Delivery Of Green Building Projects Research Articles

Vietnam general contractors’ perceptions on challenges to the delivery of green building projects

This study focuses mainly on investigating differences in Southern and Northern general contractors’ perception of challenges in executing green building projects. The questionnaire survey-based data analysis results show that there is a good consensus between general contractors (GCs) from these two regions on the top two most critical challenges in delivering green building projects. They are “lacking of legal regulations and technical codes on green building”, and “more difficult to early establish a competent, integrated, and multidisciplinary green building project team”. Additionally, the Mann-Whitney U-test reveals that there are a significant difference on perception of the GCs from Northern as compared with those from Southern on the five challenges, including “shortage of reliable green building materials, technologies, and equipment in the market”, “lack of reliable suppliers of green products, materials, equipment”, “lack of appropriate tools/laboratories specific for testing, assessing, measuring, and inspecting the green performance of construction products”, “difficulty in selecting and managing subcontractors”, and “difficult in comprehending the green specifications”. The study may be beneficial not only for the central policymakers but also for the local governments, industrial practitioners and project stakeholders to gain a better understanding of the major challenges in executing green building projects at local or regional level. As a result, the study proposed many solutions specific for each of these regions to promote the development of the local green building industry.

A successful delivery process of green buildings: The project owners’ view, motivation and commitment

The project owners are at the centre of sustainability decisions to drive the implementation of sustainable building features in the construction industry. Despite this, the existing studies on the successful delivery of green buildings have only focused on the views of other construction project participants such as Architects and Contractors, while project owners are left out. To fill this gap, this study developed a conceptual framework of the synergy between owners’ motivation and commitment towards successful delivery of green buildings. The framework was empirically tested by exploring the views of 10 purposively selected project owners in the Australian construction industry. The findings revealed that while project owners’ motivation increases their commitment towards successful delivery of green building projects, the intrinsic type of project owners’ motivation is more effective than the extrinsic type. The extrinsic type of motivation is less effective due to the lack of harmonization in the existing incentive policies and programs for driving green building development in the Australian construction industry. The study concluded that, similar to other construction project participants, project owners have specific roles in the area of sustainability performance towards the successful delivery of green building projects. By implication, this study tinkers the Australian government to revisit the policy landscape for enhancing green building practices. Additionally, this study has demonstrated the need for active participation of project owners in the delivery of green building projects, and shown how the active participation of project owners can be enhanced through motivation in the construction industry.

An Exploration of Drivers and Strategies for Encouraging the Delivery of Green Building Projects in Housing Development

An Exploration of Drivers and Strategies for Encouraging the Delivery of Green Building Projects in Housing Development

Project delivery attributes influencing green building project outcomes

PurposeWhile the general trends in green building (GB) research are known, there is not yet a detailed review of studies on project delivery attributes (PDAs) influencing GB project outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature to understand the contributions of existing research in this area and to identify the challenges, gaps, and lessons for the future research relating GB project delivery.Design/methodology/approachFor the systematic review, specially developed coding based on Boolean operators is used to search for relevant studies in major databases, i.e. Web of Science and Scopus. The studies from the initial search (443) are subjected to two rounds of scrutiny for shortlisting only relevant publications. Using a qualitative review of the shortlisted studies (20), the research objectives and findings of the studies are synthesized and critically analyzed. The contributions and challenges facing research in this area are identified. Future research directions are proposed.FindingsStudies in the area have established association between PDAs and various GB project success criteria. In the literature, some PDAs such as project delivery method have been given greater attention than others. Challenges facing PDA research in GB include: the limited number of GB project cases and the complexity of GB project delivery process involving an overwhelmingly large number of variables, thereby limiting scientific rigor and creating some gaps in knowledge. The interaction among PDAs and their cumulative effect on various project performance outcomes/metrics have not been studied, limiting the validity of the existing studies. Scope exists to apply a combination of non-linear, dynamic, probabilistic, explicit, and implicit modeling as well as inductive and deductive approaches to research in this area.Research limitations/implicationsExisting research findings have limited application in practice. Non-linear, dynamic, probabilistic, deductive, and inductive research techniques and approaches can substantially advance knowledge and lead to plausible findings that can be applied in practice.Originality/valueConsidering the critical role of PDAs in the successful delivery of GBs, the review provides clear directions for future research.

A decision making support tool for selecting green building certification credits based on project delivery attributes

The Green Building (GB) certification process embodies detailed requirements and specifications that lead to additional tasks for project teams, which increases complexity levels of the entire project delivery process. Previous studies show that if the GB certification credits to be fulfilled are selected without considering project team attributes, then elevated levels of time, money, and labor could get wasted while attempting to meet the additional requirements of GB certification. The aim of this study is to develop a multi-attribute decision making (MADM) support tool to be used by GB experts to select the appropriate GB certification credits based on the project team attributes. The developed framework with relative weights assigned via the Delphi method was used to perform the MADM analysis, which employs the hybrid use of the Multi Attribute Utility Technique (MAUT) and the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). This paper presents the developed MADM tool (i.e., GB-CS tool) and the relative weights of the attributes that were determined following expert opinions. To validate the tool, a case study was conducted at a LEED-registered residential project. The results show that the GB-CS Tool was successful in ranking the GB certification credits to be selected. This hybrid MADM tool can be used for preventing disruptions and bottlenecks in GB project delivery processes by assisting the owners/GB consultants in effectively selecting suitable GB certification credits based on the project team attributes. Thus, with the assistance of the GB-CS tool, root causes of waste can be mitigated in the GB project delivery process, decreasing associated hidden costs.

