Habitat International 57 (2016) 53e63

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

Review article

Critical analysis of green building research trend in construction

journals
Amos Darko*, Albert P.C. Chan
Department of Building and Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 11 Yuk Choi Rd, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In recent years, green building (GB) has become the agship of sustainable development, leading to a
Received 3 January 2016 number of published works on the topic. This paper examines GB research trend in construction man-
Received in revised form agement (CM) through analyzing selected GB research papers published in 10 selected CM journals from
18 June 2016
1990 to 2015 (as of end of August). The analysis is conducted in terms of the number of annual GB
Accepted 1 July 2016
research publications, contributions made by various countries, institutions and authors, and research
topics covered. The analysis reveals an increasing GB research interest in recent times, implying that the
importance attached to GB by the construction industry is accelerating. The ndings also indicate that
Keywords:
Green building
during the studied period, researchers from developed economies such as the US, Hong Kong, the UK,
Sustainable development Singapore, Italy, and Australia contributed most to promoting GB research. Developing countries such as
Construction management China, Egypt, and Colombia also made good efforts to promote GB research. Research topics covered tend
Construction industry to focus on GB project delivery and developments, GB certications, energy performance, and advanced
Research trends technologies. Research gaps are discussed with directions for future research proposed. This study may
Review serve as a valuable platform for both industry practitioners and researchers to appreciate GB research
trends and developments.
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2. Green building definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3. Research methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.1. Selection of construction journals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.2. Selection of relevant papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.3. Contributions assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4. Analysis and discussion of results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.1. Annual publication trend of GB-related papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2. Contributions of countries, institutions, and researchers to GB research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.3. Research topics covered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.3.1. Current status of GB research interests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.3.2. Knowledge gaps and future studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
5. Concluding remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

1. Introduction

Since the early nineties (Kibert, 2012; Yudelson, 2007), green or

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 852 55477127.
E-mail address: amos.darko@connect.polyu.hk (A. Darko).
sustainable building has attracted a worldwide attention from both

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2016.07.001
0197-3975/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
54 A. Darko, A.P.C. Chan / Habitat International 57 (2016) 53e63
researchers and practitioners (Li, Yang, & Lam, 2013). In turn,
several green building (GB) studies, from both developed and
developing countries, have been conducted and published (Cassidy,
2003; Zuo & Zhao, 2014). Academic GB research publications are
important to industry experts and researchers. However, the
existing literature consists of highly diversied topics that when
integrated and classied for better understanding of the GB
concept, would pave way for future researchers to undertake more
efcient and intensive research. Also, research reports and papers
are among the key channels through which scholars and univer-
sities inuence industrial practice (Cohen, Nelson, & Walsh, 2002).
Although a country may benet from research outputs from other
countries, it is believed that the number of published research
outputs on a topic in a particular country might have an inuence
on the level of industrial developments on the topic in that country
(Hong, Chan, Chan, & Yeung, 2012). That is, it is likely that the more
research works conducted and published on a particular topic in a
country, the greater the extent of industrial innovations and de-
velopments on the topic will be in the country, and vice versa. It is
therefore necessary to keep a track record of research outputs on a
particular topic in different locations in order to derive strategies
for improvement where necessary.
In 2014, Zuo and Zhao conducted a critical review of GB
research; they classied and discussed common GB research
themes, and highlighted future research opportunities. However,
Zuo and Zhao failed to provide insights into GB research outputs
from various countries and institutions, which could trigger efforts
for improvements in different regions on the topic. This paper aims
to ll this research gap by answering the following research
questions:
1. What was the annual publication trend of GB-related studies
from 1990 to 2015?
2. What was the contributions of authors from different countries
(regions) and institutions to GB research from 1990 to 2015?
3. What are the key research areas?
This kind of literature review, in which active contributors to
research on a certain topic are identied, has been conducted
by many researchers (Li, Shen, & Xue, 2014a; Yi & Chan, 2014;
Yuan & Shen, 2011) to present research trends in different con-
struction management (CM) disciplines. This study, however, is
the rst to replicate this review methodology in the context of
GB research.
For academics, especially rsthand researchers, to gain an un-
derstanding of the trend of research in a particular research area
(Hong et al., 2012), and to investigate the research developments on
a chosen topic, papers published in academic journals are vital (Tsai
& Wen, 2005). For this reason, this study is restricted to GB research
papers that have been published in selected CM journals from 1990
to 2015 (as of end of August). It is hoped that this paper will allow
researchers and practitioners to appreciate GB research trends and
developments, and expand the knowledge in the eld.
