Habitat International 40 (2013) 1e8

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Habitat International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/habitatint

Identifying the critical factors for green construction e An empirical

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

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

a b s t r a c t
Keywords:
Sustainable development
Green construction
Construction industry
Barriers

Construction activities have signicant impacts on the community and environment. As a result, green
construction has been promoted to mitigate these issues. A questionnaire survey was conducted with
major stakeholders of the construction industry in Shanghai to investigate issues associated with the
adoption of green construction. The results showed that additional cost, incremental time and limited
availability of green suppliers and information are critical barriers. Discussions were made to breakdown
these barriers to foster green construction practice. This study provides a useful reference to both policy
makers and industry practitioners to implement green construction.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Although green construction has been attached more importance recently, obstacles still exist to its widespread adoption
(Meryman & Silman, 2004 in New York; Ofori & Kien, 2004 in Singapore; Lam, Chan, Chau, Poon, & Chun, 2009 in Hong Kong). In the
last few decades, the green construction concept has gained rapid
development in China as a result of strong national policies on energy conservation and emissions reduction. In the early 1980s, the
government attempted to promote energy efciency. Led by the
Ministry of Construction (MOC), the rst industry standard for energy conservation design of residential buildings (JGJ26-86) was
introduced in 1986. With the help of the China Academy of Building
Research (CABR), MOC issued a revised version (JGJ 26-95) in
December 1995. Since then, many other codes have been introduced
to different energy conservation design areas of residential buildings
in China (e.g. JGJ129-2000, JGJ134-2001, JGJ132-2001, JGJ75-2003,
etc.). A national design standard for the energy efciency of residential buildings covering the whole of China was published in 2004
(DBJ 01-602-2004). These are closely related to sustainable human
settlements in both urban and rural areas. Related to this, a national
standard for energy efciency design of public buildings (GB501892005) was issued by MOC in 2005. The Law of the Peoples Republic
of China on Energy Conservation passed the Standing Committee of

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 61 883021914; fax: 61 883022252.

E-mail addresses: qianshi@tongji.edu.cn (Q. Shi), Jian.Zuo@unisa.edu.au,
sageorgezuo@yahoo.com.au (J. Zuo), rain043573@hotmail.com (R. Huang),
huangjingyx@126.com (J. Huang), stephen.pullen@unisa.edu.au (S. Pullen).
0197-3975/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2013.01.003

the National Congress in 1997 (then revised in 2007), which was the
rst ever legislation in energy management with provisions of
encouraging exploitation, the utilization of new energy sources and
the promotion of energy-saving technologies. The Renewable Energy Law was effective in 2006 (revised in 2010) to promote the
renewable energy development with the aim of saving conventional
energy sources and improving energy efciency. MOC announced
the Provisions on the Administration of Energy Conservation for
Civil Buildings (2000) to facilitate the implementation of Law on
Energy Conservation. It established the building energy efciency
standards on programming, design, construction, project quality
supervision and operational management of construction projects.
In July 2008, the State Council promulgated the Regulations of Energy Conservation for Civil Buildings, which had more operable,
mandatory and comprehensive provisions on energy conservation
for new building construction and retrotting of existing buildings,
building energy system management, energy efciency evaluation,
and corresponding legal responsibility.
Green construction in China can be traced back to Chinas Agenda
21 published by State Council (1994) with a consideration of sustainability issues associated with both urban and rural areas. From
then on, the Chinese government has enacted policies and standards
on green demands of construction industry to protect the environment, including inside pollution control (2001) and construction
material quality (2002). Subsequently, since the 2004 Beijing
Olympics Games, the government has begun to further promote
green construction practices. The Assessment System for Green
Building in the Beijing Olympic (GBCAS) was established by the
Beijing Olympics Organizing Commission (2003), which introduced
a set of Guidelines for the implementation of Green Olympics. The

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

GBCAS covers the technical criteria and a set of assessment systems.

