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Habitat International 40 (2013) 1e8

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Habitat International

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Identifying the critical factors for green construction e An empiricalstudy in China

Qian Shi a, Jian Zuo b,*, Rui Huang a, Jing Huang a, Stephen Pullen b

aDepartment of Construction Management and Real Estate, School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Siping Road 1239, Shanghai 200092,Chinab School of Natural and Built Environments, University of South Australia, City East Campus, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5000, Australia

Keywords:Sustainable developmentGreen constructionConstruction industryBarriers

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ61 883021914; fax:E-mail addresses: qianshi@tongji.edu.cn (Q.

sageorgezuo@yahoo.com.au (J. Zuo), rain043573huangjingyx@126.com (J. Huang), stephen.pullen@un

0197-3975/$ e see front matter � 2013 Elsevier Ltd.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2013.01.003

a b s t r a c t

Construction activities have significant impacts on the community and environment. As a result, greenconstruction has been promoted to mitigate these issues. A questionnaire survey was conducted withmajor stakeholders of the construction industry in Shanghai to investigate issues associated with theadoption of green construction. The results showed that additional cost, incremental time and limitedavailability of green suppliers and information are critical barriers. Discussions were made to breakdownthese barriers to foster green construction practice. This study provides a useful reference to both policymakers and industry practitioners to implement green construction.

� 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction the National Congress in 1997 (then revised in 2007), whichwas the

Although green construction has been attached more impor-tance recently, obstacles still exist to its widespread adoption(Meryman & Silman, 2004 in New York; Ofori & Kien, 2004 in Sin-gapore; Lam, Chan, Chau, Poon, & Chun, 2009 in Hong Kong). In thelast few decades, the green construction concept has gained rapiddevelopment in China as a result of strong national policies on en-ergy conservation and emissions reduction. In the early 1980s, thegovernment attempted to promote energy efficiency. Led by theMinistry of Construction (MOC), the first industry standard for en-ergy conservation design of residential buildings (JGJ26-86) wasintroduced in 1986. With the help of the China Academy of BuildingResearch (CABR), MOC issued a revised version (JGJ 26-95) inDecember 1995. Since then,many other codes have been introducedtodifferentenergyconservationdesignareasof residential buildingsin China (e.g. JGJ129-2000, JGJ134-2001, JGJ132-2001, JGJ75-2003,etc.). A national design standard for the energy efficiency of resi-dential buildings covering thewhole of Chinawas published in 2004(DBJ 01-602-2004). These are closely related to sustainable humansettlements in both urban and rural areas. Related to this, a nationalstandard for energy efficiency design of public buildings (GB50189-2005) was issued byMOC in 2005. The Law of the People’s Republicof China on Energy Conservation passed the Standing Committee of

þ61 883022252.Shi), Jian.Zuo@unisa.edu.au,@hotmail.com (R. Huang),isa.edu.au (S. Pullen).

All rights reserved.

first ever legislation in energy management with provisions ofencouraging exploitation, the utilization of new energy sources andthe promotion of energy-saving technologies. The Renewable En-ergy Law was effective in 2006 (revised in 2010) to promote therenewable energy developmentwith the aimof saving conventionalenergy sources and improving energy efficiency. MOC announcedthe Provisions on the Administration of Energy Conservation forCivil Buildings (2000) to facilitate the implementation of Law onEnergy Conservation. It established the building energy efficiencystandards on programming, design, construction, project qualitysupervision and operational management of construction projects.In July 2008, the State Council promulgated the Regulations of En-ergy Conservation for Civil Buildings, which had more operable,mandatory and comprehensive provisions on energy conservationfor new building construction and retrofitting of existing buildings,building energy system management, energy efficiency evaluation,and corresponding legal responsibility.

Green construction in China can be traced back to China’s Agenda21 published by State Council (1994) with a consideration of sus-tainability issues associated with both urban and rural areas. Fromthen on, the Chinese government has enacted policies and standardson green demands of construction industry to protect the environ-ment, including inside pollution control (2001) and constructionmaterial quality (2002). Subsequently, since the 2004 BeijingOlympics Games, the government has begun to further promotegreen construction practices. The Assessment System for GreenBuilding in the Beijing Olympic (GBCAS) was established by theBeijing Olympics Organizing Commission (2003), which introduceda set of Guidelines for the implementation of Green Olympics. The

Table 1Potential barriers to implementing green construction. Adapted from Lam et al.(2009).

