes not only through the construction site, but also through society in general, and demand a built environment of better quality.However, the literature points to an emphasis on the most basic issues of health and safety at work Darko & Chan, 2016.Also, the construction sector is marked by corruption and poor relations with the community (Lin et al., 2014), factors which denote the sector as socially irresponsible (Chiveralls et al., 2011).The quest for transparency, inequality, consensus, financial resources, community engagement, strategic planning, and bias in their policies, practices, and cultures is a challenge for businesses in general (Ganesh & Venugopal, 2024), and more difficult for SMEs and in particular the construction sector.
In this sense, several studies have sought to evaluate the sustainability of buildings.
These studies propose sustainability indicators and show poor performance or unbalanced performance between sustainable dimensions (Cagno et al. 2019;Hassan 2016;Tavana et al. 2021).Others address Environmental certifications (Suzer, 2019;Tleuken et al., 2021) or apply life cycle assessment to compute different energy consumptions (Tavana et al., 2021).Studies of a more reflective nature, which investigate how construction companies are promoting the transition to a sustainable orientation, are also present in the literature and point to the existence of genuine efforts to assume processes of sustainable change (M.G. Teixeira et al., 2016).
The studies mentioned above do not consider CRMs and their difficulties.Many certifications have requirements that may be unworkable for MPE and small constructions, because in addition to requiring managerial staff, they tend to increase some costs.These costs tend not to be absorbed by the market, reducing the competitiveness of these companies, due to the low level of environmental awareness of the inhabitants (Villa et al., 2018).Although users 6 are increasingly aware of the environmental issue, the price and location of the building still determine their purchase options (Santos & Becker, 2022).
In addition, companies need to deal with the tensions and challenges faced in the transition to a more sustainable sector, including acting under an uncertain institutional environment (weak institutions and ambiguous legal requirements for environmental behavior), while innovating and maintaining competitiveness in a sector where price signaling does not reflect a possible preference for sustainable buildings (Jiang & Payne, 2019).
In this way, to contribute to the sustainable orientation of SMEs in the construction sector, the study worked with the concept of good practices.Viable practices are assumed to exist in the context of CRMs.The concept of sustainability tripod was used in the present study to analyze the good practices of these companies.

SUSTAINABLE GOOD PRACTICE IN CONSTRUCTION SITES
According to the Brazilian Chamber of Construction Industry (CBIC, 2012)However, a good practice is characterized by: innovative appearance or little diffusion in the market; present some relevant question about sustainability in the context of civil construction; present good execution, generating positive results for the undertaking and the stakeholders involved; and have replication potential by other companies.
To Costa et al. (2005), good practices involve quality aspects of the execution process, process control, minimization of losses and consumption of materials in the construction sites, and rationalization of the execution workforce.They are not necessarily unprecedented, but refer to the actions actually implemented by companies without requiring major efforts or major financial investments.Also, according to the authors, they must be adaptable to the economic and financial conditions, to the technical culture and to the production strategy of each company, leading to productivity gains, reducing the effort necessary for the development of new solutions and improving the performance in the processes.
For example, the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) can be considered a good practice in the context of WCBP.Although it is a simple activity, of recognized importance and even of legally required employment, it is not always carried out in the ambit of CRMs (Cruz et al., 2017).Not only is the availability of PPE a critical point, but the culture of construction workers is that it is an unnecessary practice (Sousa et al., 2019).The practice reaches the social pillar, since it promotes the safety and well-being of workers, as well as the economic dimension, since it makes it possible to reduce the costs of eventual removals by accident or occupational diseases.
In this sense, for the purposes of this work, the criteria defining good practice postulated by the CBIC were adopted.These criteria supported the identification of good practices of companies, as a tool for detailed evaluation in the research method.

SEARCH METHOD
The research adopted a qualitative approach, through a case study (Stake, 1995).Data collection was conducted through in-depth interviews and field observation, aiming at triangulation of the sources of evidence.Initially, it was sought to understand how the managers of the construction CRMs see their good practices and their relationship with sustainability and to assess the degree of impact of good practices, using a developed identification and evaluation tool.A Figure 1 displays the steps of the search.and its benefits.This is crucial to interpret the actions they indicate as sustainable good practices.The semi-structured interview was chosen because it was desired to understand the interviewees' views without imposing the interviewers' views (Richardson, 2011).

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A pre-test was performed, which was adjusted to improve the language, seen the lower degree of professionalization of the pre-test participant, and clarifications were needed during its application.An instrument has been developed to assess sustainable good practice, as set out in the sub-section below.