The 2010 Shanghai World Expo has drawn on the experience of
green construction within a multi-project (programme) environment from the Beijing Olympics Games for its pavilion developments. Shi, Zuo, and Zillante (2012) pointed out that the
sustainable construction management at the programme level is
different from that at the project level. They pointed out that
a dedicated department should be established in order to coordinate
various stakeholders efforts and the release of conceptual guideline
and management regulations.
Green construction is dened as On the premise of ensuring
quality, safety and other basic requirements, scientic management
and technological progress should be used in engineering construction, to maximize the conservation of resources and reduce
the construction activities which will bring negative impacts on the
environmental, and to achieve the goal of four savings (energy,
land, water and materials) and environmental protection, which is
specied in the Green Construction Guideline issued by MOC in
2007. According to this Guideline, green construction is classied
into six parts, i.e. construction management, environmental protection, material conservation and utilization, water conservation
and utilization, energy conservation and utilization, land conservation and construction using land protection. The ve factors in
the construction process man, machine, material, method and
environment are all covered by these six aspects.
Despite the recognition of the importance of specications in
the application of green construction, there are very limited studies
on the stakeholders perceptions of potential barriers to introducing green specications into construction in China. In this research,
the current status of green construction and potential barriers are
investigated through a questionnaire survey in Shanghai, which has
a construction scene similar to many other urban cities in the
world. Therefore, the aims of this research lay in three parts: (1)
investigate the development situation and research status of green
construction in China; (2) classify the general barriers to the
implementation of green construction in China by questionnaire
survey; (3) propose initiatives to push forward an integrated system between government and contractors for green construction.
Barriers to green construction
It has been generally recognized that environmental issues are
critical in the construction industry. Hill and Bowen (1997) proposed a framework for sustainable construction, which highlighted
that environmental issues should be included in the specications
and other contract documents related to the implementation of
environmental tools such as an environmental management system and an environmental impact assessment. According to
Crawley and Aho (1999), green design and specications are
critical for construction projects, especially those subjected to
environmental assessment.
Meryman and Silman (2004) identied 3 primary barriers for
using specications in sustainable engineering. They argued that the
economic factor was the most critical barrier, apart from policy and
technical issues, which could be translated to green construction in
China. Li and Yao (2009) argued that emerging issues relating to
building energy conservation were due to a more rapid growing
economy and urbanization development in China (see also Zhang,
Bai, Chang, & Ding, 2011). Due to the higher population and building density and less availability of reusable energy per square metre
oor area, the development of sustainable building technologies
applicable to various conditions in China is more necessary (Zhu &
Lin, 2004). According to Liu, Low, and He (2012), construction industry practitioners in China are more motivated to adopt green
practice in order to secure countenance and incentives from the

government. Presently, many developers are still reluctant and

uncertain about the adopting sustainability in their projects due to
limited understanding and the pursuit of cost reductions in developing countries such as China. Abidin (2010) considered that the
pace of action towards sustainable application depended on the
consciousness, knowledge as well as an understanding of the consequences of individual actions. A survey by Qi, Shen, Zeng, and Jorge
(2010) showed that managerial concern was the most important
driver for the adoption of green practices by contractors. According
to the above research, the main barriers of green construction were
classied into 4 fundamental aspects, i.e. economics, technology,
awareness and management, where 15 potential barriers were
identied (see Table 1).
Economics
Cost
It is well recognized that cost effectiveness is one of the most
important considerations for decisions of implementing green
construction (Kunzlik, 2003; Meryman & Silman, 2004). Ofori and
Kien (2004) argued that the extra cost occurred is the fundamental barrier for implementing green construction. The utilization
of green techniques such as high performance insulation protection,
water and energy saving equipment often increase the capital cost.
In fact, cost control presents the biggest challenge to implement
green practices in China (Liu et al., 2012). To assist the promotion of
green construction, a life cycle approach should be considered
during the assessment of relevant cost and impacts (Shi et al., 2012).
Time
Chan and Kumaraswamy (2002) stated that the schedule serves
as a crucial benchmark for the performance (apart from cost) of
construction projects. Time is a prime project objective for all
stakeholders in most countries (Ofori & Kien, 2004). Delays in
construction often result in increased costs and cause damage to
stakeholders, as well as affecting the reputation of corporation
(Arditi & Pattanakitchamroon, 2006). Green construction demands
integration of sustainable technologies and interaction with other
building components (Hoffman & Henn, 2008). Hwang and Ng
(2012) argued that delays will be caused if this issue is not taken
into consideration thoroughly.
Table 1
Potential barriers to implementing green construction. Adapted from Lam et al.
(2009).
Economics
Cost
B01 Additional costs caused by green construction
Time
B02 Incremental time caused by green construction
Technology
B03 Reduction of structure aesthetic
B04 Uncertainty in the performance of green materials and equipment
B05 Imperfect green technological specications
B06 Misunderstanding of green technological operations
B07 Restrictions of new green production and technology
Awareness
B08 Regional ambiguities in the green concept
B09 Conicts in benets with competitors
B10 Dependence on promotion by government
Management
Construction Management
B11 Lack of support from senior management
B12 Lack of knowledge on green technology and materials
B13 Limited availability of green suppliers and information
B14 Lack of quantitative evaluation tools for green performance
Contract management
B15 Additional responsibility for construction maintenance