EconomicsCostB01 Additional costs caused by green constructionTimeB02 Incremental time caused by green constructionTechnologyB03 Reduction of structure aestheticB04 Uncertainty in the performance of green materials and equipmentB05 Imperfect green technological specificationsB06 Misunderstanding of green technological operationsB07 Restrictions of new green production and technologyAwarenessB08 Regional ambiguities in the green conceptB09 Conflicts in benefits with competitorsB10 Dependence on promotion by governmentManagementConstruction ManagementB11 Lack of support from senior managementB12 Lack of knowledge on green technology and materialsB13 Limited availability of green suppliers and informationB14 Lack of quantitative evaluation tools for green performanceContract managementB15 Additional responsibility for construction maintenance

Q. Shi et al. / Habitat International 40 (2013) 1e82

GBCAS covers the technical criteria and a set of assessment systems.The 2010 Shanghai World Expo has drawn on the experience ofgreen construction within a multi-project (programme) environ-ment from the Beijing Olympics Games for its pavilion de-velopments. Shi, Zuo, and Zillante (2012) pointed out that thesustainable construction management at the programme level isdifferent from that at the project level. They pointed out thata dedicated department should be established in order to coordinatevarious stakeholders’ efforts and the release of conceptual guidelineand management regulations.

Green construction is defined as “On the premise of ensuringquality, safety and other basic requirements, scientific managementand technological progress should be used in engineering con-struction, to maximize the conservation of resources and reducethe construction activities which will bring negative impacts on theenvironmental, and to achieve the goal of four savings (energy,land, water and materials) and environmental protection”, which isspecified in the Green Construction Guideline issued by MOC in2007. According to this Guideline, green construction is classifiedinto six parts, i.e. construction management, environmental pro-tection, material conservation and utilization, water conservationand utilization, energy conservation and utilization, land conser-vation and construction using land protection. The five factors inthe construction process “man, machine, material, method andenvironment” are all covered by these six aspects.

Despite the recognition of the importance of specifications inthe application of green construction, there are very limited studieson the stakeholders’ perceptions of potential barriers to introduc-ing green specifications into construction in China. In this research,the current status of green construction and potential barriers areinvestigated through a questionnaire survey in Shanghai, which hasa construction scene similar to many other urban cities in theworld. Therefore, the aims of this research lay in three parts: (1)investigate the development situation and research status of greenconstruction in China; (2) classify the general barriers to theimplementation of green construction in China by questionnairesurvey; (3) propose initiatives to push forward an integrated sys-tem between government and contractors for green construction.

Barriers to green construction

It has been generally recognized that environmental issues arecritical in the construction industry. Hill and Bowen (1997) pro-posed a framework for sustainable construction, which highlightedthat environmental issues should be included in the specificationsand other contract documents related to the implementation ofenvironmental tools such as an environmental management sys-tem and an environmental impact assessment. According toCrawley and Aho (1999), “green” design and specifications arecritical for construction projects, especially those subjected toenvironmental assessment.

Meryman and Silman (2004) identified 3 primary barriers forusing specifications in sustainable engineering. They argued that theeconomic factor was the most critical barrier, apart from policy andtechnical issues, which could be translated to green construction inChina. Li and Yao (2009) argued that emerging issues relating tobuilding energy conservation were due to a more rapid growingeconomy and urbanization development in China (see also Zhang,Bai, Chang, & Ding, 2011). Due to the higher population and build-ing density and less availability of reusable energy per square metrefloor area, the development of sustainable building technologiesapplicable to various conditions in China is more necessary (Zhu &Lin, 2004). According to Liu, Low, and He (2012), construction in-dustry practitioners in China are more motivated to adopt greenpractice in order to secure “countenance and incentives from the

government”. Presently, many developers are still reluctant anduncertain about the adopting sustainability in their projects due tolimited understanding and the pursuit of cost reductions in devel-oping countries such as China. Abidin (2010) considered that thepace of action towards sustainable application depended on theconsciousness, knowledge as well as an understanding of the con-sequences of individual actions. A survey by Qi, Shen, Zeng, and Jorge(2010) showed that managerial concern was the most importantdriver for the adoption of green practices by contractors. Accordingto the above research, the main barriers of green construction wereclassified into 4 fundamental aspects, i.e. economics, technology,awareness and management, where 15 potential barriers wereidentified (see Table 1).

Economics

CostIt is well recognized that cost effectiveness is one of the most

important considerations for decisions of implementing greenconstruction (Kunzlik, 2003; Meryman & Silman, 2004). Ofori andKien (2004) argued that the extra cost occurred is the funda-mental barrier for implementing green construction. The utilizationof green techniques such as high performance insulationprotection,water and energy saving equipment often increase the capital cost.In fact, cost control presents the biggest challenge to implementgreen practices in China (Liu et al., 2012). To assist the promotion ofgreen construction, a life cycle approach should be consideredduring the assessment of relevant cost and impacts (Shi et al., 2012).