2. Green building denitions
Public concerns about the impacts of the construction industry
on human health and energy use, and global climate change have
made GB a popular eld of research (US Green Building Council
(USGBC) Research Committee, 2008). In the literature, the terms
green buildings (GBs), sustainable buildings, high-performance
buildings, sustainable construction, green construction, and
high-performance construction are interchangeably used (Kats,
Alevantis, Berman, Mills, & Perlman, 2003; Kibert, 2012; USGBC
Research Committee., 2008; Woolley, Kimmins, Harrison, &
Harrison, 2002), and with numerous denitions (Comstock,
Garrigan, & Pouffary, 2012; Kibert, 2007). According to Kibert
(2012, p. 1), the outcome of applying sustainable construction
approaches to creating a responsible built environment is most
commonly referred to as high-performance green buildings, or
simply, green buildings. Kibert (2012) again dened a GB as a
facility that is healthy, designed and constructed with ecological
principles and efciently used resources. In the view of Yudelson
(2008), a GB is a high-performance building that has minimal
impacts on human health and the environment. He further noted
that a GB is not only designed to consider and reduce its lifecycle
environmental impacts, but its water and energy consumption
also. Similarly, Laustsen (2008) mentioned that major character-
istics of GBs include improved environment and human health,
natural and material resources efciency, and water and energy-
efciency.
The GB approach, unlike the conventional (non-green)
building approach, aims at designing, constructing, and oper-
ating a building with minimal use of resources (Kubba, 2010;
Wedding, 2008; Zigenfus, 2008). Hong Kong Green Building
Council (HKGBC) (2015) wrote that the main idea behind GB is to
minimize unfavorable impacts of buildings on the environment
through three underlying processes: lifecycle planning of a
building, efcient use of resources, and environmental waste and
pollution reduction. Additionally, Sangster (2006) emphasized
that the main objectives of GB are to: (1) minimize environ-
mental disturbances and waste generation; (2) minimize energy
and other resources utilization; (3) boost renewable energy us-
age; and (4) improve human health and comfort. Usually, prin-
ciples such as sustainable site development, water-efciency,
energy-efciency, reduced material resources consumption and
indoor environmental quality are used to judge GBs (Gou, Lau, &
Prasad, 2013). The USGBC (2003), in its paper entitled Building
Momentum, dened GBs as buildings that are designed, con-
structed, and operated to boost environmental, economic, health,
and productivity performance over non-green buildings.
Hoffman and Henn (2008, p. 392) stated that GB is a term
encompassing strategies, techniques, and construction products that
are less resource-intensive or pollution-producing than regular
construction.
From the above denitions, it is clear that GBs are examples of
applied ecology, where designers understand the constitution, or-
ganization, and structure of ecosystems, and the impacts of archi-
tecture are considered from an environmental perspective (Zhai,
Wang, Dai, Wu, & Ma, 2008, p. 1904). As Ahmad, Thaheem, and
Anwar (2016) suggested, energy-efciency, reduced maintenance
and operation costs, and extended lifespan of GBs are the main
factors driving their adoption. These denitions suggest that GB
presents a promising contractual approach for the construction
industry to contribute to sustainable development.
3. Research methodology
For researchers and practitioners to gain insights into the cur-
rent status and future trend of research on a particular topic, Tsai
and Wen (2005) stated that a methodical analysis of papers pub-
lished in academic journals is vital for a research community.
Hence, adopting the review method utilized by previous re-
searchers (Hong et al., 2012; Osei-Kyei & Chan, 2015; Yi & Chan,
2014), GB research papers published in selected CM journals from
1990 to 2015 were retrieved and systematically analyzed to provide
insights into GB research trend, and to identify key research areas.
The review method comprises of three steps: (1) selection of con-
struction journals; (2) selection of relevant papers; and (3)
assessment of contributions.
 A. Darko, A.P.C. Chan / Habitat International 57 (2016) 53e63
3.1. Selection of construction journals
To identify academic journals that published GB-related papers
from 1990 to 2015, a powerful search engine, Scopus, was used.
Aside from being widely used in similar studies, Scopus was
adopted based on two reasons. First, most research publications in
the eld of management, accounting, engineering, business, and
construction have been archived in Scopus (Hong & Chan, 2014).
Second, in terms of accuracy and coverage, Scopus performs better
than other search engines such as PubMed, Web of Science, and
Google Scholar (Falagas, Pitsouni, Malietzis, & Pappas, 2008). With
the help of Scopus, a systematic desktop search was conducted to
identify and select relevant construction journals for this study.
