Revolutionising Sustainable Facility Management Outsourcing through the United Nations' SDGs: AI Applications and Case Studies

The Contingency Outsourcing Relationship (CORE) model, a Facility Management (FM) Outsourcing Artificial Intelligence (AI) system, was published. This paper explores how the FM outsourcing system aligns with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by analysing real business cases. Strategic Sustainable FM has the potential to contribute to the realisation of the 17 SDGs at all organisational levels. FM outsourcing is currently emphasising sustainability by incorporating the SDGs into business decisions. This study expands on previous work on the outsourcing relationships between a client and an FM service provider. It further examines the application of this model with the assistance of artificial neural networks (ANNs) to work towards a sustainable future. The paper first introduces the theory of the FM outsourcing relationship system, discussing how it can assist facilities managers in designing effective and productive FM strategies. It then outlines the research methodology, which involves conducting 8 case study analyses for testing and verification. The study concludes that FM outsourcing categorisation can help define the appropriate relationships between the provider and the client. Furthermore, outcomes generated from the FM Outsourcing AI model serve as a valuable reference, explaining the existing outsourcing relationships between parties and assigning an outsourcing category to the FM relationship based on learned rules with the goal of improvement. One limitation of the study is the small number of case studies for testing and verification. The originality of this research lies in demonstrating how the SDGs can quantitatively measure the added value of FM to the core business and the industry, as well as the impact of outsourcing on stakeholders, including clients, service providers and researchers. Keywords Artificial neural networks, FM outsourcing relationships system, FM strategies, outsourcing categories, sustainable development goals 1.0 INTRODUCTION Advanced technology and strategy can contribute to the sustainability of any profession and industry; however, it also requires a community to tackle problems. The research question of this paper is whether it is significant to develop sustainable facility management and implement sustainable development goals for FM. This research paper focuses on new emerging disciplines that will affect the operational phase of buildings and the people working therein. FM is a strategically important discipline for all organisations in the management, operation, and maintenance of the workplace, its assets, and operational efficiencies (The British Standards Institution, 2018) and aims to achieve high-quality daily and working lives. Lok et al. (2023) addressed that standardised and strategic level support is important for the smooth adoption of sustainable FM practices and processes. Even though FM has grown from traditional day-today operational management to be a strategic management tool, janitorial