TimeChan and Kumaraswamy (2002) stated that the schedule serves

as a crucial benchmark for the performance (apart from cost) ofconstruction projects. Time is a prime project objective for allstakeholders in most countries (Ofori & Kien, 2004). Delays inconstruction often result in increased costs and cause damage tostakeholders, as well as affecting the reputation of corporation(Arditi & Pattanakitchamroon, 2006). Green construction demandsintegration of sustainable technologies and interaction with otherbuilding components (Hoffman & Henn, 2008). Hwang and Ng(2012) argued that delays will be caused if this issue is not takeninto consideration thoroughly.

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Technology

Although the aesthetic appearance of a building may not neces-sarily affect its function, the appearanceof a structure is another focusof the project owners. The use of green construction techniques cansometimes bring trouble to the architectural design of a building, e.g.the installation of solar panels usually forces the architects to spendtime to address the issue on how to integrate it with the materialeither on the façade or on the roof of a house. Pierce (2000) arguedthat aesthetic issues driven by regulations could pose some chal-lenges to engineers. Any degradation of aesthetic appearancederivedfrom the adoption of green construction technologies was a concernto most stakeholders. Aesthetic issues may also affect the embodiedenergy of construction. For example, due to the large area of single-layerglass curtain walls, which cannot resist strong solar radiationin hot summers, and block low temperatures in cold winters, manyskyscrapers have to increase the power of air-conditioning to adjustthe indoor temperature. Thormark (2002) found that the aestheticissue regarding replacementofmaterialswas an important reason fordeciding the interval ofmaintenance andmaintenance accounted for12% of embodied energy in the buildings in these studies. Sartori andHestnes (2007) proved that a solar or passive house would be moreenergy efficient than an equivalent house with conventional mate-rials and appearance issues.

Green materials and equipment are crucial for achieving greenconstruction (Lam, Chan, Chau, Poon, & Chun, 2011; Shi et al., 2012).Uncertainty in the performance of green materials and equipmentoften leads to a reduction in the efficiency of green construction.The limitation of the scope and applicability of new products andnew technologies may force industry practitioners to move back totraditional construction methods.

Green technology in China is still at an early stage wherespecifications have not been established properly. There are mis-understandings on requirements of implementation and operationof green construction. The lack of mature green technologiespresents a significant barrier for green construction.

Awareness

Awareness of green construction is closely related to the publicawareness of environmental issues. At present, the knowledge andcognition on sustainability of all parties, including policy makers,owners, designers, construction personnel and the public need tobe further enhanced. Although the majority of residents recognizedthat the environmental pollution was a serious issue, they oftenranked social issues, such as companies’ participation, publicindifference, government involvement with higher priorities (CEAP,2007). The China Environmental Awareness Program (CEAP) reportalso revealed that the public perceived that responsibility forenvironmental protection belonged to local government, com-panies, and authorities (CEAP, 2007). Bilec, Ries, and Matthews(2007) highlighted the role that civil engineers played ina “green” initiative in order to enhance the awareness of the publicand policy makers to both the costs and the benefits associatedwith green design. Therefore, the unwillingness of industry prac-titioners to change the conventional way of specifying existingmethods and processes became another technical barrier (Chen &Chambers, 1999; Meryman & Silman, 2004).

Management

Construction managementThe degree of support from the senior management directly

affects the adoption of green construction (Meryman & Silman,2004). The employees in the lower hierarchy of organizations

have limited power to affect changes if the top management isuncommitted to environmental issues (Ball, 2002).

The lack of knowledge on green technology and the durability ofgreen materials is a significant barrier preventing the constructionindustry from implementing the strategies and specifying greenconstruction. For example, a construction enterprise can rejectusing green materials with uncertain performance, which maycause more testing fee and maintenance costs. Shen, Tam, Tam, andJi (2010) asserted contractors and suppliers should be engagedduring early stage of construction projects due to their knowledgeon the environmental issues associatedwith construction activities,building materials and plants.

The green material supply chain presents another challenge tothe green construction. Green materials are often expensive andthe conflict of interests among stakeholders can result in the un-certainties and inadequate trust relationship (Love, Holt, Shen, Li, &Irani, 2002; Shi et al., 2012). Green or sustainable materials werenot available from the standard distribution network, hence a reli-able and flexible supply could not be ensured (Pearce & Vanegas,2002). The uncertainty of supplies and information is a significantbarrier against green construction.

The lack of benchmarking system is another barrier for assessingandmonitoring the performance of green construction (Lee & Chen,2008). At the moment there is lack of a workable index system foran effective assessment of green construction performance in theentire construction process in China.