Effect of Motivation and Owner Commitment on the Delivery Performance of Green Building Projects

The delivery of green building projects is often more difficult than non-green building projects thereby resulting in low project performance. In order to overcome the difficulties and improve the delivery performance of green building projects, there is need to explore the perceived relationship between motivation and owner commitment (OC) based on the self-determination theory (SDT) of motivation. However no previous research has empirically tested this relationship in the context of green building delivery performance. Therefore this study evaluated this relationship using survey data from 150 project owners of green building projects in the Australian building sector. Data obtained was analyzed using both confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis of eight hypotheses (H1-H8). The SEM results reveal that OC has direct positive relationship with traditional delivery performance (TDP). Additionally, only the internal motivation (INT) of project owners has direct positive relationship with sustainability delivery performance (SDP), and this relationship is partially mediated by OC. The external motivation (EXT) has no direct positive relationship with OC, and neither TDP nor SDP. The study concludes that OC helps to improve the TDP of green building projects, while the INT of project owners is required to increase their commitment (OC) towards improving the SDP of green building projects. In addition, the EXT of project owners is not effective to increase their commitment (OC), as well as not contributing to improve TDP and SDP of green building projects. Theoretically, the application of SDT of motivation helps to contribute to the knowledge of how to improve the delivery performance of green building projects in the field of construction management and engineering. Practically, this study will help project owners to contribute to improve the delivery performance of green building projects. This study also provides the direction in which policies for encouraging the development of green building projects and associated practices should take in both Australia and the US henceforth.

Project Owners’ Motivation for Delivering Green Building Projects

Project owners play a vital role in delivering green building projects in the building sector. However, their motivation for effective delivery of green building projects is currently unknown due to limited studies on the subject. Therefore, this study investigated project owners’ motivation for delivering green building projects by surveying 150 Green Star Accredited Professionals (GSAPs), who are the representatives of project owners’ interests in delivering green building projects in the Australian building sector. Using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and thereafter confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), findings revealed that project owners’ drivers of motivation for delivering green building projects can be classified into internal (INT) and external (EXT) motivation factors. The internal ones comprise improved quality of life, pro-environmental altruism, enhanced reputation, and persuasive influence, while the external ones comprise market appeal and financial and nonfinancial incentives provided by the government. The INT is more important than the EXT, but both are complementary of one another in driving the delivery of green building projects. The hypotheses that significant differences exist between public and private owners’ motivation, and commercial and noncommercial owners’ motivation for delivering green building projects are rejected. Thus, the theoretical position that INT and EXT complement rather than undermine one another is supported in this study. Furthermore, the comparison of this study with related studies in the United States indicates that the motivations for delivering green building projects are geographically different. In summary, this study has derived the factors of project owners’ motivation for delivering green building projects. Project owners can rely on either or both of the factors combined for successful delivery of their own projects. The government can use the factors to identify appropriate policies to enact and implement to increase project owners’ motivation for delivering green building projects in the building sector.

Identification of Waste Types and Their Root Causes in Green-Building Project Delivery Process

AbstractTime-related and cost-related waste through design and construction phases of the Green Building (GB) project delivery process are much higher than that of Nongreen Buildings (NGBs). Although prior studies have identified some waste types and related root causes for GB projects, a comprehensive classification of process waste and root causes encountered in GB project delivery does not exist in the literature. The objectives of this study are (1) to identify and classify waste types and associated root causes observed in design and construction phases of GB project delivery process, and (2) to rank the classified waste types and root causes based on their effects on time and cost increases during design and construction phases. To achieve the first research objective, an extensive literature review and a case study with three GB projects were conducted, and the identified root causes and waste types were represented in an Ishikawa diagram. To achieve the second research objective, two rounds of the...

Sustainable Design with BIM Facilitation in Project-based Learning

Emerging trends of green building and building information modelling (BIM) are driving profound transformation within the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry nowadays. This paradigm shift has also set up new expectations on college students for their competencies in sustainability and BIM. While most higher education institutions have already incorporated such topics in their curricula, green building and BIM are typically taught separately. In this study, instructors from two classes adopted an integrated approach and designed a joint course project focusing on both sustainable design and BIM implementation. With BIM facilitation, students collaborated in teams working on artefacts and other tasks to accomplish predefined sustainable goals for a real building project. The project based learning provides an ideal framework to evaluate critical factors that influence the execution of BIM in green building project delivery. Formative and summative assessments of student learning outcomes in model communication, teamwork, critical thinking, problem-solving, and sustainability were conducted. The results of this study provide insight into innovative pedagogic design for sustainability and BIM education in the AEC curricula. The study also confirmed the effectiveness of project based learning in cultivating student competencies in critical thinking and problem-solving within a multidisciplinary project environment.