How modern methods of construction would support to meet the sustainable construction 2025 targets, the answer is still unclear

Abstract

The United Kingdom (UK) construction industry is world renowned for its volatile boom and bust cycle, its inefficiencies, heavy environmental impact and recurring budget and programme overruns. The Construction 2025 Strategy was published by the UK Government and industry leaders with a vision of changing the industry for the better using four key targets i.e., reduction in construction projects duration, operational cost, level of greenhouse gas emissions, and import/export trade gap. This paper investigates whether a greater uptake in modern methods of construction (MMC) could help us achieve these targets. Key insights and findings from the existing literature on MMCs cost, time, greenhouse gas emissions and trade factors were analysed with strong indications of MMCs benefit to the targets. By using snowball sampling a quantitative survey was conducted on 134 professional working in the Architectural, Engineering and Construction sectors of UK with 23 questions on the four key targets. Cronbach’s Alpha and Pearson correlation analysis techniques were employed in conjunction with factor ranking to determine the internal validity, factor links and most important factors. The results showed that the majority of respondents believed that MMC could help us achieve the construction 2025 targets, with a similarity index ranking revealing that MMC would be of the most benefit to the greenhouse gas emissions and trade targets, however, all factors ranked tightly together. This body of research will benefit the UK Government, construction associations and industrial key stakeholders in their pursuit of reaching the reduction targets, and with only three years until the deadline, there is a strong chance they will promote MMC in the industry.