Contract managementPost-construction liability and construction insurance are two

important aspects of sustainable construction (Pollington, 1999).The energy consumption of maintenance accounts for about 12% oftotal construction, therefore the maintenance cost is considerable(Thormark, 2002). Practices such as “Soft landings” have beenadopted in some countries to involve professionals after the com-pletion of the building so as to ensure that the building actuallyworks as anticipated. This on one hand creates a feedback loop forthe project (Coles et al., 2010; Leaman, Stevenson, & Bordass, 2010)on the other hand introduces challenges to the contract manage-ment. As a result, the responsibility of warranty for green con-struction is increased. Hence, the contractual and liability puzzlesof green construction need to be resolved.

Research methodology

A questionnaire was designed to examine the status quo ofgreen construction in China and the associated barriers based on anextensive literature review and preliminary interviews. The ques-tionnaire consists of three sections: (1) General information solic-iting demographic data of the respondents; (2) a list of generalstatements about respondents’ attitudes towards the imple-mentation of green construction (A1eA9 shown in Table 2); (3)a list of potential barriers to the implementation of green con-struction (B1eB15 shown in Table 1).

A 5-point Likert scale was used to assess respondents’ percep-tions of green construction and associated barriers. A text box wasprovided at the end of the questionnaire to allow respondents toadd any additional barriers, if any. 300 industry professionals inShanghai were randomly selected for the survey. Questionnaireswere distributed via post in April 2010 and 212 valid responseswere received by June 2010, resulting in a response rate of 70.6%.19% of the respondents identified themselves as clients. 45% of therespondents were construction contractors whereas the remaining36% of the respondents were construction supervision engineers.All respondents of the questionnaire survey held a senior positionin their organizations, e.g. general manager, chief supervision

Table 2General statements on implementation of green construction.

A1 Specifications should consider environmental requirementsA2 Specification and guide can be easily found interiorlyA3 Current public construction have sufficiently considered

about green factorsA4 Current non-public construction have sufficiently considered

about green factorsA5 Information or database about green construction is adequately

available in your companyA6 Green considerations are mainly for satisfying mandatory requirementsA7 Senior management in your company is concerning and supporting green

constructionA8 Adopting green construction should be voluntaryA9 Implementation of green construction is forced by government

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engineer, senior executive, etc. Therefore, their responses are morepresenting decision maker’s point of view.

The returned questionnaires were screened in the first instance.A questionnaire with any missing data was treated as an invalidresponse. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 13.0 forWindows) was used for analyzing questionnaire survey. The in-ternal consistency of the survey was assessed by the Cronbach’scoefficient to test the reliability of the five-point Likert scale(Sanotos, 1999).

During the data analysis, responses were grouped by occupa-tions in order to clearly distinguish and compare the perceptions ofvarious parties on green construction. The nonparametric ManneWhitney U test was used to assess significant difference betweenthe mean ranks between groups. The two-sample KolmogoroveSmirnov test was then used to investigate any dissimilarity be-tween ratings by any two groups for a particular barrier. Prior to thestatistical tests among groups, Kendall’s concordance analysis wasused to assess the extent of agreement of within-group ratings(Siegel & Castellan, 1988). The one-sample t-test was performed fortesting the means of all the responses to the statements, when nostatistical difference is observed among groups from the MeW Uand KeS tests. The mean scores were used to investigate thecomparative importance among potential barriers for each group.Rankings of the importance of the barriers were assigned based onthe mean scores associated with standard deviations. The Spear-man rank correlation coefficient of the rankings was used toexplore any association among the groups (Kanji, 1993).

Results and discussion

General statement of green construction

This section of the questionnaire consists of 9 components, A1 toA9 shown in Table 2. The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient is 0.70,showing that the instrument has high internal consistency. Table 3

Table 3Mean and standard derivation for general statements.

Total Client Contractor Supervisor

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

A1 4.26 0.706 4.40 0.496 4.13 0.837 4.37 0.585A2 3.19 0.804 3.40 0.496 3.13 0.886 3.16 0.817A3 3.30 0.793 3.60 0.672 3.33 0.902 3.11 0.645A4 3.21 0.685 3.50 0.506 3.17 0.804 3.11 0.556A5 3.04 0.913 2.80 0.883 3.08 1.083 3.11 0.645A6 3.19 1.050 3.60 0.672 3.25 1.016 2.89 1.173A7 3.58 0.765 3.80 0.758 3.50 0.768 3.58 0.753A8 3.17 1.007 3.40 1.033 3.25 0.883 2.95 1.106A9 3.92 0.823 3.80 0.608 3.79 0.767 4.16 0.939

shows the mean score and standard deviation of each generalstatement. The statistically significant results of MeW U tests alongwith the supplementary KeS tests are summarized in Table 4.

In general, there was a high level of agreement among clients,contractors and construction supervision engineers that environ-mental requirements should be taken into consideration in speci-fications (the total mean of A1 is 4.26). However, respondentsreported it was difficult to locate the information and data relatedto green construction in their companies (the total mean of A5 is3.04). In particular, the respondents from the client category gavethis statement the lowest score (mean score: 2.80).