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

Technology
Although the aesthetic appearance of a building may not necessarily affect its function, the appearance of a structure is another focus
of the project owners. The use of green construction techniques can
sometimes bring trouble to the architectural design of a building, e.g.
the installation of solar panels usually forces the architects to spend
time to address the issue on how to integrate it with the material
either on the faade or on the roof of a house. Pierce (2000) argued
that aesthetic issues driven by regulations could pose some challenges to engineers. Any degradation of aesthetic appearance derived
from the adoption of green construction technologies was a concern
to most stakeholders. Aesthetic issues may also affect the embodied
energy of construction. For example, due to the large area of singlelayerglass curtain walls, which cannot resist strong solar radiation
in hot summers, and block low temperatures in cold winters, many
skyscrapers have to increase the power of air-conditioning to adjust
the indoor temperature. Thormark (2002) found that the aesthetic
issue regarding replacement of materials was an important reason for
deciding the interval of maintenance and maintenance accounted for
12% of embodied energy in the buildings in these studies. Sartori and
Hestnes (2007) proved that a solar or passive house would be more
energy efcient than an equivalent house with conventional materials and appearance issues.
Green materials and equipment are crucial for achieving green
construction (Lam, Chan, Chau, Poon, & Chun, 2011; Shi et al., 2012).
Uncertainty in the performance of green materials and equipment
often leads to a reduction in the efciency of green construction.
The limitation of the scope and applicability of new products and
new technologies may force industry practitioners to move back to
traditional construction methods.
Green technology in China is still at an early stage where
specications have not been established properly. There are misunderstandings on requirements of implementation and operation
of green construction. The lack of mature green technologies
presents a signicant barrier for green construction.
Awareness
Awareness of green construction is closely related to the public
awareness of environmental issues. At present, the knowledge and
cognition on sustainability of all parties, including policy makers,
owners, designers, construction personnel and the public need to
be further enhanced. Although the majority of residents recognized
that the environmental pollution was a serious issue, they often
ranked social issues, such as companies participation, public
indifference, government involvement with higher priorities (CEAP,
2007). The China Environmental Awareness Program (CEAP) report
also revealed that the public perceived that responsibility for
environmental protection belonged to local government, companies, and authorities (CEAP, 2007). Bilec, Ries, and Matthews
(2007) highlighted the role that civil engineers played in
a green initiative in order to enhance the awareness of the public
and policy makers to both the costs and the benets associated
with green design. Therefore, the unwillingness of industry practitioners to change the conventional way of specifying existing
methods and processes became another technical barrier (Chen &
Chambers, 1999; Meryman & Silman, 2004).
Management
Construction management
The 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 is

uncommitted to environmental issues (Ball, 2002).
The lack of knowledge on green technology and the durability of
green materials is a signicant barrier preventing the construction
industry from implementing the strategies and specifying green
construction. For example, a construction enterprise can reject
using green materials with uncertain performance, which may
cause more testing fee and maintenance costs. Shen, Tam, Tam, and
Ji (2010) asserted contractors and suppliers should be engaged
during early stage of construction projects due to their knowledge
on the environmental issues associated with construction activities,
building materials and plants.
The green material supply chain presents another challenge to
the green construction. Green materials are often expensive and
the conict of interests among stakeholders can result in the uncertainties and inadequate trust relationship (Love, Holt, Shen, Li, &
Irani, 2002; Shi et al., 2012). Green or sustainable materials were
not available from the standard distribution network, hence a reliable and exible supply could not be ensured (Pearce & Vanegas,
2002). The uncertainty of supplies and information is a signicant
barrier against green construction.
The lack of benchmarking system is another barrier for assessing
and monitoring the performance of green construction (Lee & Chen,
2008). At the moment there is lack of a workable index system for
an effective assessment of green construction performance in the
entire construction process in China.
Contract management
Post-construction liability and construction insurance are two
important aspects of sustainable construction (Pollington, 1999).
The energy consumption of maintenance accounts for about 12% of
total construction, therefore the maintenance cost is considerable
(Thormark, 2002). Practices such as Soft landings have been
adopted in some countries to involve professionals after the completion of the building so as to ensure that the building actually
works as anticipated. This on one hand creates a feedback loop for
the project (Coles et al., 2010; Leaman, Stevenson, & Bordass, 2010)
on the other hand introduces challenges to the contract management. As a result, the responsibility of warranty for green construction is increased. Hence, the contractual and liability puzzles
of green construction need to be resolved.
Research methodology
A questionnaire was designed to examine the status quo of
green construction in China and the associated barriers based on an
extensive literature review and preliminary interviews. The questionnaire consists of three sections: (1) General information soliciting demographic data of the respondents; (2) a list of general
statements about respondents attitudes towards the implementation of green construction (A1eA9 shown in Table 2); (3)
a list of potential barriers to the implementation of green construction (B1eB15 shown in Table 1).
A 5-point Likert scale was used to assess respondents perceptions of green construction and associated barriers. A text box was
provided at the end of the questionnaire to allow respondents to
add any additional barriers, if any. 300 industry professionals in
Shanghai were randomly selected for the survey. Questionnaires
were distributed via post in April 2010 and 212 valid responses
were received by June 2010, resulting in a response rate of 70.6%.
19% of the respondents identied themselves as clients. 45% of the
respondents were construction contractors whereas the remaining
36% of the respondents were construction supervision engineers.
All respondents of the questionnaire survey held a senior position
in their organizations, e.g. general manager, chief supervision