INSTRUMENT FOR ASSESSING SUSTAINABLE GOOD PRACTICE
The instrument for identifying and evaluating sustainable good practices in construction CRMs was composed of three parts: a checklist for field observation with 50 good practices (available in Appendix A); a scale with the impact of these practices on the economic, social and environmental dimensions; a procedure for calculating the sustainable potential of company practices The 50 good checklist practices emerged from the literature, whose percentage by size in the sustainability tripod is presented in Figure 2. Thus, it was found that whatever the practice, the economic bias is present, which was expected.Seeking competitiveness, many companies have invested in "[...] improving process optimization by eliminating steps or leveraging productivity, indicating a traditional and change-resistant posture change for a more dynamic and innovative industry."(Böes et al., 2018(Böes et al., , p. 1474)).This highlights weaknesses in the sustainability approaches observed in the construction management literature.
The 50 good practices identified were classified according to their impact on each of the sustainability pillars and were awarded a zero score for a non-impact practice, a one for partial impact and a two for full impact.For example, if good practice was presented by the authors of the works with the bias of an increase in productivity or a reduction in cost, it was associated with the economic pillar.When associated with waste and consumption of materials, it was associated with the environmental pillar.But when the practice brings more security, better-it was associated with the social pillar.
A Table 1 displays the amount of Good Practices per associated impact level.The checklist and scale are in full in the appendix of the article.

Table 1
Quantity of practices by degree of impact on economic, social and environmental dimensions.As can be seen, the social and environmental perspectives have a lower impact, highlighting the incipience of work that encompasses these themes in studies on construction CRM.As expected, the dimension of good practice was economic, as it is more related to the efficiency of processes and the economic survival of the company, which is compared as the main criterion of success among companies (Sousa et al., 2019).
With the checklist, good practices are identified at the construction site and, according to the scale of impacts, the potential for sustainable impact is calculated.For example, if 10 good practices with intermediate impact were identified (note 2) and two with high 10 environmental impact (note 2), the work receives a score of 14 which is the result of 10X1+2X2.
According to Table 1, environmental pillar practices give up to 29 impact points, which for the example represents a percentage of 48% (14/29).Such an analysis allows for greater objectivity to compare the degree of involvement of companies with sustainable issues.

CHARACTERIZATION OF UNDERTAKINGS AND RESPONDENTS
The study was carried out in three construction companies in the municipality of Crateús.After the application of the roadmap for interview with managers, a visit to the works was requested for the application of the developed instrument.The purpose of the visit was to verify the reality of the good practices indicated in the preliminary interview, as well as to investigate other practices that the managers did not point out.
Thus, a triangulation of multiple sources of evidence was performed, increasing the validity of the study (Teixeira & Nascimento, 2011).Finally, a content analysis was conducted Chizzoti, 2011;Gibbs, 2009  Figure 3 presents the main characteristics of the companies and subjects of the research.All the companies are small, operating in the city of Crateús and, in the state in general, with a similar niche market.Only the representative of Company C, which in this case is its owner, is not a training engineer and has only a high school education.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This section is subdivided into the specific objectives.An exploratory study is presented to understand the meaning of sustainability and good practices, as well as their feasibility in the context of CRM.An assessment of the impact potential of the activities of the study companies is then carried out.

EXPLORATORY STUDY
Figure 4 presents the meaning that respondents attribute to good practice and sustainability, as well as the benefits.

Figure 4
Meaning of good practice, sustainability and benefits to the company in the perception of the company managers Regarding the meaning of good practice, it is noted that the three respondents associate good practice with quality.However, only Company B's manager relates good practice to routine action that improves productivity, management and quality of the construction process, which is close to the definition of CBIC (2012) adopted in this work.

Company A Company B Company C Meaning of Good Practice "Good practice is to run the service according to NBR... the implementing rules.' "Good practice I understand as being daily actions. That it maintains the constructive quality of the work, so there is no point in being a good practice and being inserted only once in the construction site, it has to have routine for productive improvement
With regard to the meaning of sustainability, the responses of companies A and C were focused on their own products, that is, on continuity and quality of supply, including their credibility.Therefore, this indicates that they see sustainability through an economic bias, not mentioning anything about the environment or society, revealing traces of principles of coordination and productive organization.Company B's manager, on the other hand, brought the vision of meeting current needs without jeopardizing future ones, aspects based on the more predominant vision of sustainability (Carrieri, 2000).
As for the benefits, the three answers refer to the economic pillar, as expected, because it is about the benefits for the company.The words of the respondents from companies A and B also refer to the social dimension.The environmental dimension is only perceived in the speech of the respondent of company B.These results corroborate the literature revisited, since the practices always have an economic bias linked to the social or environmental dimension and, less often, to the three dimensions in an integral way.
Company B's director added that although he did not see immediate financial return for the company, he and his team were "[...] willing to invest in the company to take more care of practices that do not cause as much impact on the environment, [...] we think of it as future, as people having the possibility to enjoy our planet in a more sustainable way".This is in line with Teixeira et al. (2016) which identified the existence of genuine efforts to take on sustainable change processes in three Santa Maria-RS builders.
Figure 5 shows the benefits managers realize for employees and society/community.