Construction supervision engineers disagreed that green con-struction technology should mainly be used to satisfy themandatory requirements (mean score: 2.89) or that it wasvoluntary to implement and use green construction specifications(mean score: 2.95). Rather, government enforcement plays a criticalrole (mean score: 4.16). This view was shared by the other twogroups of respondents.

The MeW U test and KeS test were used to test whether therewas any statistical difference between groups (see Table 4).

The views of clients on statements A3 and A4 are significantlydifferent from those of construction supervision engineers. Com-pared to construction supervision engineers, clients are more in-clined to recognize that green construction specifications havetaken the full consideration of environmental sustainability issuesin both public and private sector projects.

Similarly, clients had a relatively conservative attitude thatgreen construction technology is mainly for fulfilling mandatoryrequirements. By contrast, construction supervision engineersperceived that more effort should be made to popularize greenconstruction technologies rather than making it mandatory. Thisdifference is mainly due to the job characteristics of these twogroups. Clients are concernedmore on the additional cost occurringfrom adopting green construction whereas construction supervi-sion engineers’ main duties are construction process and quality/safety. Furthermore, clients perceived that the implementation ofgreen construction was voluntary while construction supervisionengineers highlighted the critical role of government enforcement.This is consistent with their different views on the statement A6.Clients had conservative attitudes towards green construction dueto the additional cost incurred. Therefore, perceiving satisfyingmandatory requirements voluntarily helps to protect their ownprofits. By contrast, construction supervision engineers perceivedgovernment policies as the major driver for green construction sothat industry practitioners are motivated for take relevantvoluntary actions.

For the statement A8, contractors had different views from cli-ents and disagreed from construction supervision engineers for thestatement A9. As shown in Table 3, contractors were more inclinedto agree with construction supervision engineers that most efforts

Table 4Results of ManneWhitney U tests and KolmogoroveSmirnov tests for generalstatements.

Client vs contractor Client vs supervisor Contractor vs supervisor

MeW U test KeS test MeW U test KeS test MeW U test KeS test

A1 0.23 0.25 0.90 1.00 0.09 0.26A2 0.15 0.25 0.12 0.27 0.98 1.00A3 0.16 0.10 0.00 0.00 0.14 0.52A4 0.06 0.52 0.02 0.58 0.95 0.93A5 0.89 0.25 0.95 0.87 0.60 0.15A6 0.12 0.10 0.01 0.01 0.06 0.00A7 0.08 0.52 0.09 0.02 0.85 0.21A8 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.04 0.15 0.01A9 0.63 0.99 0.01 0.04 0.00 0.01

Table 6Spearman rank correlations for the ranking of barriers.

Client Contractor Supervisor

Total 0.816 0.549 0.865Client e 0.337 0.690Contractor e e 0.353

Q. Shi et al. / Habitat International 40 (2013) 1e8 5

should be made to improve clients’ awareness of green construc-tion. It is more likely to adopt green construction if clients are moreaware of green technology and willing to implement these tech-nologies in their projects. However, for statement A9, contractorstended to agree with clients that there was lack of motivation fromgovernment for implementing green construction.

Moreover, 2 statements (A6 and A7) showed significant differ-ences in KeS test but not inMeWU test. For the statement A6 aboutthe relationship between green considerations and mandatory re-quirements, the contractor’s ranking (mean score: 3.25) is sig-nificantly higher than that of construction supervision engineers(mean score: 2.89). For the statement A7 about the willingness ofsenior management, client’s ranking (mean score: 3.80) is higherthan that of construction supervision engineers (mean score: 3.58).It indicates there is a lack of attention and support by senior man-agement from their companies to promote green construction.

Barriers to green construction

In this section, respondents were asked to rank the importanceof 15 potential barriers to green construction in China, B1 to B15shown in Table 1. The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient is 0.86, whichindicates that the instrument is reliable. The means and ranking ofthe barriers, together with its Kendall’s coefficients of concordance,are shown in Table 4. The Kendall’s coefficients show a reasonableagreement between the groups at the significance level of 0.05. Asshown in Table 5, each group has a high level of internal consistency(p < 0.001).

Table 6 shows the Spearman rank correlations among groups ontheir ranking of barriers. It indicates the ranking of barriers bycontractors are significantly different from those by the other twogroups, i.e. clients and construction supervision engineers.

The results of MeW U test and KeS test were summarized inTable 7 which shows the different perceptions towards potentialbarriers of green construction among various groups.

