Identifying the Key Barriers to Promote Sustainable Construction in the United States: A Principal Component Analysis

Abstract

The need to build more facilities has intensified the inherited adverse impacts of the construction industry on the triple bottom lines of sustainability (i.e., people, planet, and profit). The current practice of sustainability in the construction industry is far from reaching the targeted green goals. In order to foster these endeavors, this study aims to explore sustainable construction barriers in the United States. To achieve the objective, first, 12 sustainability barriers were identified based on an excessive and comprehensive literature review and solicitation of experts’ opinions to validate the barriers. Next, a questionnaire survey was developed and distributed among 135 industry professionals to evaluate the relative importance of factors. To offer a practical solution, principal component analysis (PCA) was used to analyze the data and find the most effective barriers. The results show that four major barriers, including (1) pre-construction constraints, (2) managerial constraints, (3) legislative constraints, and (4) financial and planning constraints are the most influential challenges that the industry faces to foster sustainable construction. Practical solutions are suggested to tackle sustainable construction barriers. The findings of this study are beneficial to the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry members along with owners and policymakers.

Real Estate Developers Insight on the Critical Barriers to Sustainable Housing Delivery

“…This could be linked to the poor policy implementation for sustainable housing delivery in Nigeria. The results of Karji et al, (2020) and Saleh and Alalouch (2015) also confirm that there is no enforcement for sustainable housing, thus leading to developer housing that is below standards.…”

“…For instance, in developed nations, Williams and Dair (2007) revealed that the lack of professionals, inadequate consciousness and information, lack of sustainable resources and materials, the high cost of sustainable housing and poor demand from clients are the five critical barriers to sustainable housing development in England. Karji et al, (2020), in the United States of America, investigated the barriers to sustainability promotion in the construction industry. A principal components analysis was employed for data analysis and barriers critical to sustainability promotion were found to include preconstruction, managerial, legislative, planning and financial ones.…”

Development of Lean Approaching Sustainability Tools (LAST) Matrix for Achieving Integrated Lean and Sustainable Construction

“…Comparing the literature of early 2000 with the latest years, the generation of waste and consumption of energy continues to grow with the increasing demand for buildings and infrastructure. This suggests that the construction industry, from design through construction, has not fully adopted and implemented the SC practice in its true spirit (Tokbolat, et al, 2019;Karji, Namian and Tafazzoli, 2020). Thus, there is a need for developing a strategy to overcome the challenges and barriers to implementing SC.…”

“…Programs such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEEDS) in the USA, Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM) in the UK, have helped the construction industry move toward sustainable construction (SC). Despite all the benefits as well as the driving force from Government/State-initiated programs/ certifications, the required boom in sustainable construction (SC) is lacking within the construction industry (Tokbolat, et al, 2019;Karji, Namian and Tafazzoli, 2020). The researchers believe that existing construction management practices are still far from fully achieving the SC goals measured by the triple bottom line (Tokbolat, et al, 2019;Karji, Namian and Tafazzoli, 2020).…”

“…Despite all the benefits as well as the driving force from Government/State-initiated programs/ certifications, the required boom in sustainable construction (SC) is lacking within the construction industry (Tokbolat, et al, 2019;Karji, Namian and Tafazzoli, 2020). The researchers believe that existing construction management practices are still far from fully achieving the SC goals measured by the triple bottom line (Tokbolat, et al, 2019;Karji, Namian and Tafazzoli, 2020). Unfortunately, many constraints within current project management practices hold the industry down for fully inculcating the SC practices.…”