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

Table 2
General statements on implementation of green construction.
A1 Specications should consider environmental requirements
A2 Specication and guide can be easily found interiorly
A3 Current public construction have sufciently considered
about green factors
A4 Current non-public construction have sufciently considered
about green factors
A5 Information or database about green construction is adequately
available in your company
A6 Green considerations are mainly for satisfying mandatory requirements
A7 Senior management in your company is concerning and supporting green
construction
A8 Adopting green construction should be voluntary
A9 Implementation of green construction is forced by government

engineer, senior executive, etc. Therefore, their responses are more

presenting decision makers point of view.
The returned questionnaires were screened in the rst instance.
A questionnaire with any missing data was treated as an invalid
response. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 13.0 for
Windows) was used for analyzing questionnaire survey. The internal consistency of the survey was assessed by the Cronbachs
coefcient to test the reliability of the ve-point Likert scale
(Sanotos, 1999).
During the data analysis, responses were grouped by occupations in order to clearly distinguish and compare the perceptions of
various parties on green construction. The nonparametric Manne
Whitney U test was used to assess signicant difference between
the mean ranks between groups. The two-sample Kolmogorove
Smirnov test was then used to investigate any dissimilarity between ratings by any two groups for a particular barrier. Prior to the
statistical tests among groups, Kendalls concordance analysis was
used to assess the extent of agreement of within-group ratings
(Siegel & Castellan, 1988). The one-sample t-test was performed for
testing the means of all the responses to the statements, when no
statistical difference is observed among groups from the MeW U
and KeS tests. The mean scores were used to investigate the
comparative importance among potential barriers for each group.
Rankings of the importance of the barriers were assigned based on
the mean scores associated with standard deviations. The Spearman rank correlation coefcient of the rankings was used to
explore 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 to
A9 shown in Table 2. The Cronbachs Alpha coefcient is 0.70,
showing that the instrument has high internal consistency. Table 3

Table 4
Results of ManneWhitney U tests and KolmogoroveSmirnov tests for general
statements.

Table 3
Mean and standard derivation for general statements.
Total

A1
A2
A3
A4
A5
A6
A7
A8
A9

Client

shows the mean score and standard deviation of each general

statement. The statistically signicant results of MeW U tests along
with 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 environmental requirements should be taken into consideration in specications (the total mean of A1 is 4.26). However, respondents
reported it was difcult to locate the information and data related
to green construction in their companies (the total mean of A5 is
3.04). In particular, the respondents from the client category gave
this statement the lowest score (mean score: 2.80).
Construction supervision engineers disagreed that green construction technology should mainly be used to satisfy the
mandatory requirements (mean score: 2.89) or that it was
voluntary to implement and use green construction specications
(mean score: 2.95). Rather, government enforcement plays a critical
role (mean score: 4.16). This view was shared by the other two
groups of respondents.
The MeW U test and KeS test were used to test whether there
was any statistical difference between groups (see Table 4).
The views of clients on statements A3 and A4 are signicantly
different from those of construction supervision engineers. Compared to construction supervision engineers, clients are more inclined to recognize that green construction specications have
taken the full consideration of environmental sustainability issues
in both public and private sector projects.
Similarly, clients had a relatively conservative attitude that
green construction technology is mainly for fullling mandatory
requirements. By contrast, construction supervision engineers
perceived that more effort should be made to popularize green
construction technologies rather than making it mandatory. This
difference is mainly due to the job characteristics of these two
groups. Clients are concerned more on the additional cost occurring
from adopting green construction whereas construction supervision engineers main duties are construction process and quality/
safety. Furthermore, clients perceived that the implementation of
green construction was voluntary while construction supervision
engineers 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 due
to the additional cost incurred. Therefore, perceiving satisfying
mandatory requirements voluntarily helps to protect their own
prots. By contrast, construction supervision engineers perceived
government policies as the major driver for green construction so
that industry practitioners are motivated for take relevant
voluntary actions.
For the statement A8, contractors had different views from clients and disagreed from construction supervision engineers for the
statement A9. As shown in Table 3, contractors were more inclined
to agree with construction supervision engineers that most efforts