Tables 5 and 7 showed that contractors (mean score: 3.04) haddifferent views from the other two stakeholder groups, i.e. clients(mean score: 2.40) and construction supervision engineers (meanscore: 2.11) on Barrier B3 (reduction of construction aesthetic). Thisis mainly due to the fact that three groups have different subjectiveaesthetics standards of buildings. Although there are some dis-agreements on the ranking, all respondents ranked this barrier asa low level of importance. Compared to clients and constructionsupervision engineers, contractors hadmore concerns on Barrier B4

Table 5Means, standard derivation, ranking, and Kendall’s coefficients of potential barriers.

Barrier Total Client

Mean SD Rank Mean SD

B1 4.06 0.789 1 4.10 1.057B2 3.62 0.854 2 3.70 0.648B3 2.62 1.016 15 2.40 0.810B4 3.23 1.005 12 2.90 1.057B5 3.55 1.004 7 3.00 1.013B6 3.45 0.945 10 3.30 1.285B7 3.43 0.944 11 3.20 0.992B8 3.49 0.946 9 2.90 0.955B9 2.98 0.903 14 3.10 1.057B10 3.53 0.966 8 3.50 0.934B11 3.23 0.885 12 3.00 0.906B12 3.57 0.924 5 3.70 0.791B13 3.60 0.920 3 3.60 1.128B14 3.57 0.860 5 3.30 1.114B15 3.58 0.880 4 3.30 0.791Kendall’s coefficient 0.144 0.241Level of significance 0.000 0.000

(uncertainty in the performance of greenmaterials), as constructionmaterials have more influence on construction companies. Themean of Barrier B7 (restrictions of new green productions andtechnology) by the contractor is higher than 3.50, yet client andsupervisor are much lower. Similarly to B4, the impacts of con-struction materials and technology are much larger for contractors.It is worth noting that the ranking of Barrier B9 (resistances of thecurrent competitors) by all respondents is comparatively low,however the mean by construction supervision engineers (2.63) isdifferent from that of client (3.10) and contractor (3.21).

Furthermore, there is a high degree of divergence among threegroups’ responses on Barrier B5 and B8. Clients do not considerhard-to-achieve green construction specifications as a critical bar-rier whereas both contractors and construction supervision engi-neers ranked this barrier as the third most important factorimpeding the implementation of green construction. This mayattribute to the fact that contractors and construction supervisionengineers spendmore time on site to deal with specification issues.In addition, contractors considered ambiguities and conflicts ingreen construction (B8) as one of the most critical barriers (rankedsecond) whereas clients and construction supervision engineersperceived this barrier of comparatively lower importance, ranking13th and 11th respectively.

The additional cost derived from green construction re-quirements (B1) is ranked as themost critical barrierwhere the totalmean is as high as 4.06. This result is similar to the previous surveyofgreen building and sustainable construction (e.g. Lam, Chan, Poon,Chau, & Chun, 2010). In the real estate industry almost all stake-holders concern about cost in the first instance when consideringthe implementation of new norms or new technologies. In partic-ular, the paired t-test shows that between the “additional cost” (B1),ranked the first barrier is significant different from the secondranked barrier “incremental time” (B2) (t-value ¼ 7.347, p < 0.001)and the third ranked barrier “limited green suppliers and informa-tion” (B13) (t-value¼ 6.975, p< 0.001). It indicates that respondentshad a much higher level of concerns of additional cost compared to

Contractor Supervisor

Rank Mean SD Rank Mean SD Rank

1 3.96 0.794 1 4.05 0.764 12 3.63 0.861 5 3.58 0.942 6

15 3.04 0.983 15 2.11 0.858 1513 3.46 0.962 10 3.11 0.974 1311 3.71 0.845 3 3.63 1.094 36 3.67 0.804 4 3.16 0.880 129 3.63 0.997 5 3.32 0.804 10

13 3.83 0.804 2 3.26 0.971 1110 3.21 0.870 13 2.63 0.746 145 3.38 1.078 12 3.63 0.877 3

11 3.13 0.976 14 3.37 0.746 92 3.63 0.861 5 3.42 1.049 84 3.46 0.917 10 3.68 0.867 26 3.58 0.816 8 3.58 0.821 66 3.58 1.043 8 3.63 0.746 3

0.107 0.2610.000 0.000

Table 7Results of ManneWhitney U tests and KolmogoroveSmirnov tests for potentialbarriers.

Client vs contractor Client vs supervisor Contractor vs supervisor

MeW U test KeS test MeW U test KeS test MeW U test KeS test

B1 0.18 0.06 0.37 0.11 0.37 0.86B2 0.52 0.35 0.41 0.15 0.75 1.00B3 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.30 0.00 0.00B4 0.01 0.03 0.32 0.30 0.04 0.52B5 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.70 0.97B6 0.17 0.14 0.41 0.24 0.00 0.06B7 0.05 0.17 0.80 0.97 0.04 0.05B8 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.27 0.00 0.01B9 0.39 0.48 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00B10 0.68 0.99 0.34 0.71 0.10 0.27B11 0.33 0.48 0.03 0.14 0.16 0.86B12 1.00 0.77 0.13 0.20 0.12 0.06B13 0.50 0.14 0.70 0.66 0.14 0.76B14 0.06 0.04 0.11 0.03 0.95 0.97B15 0.06 0.41 0.03 0.34 0.96 0.64

The bold font indicats there is significant difference between the compared pair.