Benefits to society/community And for society it's good because we're always creating jobs." So for society and for the community, we think about this, that our society with our collaborators can become a little bit better. And for the community as a whole, we have to be kind and urban. [...] Take care of the environment, make our works bring less inconvenience. So this all comes from thinking about sustainability in the worksite." "The development and growth of the city."
Source: Authors.
With regard to employee benefits, again, Company Owner A and Company Owner C only mention production, i.e., the economic pillar.Company B's respondent encompasses social and environmental issues, because he is concerned with the environment and with the education of employees, once again raising the question of future generations.With regard to the benefits for society/community, we can see that the economic dimension is again present in the speech of the respondents of companies A and C, while in company B more emphasis is placed on social and environmental issues.It is interesting to note the consistency maintained by the respondent from company B, which always includes more than one dimension of the sustainability tripod in its talks.
Figure 6 presents the perception of barriers and feasibility for the adoption of sustainable practices.As expected, most responses were about the cultural barrier, as it is a recurring problem in CRMs.According to the interviewees, the workers generally show resistance in the implantation of innovative habits.Sometimes there is resistance even to the use of protective and safety equipment, either lack of knowledge or for finding it unnecessary.These changes should be encouraged by entrepreneurs who, in addition, should disseminate information to workers.

'My house My life', but no more has..." Feasibility of sustainable practices for CRMs "For sure, you have to hit this key because it's a differential, especially for those who are starting out." "[...] it is viable in any work, from a small reform to a macro work." "[...] you have to have sustainability to have
As observed by Carrieri (2000), the lack of a cultural change, of awareness, of incorporation of the environmental question in fact, can generate a green discourse that is either empty, or incoherent, or incongruent.Furthermore, they may diminish the probability of companies contributing towards producing impacts in the solution of social and environmental tensions (Teixeira et al., 2016).In addition to the cultural issue, Company C Owner pointed out the economic issue, which is typical of MPE budget constraints.Company B's director mentioned aspects of technological availability in the region: "[...] for example, here in Crateús we don't have a waste recycling company [...] we could have to pick up, receive rubble, crush, segregate and use it as a base for road expansion, we use material as recycled, segregate, in short...".In fact, the issue of technological availability is important and highlighted in innovation and technology studies geared towards sustainability (Nesari et al., 2022).
With regard to feasibility, all recognize the importance and necessity of good practices within organizations.Company C Owner brought a vision linked to society, in what seemed a primitive outline of achieving legitimacy or simple adaptation to the demands of society, increasingly aware about the environmental issue (Agopyan & John, 2011).
In this way, having understood the perception about sustainability and good practices of managers, the following subsection analyzes the sustainable good practices identified in the studied companies.

