Public-private partnership models for enhancing built environment sustainability

The sustainability of the built environment is one of the crucial issues faced by humanity. In the endeavor to enhance the sustainability of the built environment, the partnership between the public sector and the private sector has developed gradually over the years, with an increasing interest from scholars and practitioners alike (Paleti et al., 2024; Singireddy et al., 2024; Koppolu et al., 2023). However, despite the increasing emphasis on and wide practice of public-private partnership in this area, the existing theoretical studies lack holistic and exploratory research and tend to be based on single theories instead of comprehensive ones. By reviewing the subsets of 'sustainability' and 'built environment,' the paper suggests that built environment sustainability is characterized by the merging of public and private projects in the built environment, in the development process that covers the whole project life cycle through the private sector organizing and financing the creation of new assets or operating and managing existing assets to meet public needs, through the integration of public partners that contribute to political, social, ecological, and community wellness. This definition implies that sustainable development will happen only under the condition of both public and private benefits and could cover all areas of the built environment. These, in turn, imply that public-private partnership models for the financing, development, operation, and maintenance of the built environment will respond in a more adaptive manner to functions that meet public needs and generate public benefits within public built environment projects.