Measures to improve the adoption of life cycle assessment in the South African construction industry

Abstract

Purpose In spite of the urge among stakeholders to increase sustainability in the built environment, the South African Construction Industry (SACI) continues to suffer from low level of adoption of strategies such as life cycle assessment (LCA) to increase sustainable building practices in building and infrastructure delivery, hence the need to increase the adoption of sustainable concepts and sustainability practices is an emergent necessity. This study aims to identify the measures that can increase the adoption of LCA toward overcoming the practical difficulties, theoretical concerns and structural differences encountered in making gains in achieving sustainable practices in the SA construction industry. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted a deductive research design using a questionnaire survey with mean scores, Kruskal–Wallis and least square regression analysis done. Findings The study determined ten measures that can significantly influence about 88 per cent improvement in the success of LCA adopting in the SA industry. Also, there was a higher level of consensus in the findings which offers credence and good representation of the practical reality in the LCA adoption in South Africa. Originality/value These measures could be seen to embrace behavioural, social, technical and policy dimensions of LCA adoption. The findings are thus crucial in overcoming challenges to LCA methodologies in achieving sustainable building practices in the construction process in building and infrastructural delivery in SACI.

Clusters of key barriers to life cycle assessment adoption in the South African construction industry: perspectives of stakeholders

“…The respondents were to rate the extent to which they agree to the presence of the identified barriers affecting LCA adoption in the SACI using the conventional five-point Likert scale. The choice of the five-point Likert scale follows similar studies by Kwofie et al (2020), Opawole et al (2020) and Elkaseh et al (2014). From the distributed questionnaire, 102 responses were retrieved following a four week survey period.…”

Development of comprehensive energy usage impact and carbon footprint parameters for green building life cycle assessment

“…These systems help in solving new and existing building problems, limiting environmental impacts and create healthier and more productive places. It also reduces building operations cost as life cycle analysis takes into account all costs of acquiring, owning, operations and disposing of a building system (Ali and Al Nsairat, 2009; Kwofie et al , 2020). However, to make green building practices easier to implement, stakeholders should develop technical services and resources for determining the greenness of the building.…”

GHG Emissions Assessment of Civil Construction Waste Disposal and Transportation Process in the Eastern Amazon

“…To change this scenario, one of the alternatives could be the adoption of mechanisms that foster a circular economy [6], especially opportunities for reductions in energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and waste generation [7][8][9], which remain very deficient in developing countries. This fact is highlighted by the growing number of publications on the topic with the aim of minimizing waste production and its impacts in these countries [10][11][12][13][14][15].…”