Factors Affecting Green Residential Building Development: Social Network Analysis

Green Building Contractors 2025: Analyzing and Forecasting Green Building Contractors’ Market Trends in the US

With population growth, the demand for building construction is continuously increasing. This comes at the price of the built environment where the building sector is contributing to large energy consumption and carbon footprint releases. To encourage sustainable construction, contractors need to see the market benefit of “going green”. Previous studies of green building contractors (GBCs) mainly relied on qualitative discussions and lacked studying the market performance which drives contractors’ decisions the most. This paper collects GBC revenue data from the Engineering News-Record magazine for the top 100 GBCs over a 13-year period and performs trend analysis to assess the market performance of GBCs and time series analysis to forecast future revenues. In addition, k-means clustering technique was used to divide the firms into subsets of similar behavior to understand growth trends for different firm sizes. The results show a continuous increase in green building revenues (GBRs), where commercial office buildings contribute the most to it. Furthermore, the firm ranks responsible for most of the growth are identified; mainly the top 9. Predictions show the expected steady increase in GBR in the upcoming years which is anticipated to reach 83 billion USD in 2025. The findings inform contractors considering executing green buildings by understanding the market trends and forecasted revenues. Moreover, contractors who are already in the green building business can use this information to increase their revenues in their respective market subset.

How Do Government Policies Promote Green Housing Diffusion in China? A Complex Network Game Context

To reduce energy consumption and environmental pollution in the construction industry, many countries have focused on the development of green housing (GH), which is a type of green building for residential use. In China, the local governments have introduced various incentive policies to encourage the development of GH; however, its scale is still small and unevenly distributed. This implies a necessity to optimize the policies that apply to the GH incentive. To promote GH diffusion, we built an evolutionary game model on a complex network to analyze the impacts of government policies on GH pricing and demand and the profits of real estate enterprises developing GH. By implementing simulations, we further explored the incentive effect and operational mechanism of the government policies. The results show that the subsidy policy, the preferential policy for GH, and the restriction policy for ordinary housing can effectively promote the diffusion of GH to 0.6752, 0.506, and 0.5137 respectively. Meanwhile, the incentive effect of the enterprise subsidy policy and GH preferential policy gradually decreases with the increase in policy strength. In terms of the demand side, the consumer subsidy policy could promote GH diffusion to 0.7097. If the subsidy is below 120 CNY/m², the effect of the consumer subsidy policy is less powerful than that of the enterprises subsidy policy; conversely, the former is slightly more effective than the latter. The outcome of the study has managerial implications on governmental decision-making, especially on the strategy design of incentive policies for GH.

A comprehensive review on green buildings research: bibliometric analysis during 1998-2018

Buildings account for nearly 2/5ths of global energy expenditure. Due to this figure, the 90s witnessed the rise of green buildings (GBs) that were designed with the purpose of lowering the demand for energy, water, and materials resources while enhancing environmental protection efforts and human well-being over time. This paper examines recent studies and technologies related to the design, construction, and overall operation of GBs and determines potential future research directions in this area of study. This global review of green building development in the last two decades is conducted through bibliometric analysis on the Web of Science, via the Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index databases. Publication performance, countries' characteristics, and identification of key areas of green building development and popular technologies were conducted via social network analysis, big data method, and S-curve predictions. A total of 5246 articles were evaluated on the basis of subject categories, journals' performance, general publication outputs, and other publication characteristics. Further analysis was made on dominant issues through keyword co-occurrence, green building technologies by patent analysis, and S-curve predictions. The USA, China, and the UK are ranked the top three countries where the majority of publications come from. Australia and China had the closest relationship in the global network cooperation. Global trends of the top 5 countries showed different country characteristics. China had a steady and consistent growth in green building publications each year. The total publications on different cities had a high correlation with cities' GDP by Baidu Search Index. Also, barriers and contradictions such as cost, occupant comfort, and energy consumption were discussed in developed and developing countries. Green buildings, sustainability, and energy efficiency were the top three hotspots identified through the whole research period by the cluster analysis. Additionally, green building energy technologies, including building structures, materials, and energy systems, were the most prevalent technologies of interest determined by the Derwent Innovations Index prediction analysis. This review reveals hotspots and emerging trends in green building research and development and suggests routes for future research. Bibliometric analysis, combined with other useful tools, can quantitatively measure research activities from the past and present, thus bridging the historical gap and predicting the future of green building development.