Q. Shi et al. / Habitat International 40 (2013) 1e86

extra time and limited knowledge of the adoption of green con-struction. This is consistentwith the previous survey results inHongKong, by Lamet al. (2009) and in Singapore, byOfori andKien (2004)where cost is identified as the most crucial consideration for thesuccess of implementing green construction.

As shown in Table 5, for clients, incremental time caused bypossible delay of green construction (B2) was ranked the secondmost critical barrierwhereas itwas rankedas thefifth critical barrierby contractors and the sixth by construction supervision engineers.However, there was not statistical significant difference amongthree groups in MeW U test and KeS test. This is similar to theranking made by three groups on B13 (limited availability of greensupplies and information). It indicates that all stakeholders agreethat these two barriers are very critical. It is notable that contractorsranked barrier B13 at 10th most important as they have morechances to contact with suppliers to acquire relevant information.

Implications

Green construction is a relatively new concept in China. The firstpractical experience can be tracked back to the sports venuesconstruction for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, which is mainlydriven by the government. As a result, there are a number of factorsthat helped the adoption of green construction.

It is imperative to establish a collaborative system among gov-ernment, industry associations and enterprises. Firstly, enterprisesare encouraged to recognize green construction from the passiveimplementation to active action and development. The enthusiasmof contractors will be naturally raised as they can improve themarket competitiveness, enhance social and reputation via adopt-ing green construction (Tan, Shen, & Yao, 2011). Second, it is gov-ernment’s responsibility to establish preferential policyframeworks and effective evaluation mechanisms. Industry asso-ciations play a role in guidance, encouraging construction enter-prises to use green construction specifications. Meanwhile industryassociation can facilitate information sharing between constructionenterprises and government.

Support and guidance from government and industry associa-tions to construction enterprises is the key to the implementationof green construction (Shen et al., 2010).

Financial support

Shen et al. (2010) pointed out that in the traditional project cli-ents focus on the analysis of the project economic performance

during project inception and design stages. Porter and Van der Linde(1995) asserted that the improvement in sustainable performancecontributes to business competitiveness. Other research indicatedthat green strategy and sustainable construction practice had a cor-relation with companies’ competitiveness by developers and con-tractors (Tan et al., 2011; Zhang, Shen, et al., 2011). Additional costaffects the market competitiveness of the stakeholders in a con-struction project. Properly designed environmental standards cantrigger innovations that lower the total cost of a product or improveits value. Such innovations allow companies to use a range of inputsmore productively from raw materials to energy to labour, thusoffsetting the costs of improving environmental impact and endingthe stalemate. Ultimately, this enhanced resource productivitymakes companies more competitive, not less.

To break up this barrier, policy guidance plays a critical role forproviding financial incentive. By establishing tax incentive mea-sures, green construction can benefit the community as well.Similarly, government can consider providing some returns togreen construction companies in the form of award subsidies,deficit subsidies, financial discounts, pre-tax loans and so on.

Similarly, green procurement preferences can be formulated asmandatory environmental requirements (Varnäs, Balfors, & Faith-Ell,2009).Greenpublicprocurementpolicies andprogrammeshavenowbeen implemented inmanycountries throughout theworld (Bouwer,2006; Kippo-Edlund, 2005;Ochoa&Erdmenger, 2003). Russel (1998)claimed that environmental or green procurement can be referred toas the integration of environmental considerations into purchasingpolicies, programmes and actions. So far public sector shares a highproportion of the construction industry in China. Green constructionwill be promoted in the private sector as well if there are mandatoryrequirements in public sector projects.

Legal support

With the significant impacts of construction activities on societyand environment, governments worldwide have introduced vari-ous policies and regulations tomitigate these impacts. For instance,the UK Government amended building regulations (ODPM, 2003)to regulate the environmental performance of buildings. In HongKong, there is legislation for controlling environmental perfor-mance in construction projects, including the Air Pollution Control(Open Burning) Regulation (DJ, 1996), the Waste Disposal Ordi-nance (DJ, 1980), and the Noise Control (General) Regulation (DJ,1989). In Korea, a joint task team was established by the govern-ment in April 1998 following the climate change accords. TheKorean government has been implementing various ecologicallyfriendly, sustainable systems and policies to reduce environmentalloads associatedwith buildings. These policies include rawmaterialreduction, energy saving, waste reduction, and durability im-provements (Oh, 2007, pp. 54e90; Suh, 2006). However the relatedlegislation is under developed as most of existing building codesare developed in 1990s, not been updated according to the rapidgrowth of the local construction industry.