Figure 7
Sustainable good practices reported by respondents
Eight practices were informed, half of which came from the interview with the owner of company A. It should be noted that the mentioned sustainable good practices only partially reach the dimensions of sustainability, in the perception of the interviewees: the environmental pillar with economic, or economic with social, reflecting what was observed in the literature.
That is, the practices necessarily need to produce an economic gain.In the perception of the owner of company C, none of its sustainable good practices reaches the environmental dimension.
Of the eight practices reported, only one was assessed as not having economic impacts: "Maintaining friendships with customers", from the perspective of the owner of company C.
However, this indicates a limitation in the manager's understanding: it is argued that the main gain of a good relationship, in this case pointed out as "friendships with customers", is in the economic dimension, because these customers, when satisfied, can acquire new products of the company, as well as disseminate and indicate the brand to other potential customers.
The amount of impacts mentioned for the environmental and social pillars were equivalent.However, when considering the perceived degree, practices tend to have a greater impact on the social issue.This corroborates the literature (CARRIERI, 2000), since in 16 developing countries, there is a noticeable concern with social rather than environmental issues, given the economic and social insecurity.
Finally, it can be seen that the recycling of waste was cited as a common practice of companies A and B, with divergence as to its impact, which, in the perception of the owner of company A, does not occur in the social dimension.An important reflection for this specific issue is that the government can act to make these technologies feasible and thus reduce the  , 2009), which makes it possible to identify design flaws and helps the planning of the production process and thus helps to eliminate waste, impacting the economic and environmental pillars.In addition, it helps assess energy performance among other benefits that can increase the sustainability of a building designed with this methodology (Al Hattab, 2021;Muller et al., 2019).
Based on these good practices and better understanding the interviewees' perception of sustainable good practices, visits to construction sites were carried out to confirm the existence of these good practices, as well as to identify other uninformed ones.In company A, the construction of a single-family residence with three bedrooms and an area of 220 m² was visited.
In company B, the construction of a hospital clinic with two floors was visited.In Company C, the construction visited consisted of the simultaneous execution of three single-family residences.Table 2 presents the quantitative synthesis of the field survey.17 There is a wide disparity between what managers mentioned as good practice and what literature pointed to as good practice.A total quantity almost six times greater was perceived (44 practices not cited against eight cited).In company A, for example, one can cite the use of concrete mixer, which was not considered a practical work.The use of concrete mixer facilitates the process of preparing concrete and mortar in the work and is considered as a good practice by Cruz, Carvalho and Santos (2017), because it reduces the preparation time of the concrete and mortar traditionally made manually in small works, reduces the waste of products, and minimizes the effort of the workers for their production, reaching primarily the economic pillar and partially the social pillar of sustainability.In company B, greater care was taken with regard to the handling of construction residues, with the supply of cleaning kits and PVC pipe ducts for their vertical movement, as can be seen in Figure 8.In company C, for example, the use of whole packaging was verified for the dosing of the agglomerants.The use of whole packaging for the dosage of the agglomerants was pointed out as good practice by Costa et al. (2005) for whom this practice provides for the reduction of material losses and the minimization of variability in the production of mortars, starting from 18 the greater uniformity in the quantities of the binders.In this way, the practice impacts the economic and environmental pillars.
Several inappropriate practices were also identified, notably inadequate waste management and the absence of personal protective equipment for companies A and C.
Problems with the organization and packaging of materials were also noticeable in the three companies.
Table 3 presents the number of practices identified for each company.The percentages of the 47 practices identified are shown in Figure 9.Following the trend of the literature, that is to say, there is always an economic reason linked to the practices adopted in the companies, and, only one practice -of company B (use of American tiles in the covering), had an exclusively social bias.This practice is highlighted by Cruz, Carvalho and Santos (2017) as a practice to bring improvements in the thermal comfort of the building, with the benefit of improving the quality of life of its users.19 Finally, the potential impact of the practices was investigated as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10
Comparison of the potential impact of practices on sustainability dimensions Legend: Source: Authors.
There is similar behavior in the distribution of potential between the sustainability pillars for the three companies.The values of the impact on the economic, social and environmental dimensions are 14%, 20% and 14% respectively for company A, 41%, 50% and 52% for company B, and 14%, 20% and 17% for company C.These results indicate that there is a long way to go for companies to increase their sustainable performance in relation to their practices, which can be explained to some extent by the poor understanding about sustainability.
In this context, the instrument developed can provide a good starting point for this journey, if the companies so desire.

