Abstract
Due to declining resources, increasing population, and increasing pollution, green buildings, which utilize green construction materials and technologies, are emerging as part of the solution to mitigate these issues. Developing countries have understood the importance of incorporating sustainability as part of their national agenda. However, their ability to implement green design has been hampered by existing and/or perceived barriers. This paper strives to understand the barriers to green design and green materials implementation in developing countries, using the case of Burkina Faso, a country of West Africa. To gain insight on these barriers, this paper solicits the perceptions of Burkinabe green design professionals on sustainability issues involved with green design and construction. Five types of barriers are explored related to government, human, knowledge and information, market, and cost and riskbarriers. An extensive literature review as well as the results of a study are used to examine this phenomenon as it compares to the existing literature. Understanding these barriers is the first step to initiate changes in policies and practices aimed at increasing green design in Burkina Faso. In addition, the research methods could be used to encourage further empirical studies on sustainable building practices in West Africa and other developing countries.
Highlights
Findings were compared to the existing literature from the United States of America as a representative of developed countries to help anticipate how to avoid barriers as Burkina Faso develops its built environment
Do developing countries lag behind developed countries in the pursuit of green design using the cases of Burkina Faso and the United States of America?
5.3 Discussion of results for research question 1 Research question 1 asked: what are the barriers to green design and green materials implementation in Burkina Faso? Based on the results of the online questionnaire and the semi-structured interviews, this study found a total of 31 barriers with 14 barriers specific to Burkina Faso itself
Summary
Findings were compared to the existing literature from the United States of America as a representative of developed countries to help anticipate how to avoid barriers as Burkina Faso develops its built environment. From the understanding of the barriers, guidelines were developed, which are the first step to initiate changes in policies and practices aimed at increasing green design and construction in Burkina Faso, and in West Africa in general. DEDICATION This dissertation is firstly dedicated to my country Burkina Faso, which inspired this research, and whose design and construction professionals generously gave of their time in order to answer my questions. May you always remain the country of “morally upright men”. It is dedicated to my ancestors and to my late maternal and paternal grandparents who started our family on this journey of continued knowledge seeking, by encouraging us to always break boundaries.
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