Stakeholder engagement and collaboration in overcoming the constraints to delivering low carbon buildings in high-rise high-density cities

Abstract

The building stock in high-rise high-density cities is a principal contributor to global anthropogenic carbon emissions. Even though there are many commitments and action plans, an effective uptake in the delivery of low carbon buildings (LCBs) is not evident in high-rise high-density contexts due to several prevailing constraints. Despite many studies in the arena of LCBs, only a few have focused on analysing stakeholder ‘engagement’ and ‘collaboration’ towards identifying and addressing constraints to delivering LCBs. This paper addresses this gap by employing a Social Network Analysis (SNA) based methodology to explore the required engagement and collaboration of stakeholders in addressing constraints to delivering LCBs in high-rise high-density cities. In total 21 constraints to delivering LCBs were identified through a systematic literature review followed by a questionnaire survey covering Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia (Sydney and Melbourne), UAE (Dubai and Abu Dhabi) and Qatar. Furthermore, 15 influential stakeholder categories were identified from the literature. Subsequently, a two-round Delphi survey was conducted to map the engagement of stakeholders over the constraints and to develop the input dataset for SNA. The SNA results revealed the stakeholders’ influencing ability over each of the identified constraints and their significance in terms of their position in the developed social network structures. The findings should benefit industry practitioners by providing useful insights into potential engagement and collaboration channels for smoothly addressing the constraints to delivering LCBs.