Contractor

Supervisor

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

4.26
3.19
3.30
3.21
3.04
3.19
3.58
3.17
3.92

0.706
0.804
0.793
0.685
0.913
1.050
0.765
1.007
0.823

4.40
3.40
3.60
3.50
2.80
3.60
3.80
3.40
3.80

0.496
0.496
0.672
0.506
0.883
0.672
0.758
1.033
0.608

4.13
3.13
3.33
3.17
3.08
3.25
3.50
3.25
3.79

0.837
0.886
0.902
0.804
1.083
1.016
0.768
0.883
0.767

4.37
3.16
3.11
3.11
3.11
2.89
3.58
2.95
4.16

0.585
0.817
0.645
0.556
0.645
1.173
0.753
1.106
0.939

Client vs contractor

A1
A2
A3
A4
A5
A6
A7
A8
A9

Client vs supervisor

Contractor vs supervisor

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

KeS test

0.23
0.15
0.16
0.06
0.89
0.12
0.08
0.00
0.63

0.26
1.00
0.52
0.93
0.15
0.00
0.21
0.01
0.01

0.25
0.25
0.10
0.52
0.25
0.10
0.52
0.01
0.99

0.90
0.12
0.00
0.02
0.95
0.01
0.09
0.00
0.01

1.00
0.27
0.00
0.58
0.87
0.01
0.02
0.04
0.04

0.09
0.98
0.14
0.95
0.60
0.06
0.85
0.15
0.00

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

should be made to improve clients awareness of green construction. It is more likely to adopt green construction if clients are more
aware of green technology and willing to implement these technologies in their projects. However, for statement A9, contractors
tended to agree with clients that there was lack of motivation from
government for implementing green construction.
Moreover, 2 statements (A6 and A7) showed signicant differences in KeS test but not in MeW U test. For the statement A6 about
the relationship between green considerations and mandatory requirements, the contractors ranking (mean score: 3.25) is signicantly higher than that of construction supervision engineers
(mean score: 2.89). For the statement A7 about the willingness of
senior management, clients ranking (mean score: 3.80) is higher
than that of construction supervision engineers (mean score: 3.58).
It indicates there is a lack of attention and support by senior management from their companies to promote green construction.
Barriers to green construction
In this section, respondents were asked to rank the importance
of 15 potential barriers to green construction in China, B1 to B15
shown in Table 1. The Cronbachs Alpha coefcient is 0.86, which
indicates that the instrument is reliable. The means and ranking of
the barriers, together with its Kendalls coefcients of concordance,
are shown in Table 4. The Kendalls coefcients show a reasonable
agreement between the groups at the signicance level of 0.05. As
shown in Table 5, each group has a high level of internal consistency
(p < 0.001).
Table 6 shows the Spearman rank correlations among groups on
their ranking of barriers. It indicates the ranking of barriers by
contractors are signicantly different from those by the other two
groups, i.e. clients and construction supervision engineers.
The results of MeW U test and KeS test were summarized in
Table 7 which shows the different perceptions towards potential
barriers of green construction among various groups.
Tables 5 and 7 showed that contractors (mean score: 3.04) had
different views from the other two stakeholder groups, i.e. clients
(mean score: 2.40) and construction supervision engineers (mean
score: 2.11) on Barrier B3 (reduction of construction aesthetic). This
is mainly due to the fact that three groups have different subjective
aesthetics standards of buildings. Although there are some disagreements on the ranking, all respondents ranked this barrier as
a low level of importance. Compared to clients and construction
supervision engineers, contractors had more concerns on Barrier B4

Table 6
Spearman rank correlations for the ranking of barriers.