Several authors (Deng & Smyth, 2013; Xue, Shen, & Ren, 2010)
utilized keywords search to select papers and journals for their
review studies. Likewise, this study adopted keywords search to
identify and select construction journals as well as GB-related pa-
pers. We acknowledge the fact that GB is, in fact, a broad topic with
numerous keywords in the literature. Depending on the adopted
keywords, the size of searched GB literature might be very bulky.
However, since no one study by itself can address all of the com-
plexities surrounding the selection of all possible GB research
keywords, a challenge presented in obtaining a workable number
of GB-related papers was reduced by the assumption that common
keywords in GB research include green building, sustainable
building, construction sustainability, green technology, green
technologies, and sustainable construction. These six keywords
were, therefore, used in this study as the search keywords.
After choosing the search keywords, a pilot desktop search was
performed under the article title/abstract/keywords eld of Sco-
pus, and with document type of article or review. Note that in line
with the scope of this study, the search was limited to construction
industry or building construction or construction management or
construction engineering and management. The initial search
resulted in 395 documents from over 70 different journals (both
construction and non-construction journals showed up). The full
search code is as follows:
TITLE-ABS-KEY (Green Building OR Sustainable Building OR
Construction Sustainability OR Green Technology OR Green
Technologies OR Sustainable Construction) AND (LIMIT-TO
(Construction Industry OR Building Construction OR Con-
struction Management OR Construction Engineering and Man-
agement) AND DOCTYPE (ar OR re) AND SUBJAREA (engi OR
manag OR envi OR soci OR deci OR busi) AND PUBYEAR > 1989 AND
PUBYEAR < 2016 AND (LIMIT-TO (LANGUAGE, English)) AND
(LIMIT-TO (SRCTYPE, (j))) Search results: 395 documents
(searched on August 30, 2015).
Despite the search restrictions, non-construction journals still
appeared. It is therefore important to emphasize that this study
was strictly limited to GB research coverage in construction jour-
nals so, as a general rule, journals (such as forestry chronicle and
Wood and Fibre Science) that are not construction journals were
excluded. On the other hand, construction journals considered in
this study met either one of the following criteria:
1. The journal showed at least four papers (according to the search
results); and
2. The journal ranks within the top six of Chau (1997) ranking of
CM journals. Reference was made to Chaus ranking because it is
one of the widely accepted journal rankings in the eld of CM.
Based on these criteria, a total of eight journals: Building and
Environment (BE); Journal of Construction Engineering and Man-
agement (JCEM); Construction Management and Economics (CME);
Journal of Green Building (JGB); Habitat International (HI);
55
Sustainable Development (SD); Journal of Management in Engi-
neering (JME); and Building Research and Information (BRI) that
met the rst criterion, and two journals: Engineering, Construction
and Architectural Management (ECAM); and Proceedings of the
Institution of Civil Engineers-Civil Engineering (PICE-CE) that met
the second criterion were selected. That is, nally, 10 construction
journals were selected for this study.
3.2. Selection of relevant papers
Of the initial search results of 395 documents, the 10 selected
construction journals captured 105. The 105 documents, since the
search keywords appeared in either their titles or abstracts or
keywords, were considered to have met the initial requirement for
further analysis. However, due to widespread use of the search
keywords in general CM research, there was the possibility that
irrelevant papers still showed. We therefore scanned by reading the
abstract of each of the 105 papers to lter out irrelevant papers.
Note that at this stage, since the aim of the study was to review GB
research papers, papers that just mentioned any of the keywords in
their titles or abstracts or keywords, but do not really focus on GB
issues were excluded. Based on this selection criterion, a total of 61
papers were found valid for further analysis. Table 1 summarizes
the initial search results together with the number of relevant pa-
pers from each of the 10 selected journals.
3.3. Contributions assessment
As mentioned earlier, research publications are among the
major means through which researchers and academic institutions
affect industrial practice (Cohen et al., 2002), and the relevance of
geographical distribution of research publications is based on the
belief that the number of published research works on a particular
subject in a country might indicate the extent to which industrial
practice and innovations progress on the subject in that country
(Hong et al., 2012). Hence, to understand the main stream of
research in a particular discipline in different regions, the identi-
cation of active contributors is imperative (Yuan & Shen, 2011).
Through this identication, researchers are able to track the con-
tributions of previous researchers and continue their works.
Therefore, to provide some level of insights into the current state of
industrial developments on GB in different countries, research
contributions of each country and institution, based on the con-
tributions of researchers from the respective countries and in-
stitutions, are presented and discussed in the next section of this
paper.
