Narrow Results

With the purpose of clarifying the energy-saving influencing factors of the participants in the construction project, qualitative analysis and scientific measurement analysis were combined in this paper to define and identify the energy-saving influencing factors of the construction project lifecycle. First, a qualitative analysis of the research literature of the natural science index (SCI) and social science citation index (SSCI) databases was conducted through a combination of literature analysis and expert interviews, constructing a list of the energy-saving influencing factors in the lifecycle of construction projects. Second, the knowledge map of the energy-saving research literature of construction projects in the past 20 years from the Web of Science (WOS) database was drawn through Citespace. Then the hotspots of energy-saving research in international construction projects were identified through keyword co-occurrence map as energy saving, energy efficiency, and energy consumption. The main research subjects were divided into four categories: energy-saving management and incentive policies, project users’ energy-saving behaviors and awareness, various energy-saving new materials and technologies, and energy-saving management and control at the operation and maintenance stage. Next, nine main clusters on energy-saving research were identified through cluster analysis, mainly distributed in various energy-saving technology research, energy-saving behavior and power research of owners and residents, policy and regulation research, and energy-saving management and control research in the operation and maintenance stage. Finally, the knowledge mapping analysis results were classified and defined according to the action scope of each stage of the construction project, and the identification of the energy-saving influencing factors in the construction project lifecycle was completed.

Construction activity is commonly considered to have adverse impacts on the environment, which is the basis of sustainable development for human being. It is considered that the proper development and operation of a construction project can make significant contribution to the mission of sustainable development. However, the existing difficulty is the lack of the guidance for implementing sustainable development principles in construction business. Whilst the concept of sustainable construction has become popular in research, there is little existing work providing methods to assess the degree of the contribution of developing a construction project to the attainment of sustainable development. This paper develops an alternative quantitative model for assessing the feasibility that a construction project involves in contributing to sustainable development. The development of the model is based on the general principle of sustainable development, which carries three dimensions, namely, economic, environmental, and social development. The model is proposed for the application at project feasibility stage when project investment decision is made. A practical case is used to demonstrate the application of the developed model.