Total
Client
Contractor

Client

Contractor

Supervisor

0.816
e
e

0.549
0.337
e

0.865
0.690
0.353

(uncertainty in the performance of green materials), as construction

materials have more inuence on construction companies. The
mean of Barrier B7 (restrictions of new green productions and
technology) by the contractor is higher than 3.50, yet client and
supervisor are much lower. Similarly to B4, the impacts of construction materials and technology are much larger for contractors.
It is worth noting that the ranking of Barrier B9 (resistances of the
current competitors) by all respondents is comparatively low,
however the mean by construction supervision engineers (2.63) is
different from that of client (3.10) and contractor (3.21).
Furthermore, there is a high degree of divergence among three
groups responses on Barrier B5 and B8. Clients do not consider
hard-to-achieve green construction specications as a critical barrier whereas both contractors and construction supervision engineers ranked this barrier as the third most important factor
impeding the implementation of green construction. This may
attribute to the fact that contractors and construction supervision
engineers spend more time on site to deal with specication issues.
In addition, contractors considered ambiguities and conicts in
green construction (B8) as one of the most critical barriers (ranked
second) whereas clients and construction supervision engineers
perceived this barrier of comparatively lower importance, ranking
13th and 11th respectively.
The additional cost derived from green construction requirements (B1) is ranked as the most critical barrier where the total
mean is as high as 4.06. This result is similar to the previous survey of
green building and sustainable construction (e.g. Lam, Chan, Poon,
Chau, & Chun, 2010). In the real estate industry almost all stakeholders concern about cost in the rst instance when considering
the implementation of new norms or new technologies. In particular, the paired t-test shows that between the additional cost (B1),
ranked the rst barrier is signicant different from the second
ranked barrier incremental time (B2) (t-value 7.347, p < 0.001)
and the third ranked barrier limited green suppliers and information (B13) (t-value 6.975, p < 0.001). It indicates that respondents
had a much higher level of concerns of additional cost compared to

Table 5
Means, standard derivation, ranking, and Kendalls coefcients of potential barriers.
Barrier

B1
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6
B7
B8
B9
B10
B11
B12
B13
B14
B15
Kendalls coefcient
Level of signicance

Total

Client

Contractor

Supervisor

Mean

SD

Rank

Mean

SD

Rank

Mean

SD

Rank

Mean

SD

Rank

4.06
3.62
2.62
3.23
3.55
3.45
3.43
3.49
2.98
3.53
3.23
3.57
3.60
3.57
3.58
0.144
0.000

0.789
0.854
1.016
1.005
1.004
0.945
0.944
0.946
0.903
0.966
0.885
0.924
0.920
0.860
0.880

1
2
15
12
7
10
11
9
14
8
12
5
3
5
4

4.10
3.70
2.40
2.90
3.00
3.30
3.20
2.90
3.10
3.50
3.00
3.70
3.60
3.30
3.30
0.241
0.000

1.057
0.648
0.810
1.057
1.013
1.285
0.992
0.955
1.057
0.934
0.906
0.791
1.128
1.114
0.791

1
2
15
13
11
6
9
13
10
5
11
2
4
6
6

3.96
3.63
3.04
3.46
3.71
3.67
3.63
3.83
3.21
3.38
3.13
3.63
3.46
3.58
3.58
0.107
0.000

0.794
0.861
0.983
0.962
0.845
0.804
0.997
0.804
0.870
1.078
0.976
0.861
0.917
0.816
1.043

1
5
15
10
3
4
5
2
13
12
14
5
10
8
8

4.05
3.58
2.11
3.11
3.63
3.16
3.32
3.26
2.63
3.63
3.37
3.42
3.68
3.58
3.63
0.261
0.000

0.764
0.942
0.858
0.974
1.094
0.880
0.804
0.971
0.746
0.877
0.746
1.049
0.867
0.821
0.746

1
6
15
13
3
12
10
11
14
3
9
8
2
6
3

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

Table 7
Results of ManneWhitney U tests and KolmogoroveSmirnov tests for potential
barriers.
Client vs contractor

B1
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6
B7
B8
B9
B10
B11
B12
B13
B14
B15

Client vs supervisor

Contractor vs supervisor

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

KeS test

0.18
0.52
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.17
0.05
0.00
0.39
0.68
0.33
1.00
0.50
0.06
0.06