To calculate the contributions of authors, countries or origins,
and institutions or universities or research centers to GB research,
we adopted a formula proposed by Howard, Cole, and Scot (1987)
and used by earlier researchers to conduct similar review studies;
to ascertain research trend in construction labor productivity (Yi &
Chan, 2014), research trend in management of prefabricated con-
struction (Li et al., 2014a), and research trend in construction and
demolishing waste management (Yuan & Shen, 2011). The wide-
spread adoption of the formula guaranteed its reliability and suit-
ability for this study. The proposed formula by Howard et al. (1987)
is shown in Eq. (1) below:
1:5ni
Score Pn ni
(1)
i1 1:5
where n represents the number of authors and i represents a spe-
cic authors order. Applying the formula, the credits of authors in a
multi-authored paper are proportionately divided. Howard et al.
56 A. Darko, A.P.C. Chan / Habitat International 57 (2016) 53e63
Table 1
Summary of search results and number of selected papers.
Selected journals
Building and Environment (BE)
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management (JCEM)
Construction Management and Economics (CME)
Journal of Green Building (JGB)
Habitat International (HI)
Sustainable Development (SD)
Journal of Management in Engineering (JME)
Building Research and Information (BRI)
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Civil Engineering (PICE-CE)
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management (ECAM)
Total
(1987) assumed that in determining the contributions of authors in
a multi-authored paper, authors do not make equal contributions
and thus a rst author contributes more than a second author, a
second author more than a third author and so on. Assigning a score
of one point to each paper, Table 2 presents a detailed score matrix
for authors. Utilizing the score matrix, authors, countries, and in-
stitutions contributions to GB research during the studied period
were accumulatively computed, ranked, and discussed.
4. Analysis and discussion of results
This study aimed at providing insights into GB research trend in
CM by reviewing selected GB research papers, but not to review the
complete population of GB-related studies conducted during the
studied period. Therefore, it has to be noted that the results pre-
sented herein are exclusively based on the analysis of the GB
research papers obtained from the specic sampling approach
discussed in section 3. This warrants caution when interpreting the
ndings of this study. For instance, care must be taken not to draw
conclusions that the identied contributors are the most important
contributors to GB research. The results are presented in terms of
annual publication trend, research contributions by various coun-
tries, institutions, and authors, and research topics covered over the
years.
4.1. Annual publication trend of GB-related papers
Fig. 1 highlights the annual distribution of the analyzed GB-
related papers.
It is observed that out of the 61 analyzed papers, only one was
published in the 1990s (see Fig. 1). This could easily be explained by
the fact that the GB concept was emerging in the 1990s (Kibert,
2012; Yudelson, 2007) and, therefore, few publications were
made during that period. On the other hand, the remaining 60
papers were published during the period between 2000 and 2015,
demonstrating that GB has attracted an increasing amount of
attention from researchers in the last few years. This is not sur-
prising as GB has, in present times, become one of the hottest topics
in CM research. Many academic institutions have injected GB
Table 2
Score matrix for multi-authored papers.
Number of authors Order of specic author
1 2 3 4
1 1.00
2 0.60 0.40
3 0.47 0.32 0.21
4 0.42 0.28 0.18 0.12
5 0.38 0.26 0.17 0.11
No. of papers from search No. of relevant papers for this study
27 13
21 11
13 7
11 7
8 6
7 5
7 5
6 4
4 2
1 1
105 61
elements into curriculums, increasing the awareness of researchers
on the subject. Also, due to environmental and global climate
change concerns, global and national sustainability agendas have
brought attention to GB. However, there has not been a stable
output of GB research publications; there are several increases and
declines at certain times (see Fig. 1). Nonetheless, there is an
increasing trend from one paper in 1998 to 12 papers in 2013 (the
peak within the studied period), 8 papers in 2014, and 5 papers in
2015 (as of end of August e expected to increase at the end of the
year).
To sum up, these ndings obviously show that GB research has
experienced an increasing trend of interest in the 21st century
compared with the 20th century, signifying that GB is becoming
more important to the global construction community. This is
explained by the numerous present-day GB initiatives, from both
governmental and non-governmental groups, for catalyzing the
adoption of GBs across the world. For example, most governments
are currently governing or planning to govern market activities
through the promulgation of legislations and national public GB
policies (such as mandatory minimum energy-efciency
standards).
4.2. Contributions of countries, institutions, and researchers to GB
research
Assessing the contributions of authors from different countries
and institutions has been in the interest of many researchers in
different elds (Little, 1997; Roberts, Davis, Zanger, Gerrard-Morris,
& Robinson, 2006). For this study, in calculating the contribution of
each country and institution to GB research, the score matrix pre-
sented in Table 2 was applied. The nal contribution score of a
particular country and institution was determined by summing up
the individual scores of all authors from the same country and
institution. For example, if author X, from a particular country, has
the rst and second authorship, respectively, in two different pa-
pers, in which there are just two authors, according to the score
matrix, author X is scored one point (0.6 0.4) each for his or her
country and institution. After detailed computation, the countries
of origin of the selected papers are summarized in Table 3 together
with the total number of researchers and institutions involved, and
the contribution score of each country.