Towards Sustainable Residential Buildings in Saudi Arabia According to the Conceptual Framework of “Mostadam” Rating System and Vision 2030

Saudi Arabia vision 2030 adopts comprehensive development standards in all fields of Saudi society. To achieve such standards, many initiatives and programs have been launched to achieve sustainable goals while meeting the needs of the present without compromising the requirements of future generations. Sustainable buildings are highly important in achieving sustainable development goals due to their excellent ability to reduce energy consumption, increase building efficiency, and reduce harmful emissions of greenhouse gases. The Kingdom aims to be the largest investor in the world in the sustainable buildings sector. To this end, the “Mostadam” evaluation service was recently launched in order to assist existing and new buildings in achieving sustainable building standards in a way that is in keeping with the privacy and principles of Saudi society. The present paper presents an extensive investigation to assess the current state of sustainable buildings in Saudi cities. Moreover, the main categories of sustainable residential buildings according to the “Mostadam” rating systems are discussed, and the potential of such categories in Saudi Arabia is explored. Finally, suggestions are given for some practical strategies and future policies targeting the total transformation towards sustainable buildings and, consequently, towards sustainable cities. This will have a great impact on achieving comprehensive sustainable development in Saudi Arabia in line with vision 2030.

uhuMEBr: Energy Refurbishment of Existing Buildings in Subtropical Climates to Become Minimum Energy Buildings

Today, most countries in the world have mandatory regulations, more or less strict, regarding energy efficiency in buildings. However, a large percentage of the buildings already built were constructed under lax or non-existing regulations in this regard. Therefore, many countries are facing the energy refurbishment of their existing buildings to reduce their carbon footprint. Depending on ambient weather conditions where a building settles, its operation with respect to the achievement of maximum energy efficiency should usually be different. This happens in subtropical climates when, during the year and depending on the season, the building needs to conserve heat, evacuate it or even make an exchange with the outside to take advantage of favorable environmental conditions. This paper presents a complete methodology for conducting building energy efficiency refurbishments in subtropical climates in order to convert them into minimum energy buildings. The proposed methodology is illustrated by a case study in a dwelling that includes all the stages, from the analysis of the existing dwelling to the refurbishment works, showing the final results and the subsequent dwelling operation.

The Drivers and Performance of Environmental Practices in the Chinese Construction Industry

With the global concern of environmental protection and sustainability, construction firms are required to develop and implement environmental practices (EP) to mitigate the negative impacts of project activities on the environment. This paper attempts to explore two potential drivers (i.e., government regulations and project team’s knowledge and skills) and performance outcomes (i.e., environmental performance and organizational performance) when the firm implementing EP in construction projects. A survey-based research design was developed to measure the drivers, EP implementation, and performance and to collect data in the Chinese construction industry. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesized relationships. The results indicate that a project team’s knowledge and skills, rather than government regulations, are the key driving factors for the implementation of EP in construction projects. EP implementation is proved to have a positive impact on both environmental and organizational performance. This study provides empirical evidence for project environmental management research and offers managerial insights on how to promote EP in the construction industry.

Understanding the Green Technical Capabilities and Barriers to Green Buildings in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Thailand

Green buildings (GB) have been globally adopted for sustainable development by enhancing the resource efficiency, reducing the operation cost, and improving the building environment for users. However, little research has systematically explored the key issues of GB in developing countries. This study has revealed the green technical capabilities and barriers to GB in Thailand from the perspectives of consultants, architects, and engineers, using a questionnaire survey and a case study. The results show experience in meeting the combined requirements of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and the green building rating system that Thailand developed in 2010, Thailand’s Rating of Energy and Environmental Sustainability (TREES), and “skilled in energy systems” to be the top two most important green technical capabilities. Barriers to GB mainly arise from financial pressure, technical limitations, and inadequate promotion. “Lack of motivations from owners” and “high initial cost” are ranked as the top two barriers to green building. The results collectively reveal that market demand and technological advancement are fundamental drivers for the GB industry, and the government, economic conditions, education, and corporate social responsibility are the other stimuli for the industry. The findings can help project participants adopt appropriate strategies to boost GB in emerging markets in developing countries. Future policies should focus on increasing market demand, encouraging green technology innovation, and reducing the cost of development and construction of GB.