Opportunities and Challenges of Green-Lean: An Integrated System for Sustainable Construction

Abstract

Although the two concepts of lean and sustainable construction have been developed due to different incentives, and they do not pursue the same exact goals, there exists considerable commonality between them. This paper discusses the potentials for integrating the two approaches and their practices and how the resulting synergy from combining the two methods can potentially lead to higher levels of fulfilling the individual goals of each of them. Some limitations and challenges to implementing the integrated approach are also discussed. Based on a comprehensive review of existing papers related to sustainable and lean construction topics, the commonality between the two approaches is discussed and grouped in five categories of (1) cost savings, (2) waste minimization, (3) Jobsite safety improvement, (4) reduced energy consumption, and (5) customers’ satisfaction improvement. The challenges of this integration are similarly identified and discussed in the four main categories of (1) additional initial costs to the project, (2) difficulty of providing specialized expertise, (3) contractors’ unwillingness to adopt the additional requirements, and (4) challenges to establish a high level of teamwork. Industry professionals were then interviewed to rank the elements in each of the two categories of opportunities and challenges. The results of the study highlight how future research can pursue the development of a new Green-Lean approach by investing in the communalities and meeting the challenges of this integration.

The influence of industrial attitudes and behaviours in adopting sustainable construction practices

“…Integrated Approaches, however, have a significant influence on sustainable construction. This supports Tafazzoli et al's (2020) hypothesis that integrated approaches significantly contribute to sustainable construction bottom‐lines. According to Cole (1999), integrated approaches investigates the sustainability of construction projects in other to arrive at more sustainable solutions.…”

Integrating lean construction with BIM and sustainability: a comparative study of challenges, enablers, techniques, and benefits

“…Recognizing destructive impacts of construction projects on society, economy and environment led to the emergence of sustainability in the context of construction in 1990s, as the subset of sustainable development goals, outlined by UN (Moradi and Kähkönen, 2022a, 2022b). Several scholars have defined sustainability in construction and summary of those definitions is that sustainable construction refers to all efforts which are required for realizing needs of current generations in terms of built environment while avoiding sacrifice of future generations’ right for inheriting sufficient raw materials, clean and healthy environment and economy and society (Bajjou et al , 2017; Tafazzoli et al , 2020; Wijerathne et al , 2019). Sustainability in construction has three attributes which are environment, society and economy.…”

Implementation of BIM and Lean Construction in Offsite Housing Construction: Evidence From the UK

“…LC is a moderately new approach that focuses on minimising activities that do not generate value for the project owner. In this context, these non-value adding activities are considered wastes (Tafazzoli et al, 2020). Variety has been considered as one of the main reasons that Lean production is not suitable for the construction industry (Yu et al, 2013).…”