Therefore, it is recommended that the critical role of greenconstruction and sustainable development is specifically high-lighted in the fundamental legal system of the construction in-dustry. Similarly, the provincial construction authorities need toamend sector-specific regulations on a timely basis to reflect thedevelopment situations and requirements of green construction inthe local regions.

Technical support

Lam et al. (2010) stated that a traditional construction projectmainly focuses on the use of techniques for reducing pollution or

Q. Shi et al. / Habitat International 40 (2013) 1e8 7

increasing efficiency to meet the regulatory requirements or toreduce cost. Mora (2007) noticed that sustainable construction canrefer either to the building process or to the building itself. Greenbuilding performance assessment and green specifications are twoclosely related tools to evaluate the sustainable technical measuresnot only during whole building life cycle but also for the finalobjective.

Life cycle assessment with considerations of environmentalimpacts, energy and material flow is the main principle of mostpublished guidance for green specifications, e.g. the BRE GreenGuide to specifications (Anderson & Shiers, 2002), and the FederalGreen Construction Guide for Specifiers (WBDG, 2007). Klöpffer(2006) stated that LCA has become a widely adopted methodol-ogy because of its integrated way of treating topics like framework,impact assessment and data quality. The evaluation of specifica-tions in the design stage is usually fundamental for green buildingassessment methods, e.g. CASBEE (2007) in Japan and the sus-tainability rating system in the Code for Sustainable Homes in theUK (DCLG, 2006). Local specifications need to be updated accord-ingly. For instance, the Building Research Establishment (BRE) inthe UK is updating its Green Guide to Specification continuously toalign with industry initiatives and building regulation changes(BRE, 2007). BSD Spec Link by Building Systems Design Inc. is anautomated program for LEED submittals (Bertram, 2005), whilstthe Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) introduced the GreenFormat in the US (McCaffrey, 2006). Therefore, the green buildingassessment available in the region and the current model clausesfor green specifications in other countries can be used as referencesduring the preparation of Chinese own green construction techni-cal system.

The questionnaire survey results of this research highlighted animmature green supply chain and a lack of trust on suppliers. Itindicates that an integrated industrial supply chain is crucial for thesuccess of green construction. Vrijhoef and Koskela (2000) dem-onstrated the importance of dependability of the total supply chainand robust relationship between suppliers and other stakeholders.Underwood, Alshaw, Aouad, Child, and Faraj (2000) drew attentionto the significance of the suppliers’ information in the early designprocess. Contractor is not the only stakeholder of green construc-tion. Cooperation with other stakeholders is required, and thesuppliers often play an important role.

Conclusions

This research adopts a questionnaire survey approach toinvestigate the status of green construction in China and the mostcritical barriers. Three major groups of stakeholders in Shanghaiwere surveyed, i.e. clients, contractors and construction supervi-sion engineers. The results showed a high level of agreementamong the stakeholders in China to take environmental re-quirements in green construction into consideration. And the threemost critical barriers associated with green construction are“additional cost”, “incremental time” and “limited availability ofgreen suppliers and information”. In addition, contractors haddifferent views from clients and construction supervision engineersin terms of ranking of some barriers to green construction.

These findings are similar to previous research in Hong Kong byLam et al. (2010). Both studies attempt to highlight the barriers ofdeveloping green construction in a big city. Because of the industryenvironment and regional condition, issues occurring in Honk Kongare mainly related to the free construction market, meanwhile thekey of solving major barriers against green construction in main-land China mainly depends on government. Thus, it is helpful tobuild a collaborative benefit alliance among government, industryassociation and enterprises in the generalized free construction

market. Government can lead this green construction policy downa practical path, and industry associations can fully play a guidancerole. Finally, enterprises are willing to implement green construc-tion by active action to build a healthy sustainable developmentconstruction market in China.

There are some limitations associated with this study. Thequestionnaire survey was conducted in Shanghai, a relativelydeveloped region in China. Therefore the findings can be appro-priately compared with other developed cities in the world how-ever this situation may vary from developing regions in China.Future research opportunities exist to conduct similar studies inother regions to validate of these findings. It is also worth notingthat people’s attitude may to some degree affect their decision topursuit sustainability. Therefore, further studies are required toinvestigate the attitudes and knowledge of site personnel on greenconstruction with a comparison to those of decision makers.

Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the National Natural ScienceFoundation of China (No. 70972072), the Fundamental ResearchFunds for the Central Universities and the Shanghai Leading Aca-demic Discipline Project (No. B310). Furthermore, the authorswould like to acknowledge the reviewer for the constructivecomments to improve this paper.

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