Investigating the relative importance barriers to sustainable construction related to owners, contractors, and government

Green construction has been able to mitigate the substantial negative impacts of the construction industry on the triple bottom lines of sustainability. However, existing attempts for sustainable construction are not sufficient to compensate the massive negative effects of construction processes on the environment, society, and economy. The fundamental requirement to further progress sustainable construction is to identify its barriers and mitigate them. In doing so, concerns and limitations of primary parties who are involved in the construction industry must be identified. The present study serves two purposes, 1) ranking the barriers of sustainable construction in the United States based on subject matter experts' perspectives, and 2) determining the share of owners, contractor, and government-related barriers that hinder continuous improvement of sustainable construction. Analysis of the collected data demonstrated the following as the primary barriers, 1) owner's unwillingness to pay the extra initial costs of green buildings, and 2) contractors' disinclination to consider a longer project delivery. The research also revealed that, compared with the other project players, barriers related to owners are more impactful in hindering sustainable delivery of construction projects. The findings are expected to facilitate further adoption of sustainability in the construction industry.