0.86
1.00
0.00
0.52
0.97
0.06
0.05
0.01
0.00
0.27
0.86
0.06
0.76
0.97
0.64

0.06
0.35
0.00
0.03
0.00
0.14
0.17
0.00
0.48
0.99
0.48
0.77
0.14
0.04
0.41

0.37
0.41
0.04
0.32
0.00
0.41
0.80
0.04
0.00
0.34
0.03
0.13
0.70
0.11
0.03

0.11
0.15
0.30
0.30
0.00
0.24
0.97
0.27
0.01
0.71
0.14
0.20
0.66
0.03
0.34

0.37
0.75
0.00
0.04
0.70
0.00
0.04
0.00
0.00
0.10
0.16
0.12
0.14
0.95
0.96

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

extra time and limited knowledge of the adoption of green construction. This is consistent with the previous survey results in Hong
Kong, by Lam et al. (2009) and in Singapore, by Ofori and Kien (2004)
where cost is identied as the most crucial consideration for the
success of implementing green construction.
As shown in Table 5, for clients, incremental time caused by
possible delay of green construction (B2) was ranked the second
most critical barrier whereas it was ranked as the fth critical barrier
by contractors and the sixth by construction supervision engineers.
However, there was not statistical signicant difference among
three groups in MeW U test and KeS test. This is similar to the
ranking made by three groups on B13 (limited availability of green
supplies and information). It indicates that all stakeholders agree
that these two barriers are very critical. It is notable that contractors
ranked barrier B13 at 10th most important as they have more
chances to contact with suppliers to acquire relevant information.

during project inception and design stages. Porter and Van der Linde
(1995) asserted that the improvement in sustainable performance
contributes to business competitiveness. Other research indicated
that green strategy and sustainable construction practice had a correlation with companies competitiveness by developers and contractors (Tan et al., 2011; Zhang, Shen, et al., 2011). Additional cost
affects the market competitiveness of the stakeholders in a construction project. Properly designed environmental standards can
trigger innovations that lower the total cost of a product or improve
its value. Such innovations allow companies to use a range of inputs
more productively from raw materials to energy to labour, thus
offsetting the costs of improving environmental impact and ending
the stalemate. Ultimately, this enhanced resource productivity
makes companies more competitive, not less.
To break up this barrier, policy guidance plays a critical role for
providing nancial incentive. By establishing tax incentive measures, green construction can benet the community as well.
Similarly, government can consider providing some returns to
green construction companies in the form of award subsidies,
decit subsidies, nancial discounts, pre-tax loans and so on.
Similarly, green procurement preferences can be formulated as
mandatory environmental requirements (Varns, Balfors, & Faith-Ell,
2009). Green public procurement policies and programmes have now
been implemented in many countries throughout the world (Bouwer,
2006; Kippo-Edlund, 2005; Ochoa & Erdmenger, 2003). Russel (1998)
claimed that environmental or green procurement can be referred to
as the integration of environmental considerations into purchasing
policies, programmes and actions. So far public sector shares a high
proportion of the construction industry in China. Green construction
will be promoted in the private sector as well if there are mandatory
requirements in public sector projects.
Legal support

Green construction is a relatively new concept in China. The rst

practical experience can be tracked back to the sports venues
construction for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, which is mainly
driven by the government. As a result, there are a number of factors
that helped the adoption of green construction.
It is imperative to establish a collaborative system among government, industry associations and enterprises. Firstly, enterprises
are encouraged to recognize green construction from the passive
implementation to active action and development. The enthusiasm
of contractors will be naturally raised as they can improve the
market competitiveness, enhance social and reputation via adopting green construction (Tan, Shen, & Yao, 2011). Second, it is governments responsibility to establish preferential policy
frameworks and effective evaluation mechanisms. Industry associations play a role in guidance, encouraging construction enterprises to use green construction specications. Meanwhile industry
association can facilitate information sharing between construction
enterprises and government.
Support and guidance from government and industry associations to construction enterprises is the key to the implementation
of green construction (Shen et al., 2010).

With the signicant impacts of construction activities on society

and environment, governments worldwide have introduced various policies and regulations to mitigate these impacts. For instance,
the UK Government amended building regulations (ODPM, 2003)
to regulate the environmental performance of buildings. In Hong
Kong, there is legislation for controlling environmental performance in construction projects, including the Air Pollution Control
(Open Burning) Regulation (DJ, 1996), the Waste Disposal Ordinance (DJ, 1980), and the Noise Control (General) Regulation (DJ,
1989). In Korea, a joint task team was established by the government in April 1998 following the climate change accords. The
Korean government has been implementing various ecologically
friendly, sustainable systems and policies to reduce environmental
loads associated with buildings. These policies include raw material
reduction, energy saving, waste reduction, and durability improvements (Oh, 2007, pp. 54e90; Suh, 2006). However the related
legislation is under developed as most of existing building codes
are developed in 1990s, not been updated according to the rapid
growth of the local construction industry.
Therefore, it is recommended that the critical role of green
construction and sustainable development is specically highlighted in the fundamental legal system of the construction industry. Similarly, the provincial construction authorities need to
amend sector-specic regulations on a timely basis to reect the
development situations and requirements of green construction in
the local regions.