CONCLUSION
This study aimed to analyze sustainability practices in micro and small construction companies, which was done by means of three case studies with companies from the state of Ceará.In this sense, from the interviews it was possible to analyze the perception of CRM managers in the construction sector about the meaning of sustainability and good practices, their benefits, the barriers and the feasibility for the adoption of these sustainable good practices in the context of CRM.
An alignment can be seen between the content of interviews and the practices carried out that put the economic dimension at the center of the concept of sustainability.There was 20 also a link between good practice and quality of service.Also, as the main benefit for the company, for the employees and for the community, the economic gains were highlighted.Less emphasis was placed on the social issue and, with the exception of company B, the concern for the environment is almost nil.As for barriers, the cultural issue was highlighted.Even if everyone sees the adoption of sustainable good practices as feasible, the economic barrier has also been mentioned.
From the visits made to the construction sites of the companies, it was possible to identify and evaluate sustainable good practices.Such sustainable good practices are generally more related to process efficiency in order to promote quality improvement and productivity increase, leading to reduced waste and costs, which indirectly impacts the social and environmental dimension.Thus, it is concluded that, despite the low level of management common to CRMs, there are indications that there is a commitment to achieving sustainable practices.However, the adaptive capacities of companies still seem to be insufficiently developed for this purpose.
Thus, it expanded the empirical evidence on sustainability in CRMs, allowing a better understanding of the reality of this type of company in the construction sector.
It should be noted that the adoption of sustainable solutions can involve, directly and indirectly, the generation of jobs, income and well-being, leading to advances of CRM and collaborating for the development of cities where companies operate.In small centers, such as the case of the city of Cratéus where companies have a focus of action, this effort can and should be supported by the public authorities to make possible a more sustainable development, given the limitations of investments of CRM, as highlighted in the study, for the acquisition of technologies such as the recycling of construction and demolition waste.
Finally, although widely investigated in organizational studies, the issues of sustainability practices in civil construction in general, and in CRMs in this segment in particular, are poorly addressed.In this sense, the present study brought some reflections that contribute to the debate on the topic.21 As limitations, one can point out the small number of cases available to the study, which could expand and deepen the results obtained.Thus, it is suggested as future research the application of this instrument in quantitative strategies, such as survey, for sustainability panorama assessments in WAM with higher sampling.
and its relation to sustainability (M.G. Teixeira Sustainability Best Practices in Small Construction Companies: Analysis Construction Companies from Ceará, Brazil ___________________________________________________________________________ Rev. Gest.Soc.Ambient.| Miami | v.18.n.9 | p.1-26 | e06413 | 2024.4 et al., 2016), the question is: how is sustainability practiced in the CRMs of the construction sector?Thus, the objective of this work was to analyze sustainability practices in CRMs of the construction sector.Specifically: (i) understanding the meaning of sustainability for CRM managers; (ii) surveying sustainable good practices on CRM construction sites; (iii) assessing the potential impact of sustainable CRM practices on the economic, social and environmental dimensions.
Figure 1Search Design

Figure 2
Figure 2Distribution of good sustainability practices from the literature interviews to produce the results of the research.The analysis consisted of judging the respondents' responses based on what was found in the bibliography visited.This procedure allowed for the verification of similarities and divergences and the comparison of respondents' responses.
we start to talk about it in a construction site, in sustainability, in taking care of the environment, we manage to give them an education, a training that they can take to future generations... in the day-to- Figure 7 presents best practices and their impacts informed by respondents.

Figure 8
Figure 8Use of cleaning kits(Company B)
One can also highlight a large disparity between what the managers mentioned as good practices and what the literature pointed to as good practice, indicating that there is an underestimation of what they do in their construction sites or a cognitive barrier with regard to the theme.Such evidence was only possible with the use of the instrument of identification and evaluation of sustainable good practices developed in the research, a contribution of the study.

Market Niche Residential, Commercial, Industrial and Public Residential, Commercial and Public Residential and Commercial Type of labor Subcontracted and own Subcontracted and own Own
Sustainability Best Practices in Small Construction Companies: Analysis Construction Companies from Ceará, Brazil ___________________________________________________________________________ Rev. Gest.Soc.Ambient.|Miami | v.18.n.9 | p.1-26 | e06413 | 2024.11Source: Authors.

"The zeal of... the day-to-day work... The quality of work." Meaning of Sustainability for Business Managers "[...] It would be the continuity of services... Make the builder stay active, improving the standard of finishing and service." "Sustainability to us... I see how to build without causing... less impact on the environment. We need that future generations can enjoy the planet and the civil construction [...] as a whole it already impacts a lot. [...] I understand how sustainability is to think about future generations taking care of the planet, taking care of the construction site to have less environmental impact." "Is it... quality? [...] the quality and responsibility that gives the sustainability of the company."
Sustainability Best Practices in Small Construction Companies: Analysis Construction Companies from Ceará, Brazil ___________________________________________________________________________ Rev. Gest.Soc.Ambient.| Miami | v.18.n.9 | p.1-26 | e06413 | 2024.12
of Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) on the management of Urban Solid Waste (MSW).According to Brazilian Association of Public Cleaning Companies and Special Waste (2022)In 2021, RCD was about 59% of the RSU collected in Brazil.The amount of CDW rose from 33 million tons in 2010 to 48 million tons in 2021, representing a collected amount per capita of 227.5 kg per inhabitant per year.Also note the specific mention of BIM made by the director of Company B. The term BIM means Building Information Modeling.In a way that gives rise, this methodology digitally reproduces the entire project and construction alternatives in advance (SUCCAR