Green Building success factors: An exploratory inquiry

Abstract

Green Building (GB) projects are being developed to address the socio-environmental issues of building construction and operation. The successful development of GBs is subject to a multitude of enabling conditions known as success factors, and their understanding can help render high project performance in GBs. Past studies have mainly aimed at explaining the significance of success factors for different building types. Also, there is a general lack of attention towards the identification of GB success factors. Associations among success factors also remain unaddressed. In contrast with previous research, this study employs an exploratory research design. Semi-structured interviews across six regions are conducted with 75 GB experts. The data analysis has resulted in 73 success factors and 82 sub-factors among which 40% of the factors have not been studied before. A network of success factors is developed where associations among success factors explain the reasons of their significance. The robustness of network is tested by progressive elimination of success factors from the network. This analysis helped identify success factors with critical significance in the network, which include ‘Educating project team about GB development’, ‘Proficiency of project client’, ‘Proficiency of project team’, ‘Project team collaboration’, ‘Alignment of team interest with project interest’, ‘Early engagement of project team’, ‘Project team motivation to achieve sustainable outcomes’, ‘Client's motivation to achieve sustainable outcomes’, ‘End-users’ operation of building in sustainable ways’, ‘Early introduction of project targets’, and ‘Rigor of project design development’. The network robustness analysis has also emphasized the need of considering success factors collectively, rather than individually. The identified success factors and their associations resulting from this study can contribute to both the theory and practice of GB project development.