Financial support

Technical support

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

Lam et al. (2010) stated that a traditional construction project

mainly focuses on the use of techniques for reducing pollution or

Implications

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

increasing efciency to meet the regulatory requirements or to

reduce cost. Mora (2007) noticed that sustainable construction can
refer either to the building process or to the building itself. Green
building performance assessment and green specications are two
closely related tools to evaluate the sustainable technical measures
not only during whole building life cycle but also for the nal
objective.
Life cycle assessment with considerations of environmental
impacts, energy and material ow is the main principle of most
published guidance for green specications, e.g. the BRE Green
Guide to specications (Anderson & Shiers, 2002), and the Federal
Green Construction Guide for Speciers (WBDG, 2007). Klpffer
(2006) stated that LCA has become a widely adopted methodology because of its integrated way of treating topics like framework,
impact assessment and data quality. The evaluation of specications in the design stage is usually fundamental for green building
assessment methods, e.g. CASBEE (2007) in Japan and the sustainability rating system in the Code for Sustainable Homes in the
UK (DCLG, 2006). Local specications need to be updated accordingly. For instance, the Building Research Establishment (BRE) in
the UK is updating its Green Guide to Specication continuously to
align with industry initiatives and building regulation changes
(BRE, 2007). BSD Spec Link by Building Systems Design Inc. is an
automated program for LEED submittals (Bertram, 2005), whilst
the Construction Specications Institute (CSI) introduced the Green
Format in the US (McCaffrey, 2006). Therefore, the green building
assessment available in the region and the current model clauses
for green specications in other countries can be used as references
during the preparation of Chinese own green construction technical system.
The questionnaire survey results of this research highlighted an
immature green supply chain and a lack of trust on suppliers. It
indicates that an integrated industrial supply chain is crucial for the
success of green construction. Vrijhoef and Koskela (2000) demonstrated the importance of dependability of the total supply chain
and robust relationship between suppliers and other stakeholders.
Underwood, Alshaw, Aouad, Child, and Faraj (2000) drew attention
to the signicance of the suppliers information in the early design
process. Contractor is not the only stakeholder of green construction. Cooperation with other stakeholders is required, and the
suppliers often play an important role.
Conclusions
This research adopts a questionnaire survey approach to
investigate the status of green construction in China and the most
critical barriers. Three major groups of stakeholders in Shanghai
were surveyed, i.e. clients, contractors and construction supervision engineers. The results showed a high level of agreement
among the stakeholders in China to take environmental requirements in green construction into consideration. And the three
most critical barriers associated with green construction are
additional cost, incremental time and limited availability of
green suppliers and information. In addition, contractors had
different views from clients and construction supervision engineers
in terms of ranking of some barriers to green construction.
These ndings are similar to previous research in Hong Kong by
Lam et al. (2010). Both studies attempt to highlight the barriers of
developing green construction in a big city. Because of the industry
environment and regional condition, issues occurring in Honk Kong
are mainly related to the free construction market, meanwhile the
key of solving major barriers against green construction in mainland China mainly depends on government. Thus, it is helpful to
build a collaborative benet alliance among government, industry
association and enterprises in the generalized free construction

market. Government can lead this green construction policy down

a practical path, and industry associations can fully play a guidance
role. Finally, enterprises are willing to implement green construction by active action to build a healthy sustainable development
construction market in China.
There are some limitations associated with this study. The
questionnaire survey was conducted in Shanghai, a relatively
developed region in China. Therefore the ndings can be appropriately compared with other developed cities in the world however this situation may vary from developing regions in China.
Future research opportunities exist to conduct similar studies in
other regions to validate of these ndings. It is also worth noting
that peoples attitude may to some degree affect their decision to
pursuit sustainability. Therefore, further studies are required to
investigate the attitudes and knowledge of site personnel on green
construction with a comparison to those of decision makers.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (No. 70972072), the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities and the Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project (No. B310). Furthermore, the authors
would like to acknowledge the reviewer for the constructive
comments to improve this paper.
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