From Table 3, it is seen that during the studied period, GB
studies were conducted in both developed and developing coun-
tries, indicating that GB is of a global interest. However, majority of
5 the studies were conducted by researchers from developed coun-
tries; they published about 90% of the identied papers. In turn,
among the countries that contributed to the reviewed papers, the
following developed countries: the US, Hong Kong, the UK,
Singapore, and Italy are the leading countries with contribution
0.08
scores of 25.97, 4.26, 3.60, and 3.17 respectively. This implies that
 A. Darko, A.P.C. Chan / Habitat International 57 (2016) 53e63
13
12
11
10
Number of papers
9
8 8
7
6 6
5 5
4
3 3
2 2
1 1 1 1
0
1998 2000 2001
Fig. 1. Annual GB research publication trend from 1990 to 2015 (as of end of August).
Table 3
Origins of selected GB research papers.
Country Institutions/universities Researchers
US 29 55
Hong Kong 2 10
UK 5 9
Singapore 3 6
Italy 2 4
Australia 5 6
Canada 4 5
Spain 4 6
China 3 6
New Zealand 2 3
Egypt 1 3
Sweden 1 2
Portugal 1 2
Ireland 1 1
Chile 1 2
Colombia 1 3
Taiwan 1 1
UAE 1 1
these countries have made more contributions to GB research
compared with other countries. When examining the extent of
focus on sustainable construction in these countries, these facts
may be perceived to be meaningful and logical. Great emphasis of
industrial practices on sustainable construction advanced GB
research in those locations. Furthermore, it is worth noting that
developing nations such as China, Egypt, and Colombia also made
good attempts in advancing GB research, with contribution scores
of 1.72, 1.00, and 0.58 respectively. Multiple factors such as
immature publication culture, GB yet to be seen as a priority in
construction activities, and lack of awareness on the potentials of
GB may have contributed the low manifestation of GB research in
developing countries.
The results show that many researchers from different parts of
the world and institutions dedicated time and efforts to conduct GB
studies during the studied period (this assertion is corroborated by
evidences in Tables 3e5). In terms of institutions, the top 10
research centers publishing GB-related papers in the eld of con-
struction are shown in Table 4. The country of origin, number of
researchers and papers, and the contribution score of each research
center are also presented.
Research centers that contributed most to GB research include
University of Colorado, Boulder (US), the Hong Kong Polytechnic
University (Hong Kong), Michigan State University (US), National
University of Singapore (Singapore), and Stanford University (US),
with contribution scores of 3.33, 3.00, 2.05, 2.00, and 2.00 respec-
tively (see Table 4). We also analyzed the contributions of various
57
12
6 6
5
3
2
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Year of publication
authors to GB research. Although several authors were identied,
only authors who obtained contribution scores of at least one point
Papers Score are listed in Table 5. It is important to stress here that some key
authors (i.e., authors with a number of publications) in the GB eld
28 25.97
5 4.26 may be missing because of the formula used in this study for
4 3.60 calculating the contribution scores. As mentioned previously, the
5 3.17 formula takes into account the specic order of authors as well as
3 3.00
the number of authors. According to Table 5, authors with the
4 2.84
3 2.17 highest contributions to GB research include Korkmaz, S. from
2 2.00 Michigan State University (US), Dewlaney, K. from University of
4 1.72 Colorado, Boulder (US), and Hwang, B.G. from National University
2 1.21 of Singapore (Singapore). This is reasonable because the countries
1 1.00
that contributed to most of the analyzed papers include the US and
1 1.00
1 1.00 Singapore (see Table 3). This information may serve as valuable
1 1.00 references for individuals who are interested in GB research and
1 0.79 developments. Again, identifying active authors in GB research is
1 0.58
relevant for GB researchers and practitioners to form useful col-
2 0.54
1 0.11
laborations for future research opportunities (Hong et al., 2012).
4.3. Research topics covered
Zuo and Zhao (2014) classied common GB research topics into
three main categories: denition and scope of GB, quantication of
benets of GBs compared to non-green buildings, and various ap-
proaches to achieve GBs. In this study, research interests/topics in
GB-related papers published within the studied period have been
identied and classied into four distinct groups for summarizing
and differentiating them. Interestingly, some identied sub-topics,
such as GB rating systems and benets of GB, happen to be in line
with those discussed by Zuo and Zhao. The four main categories of
GB research interests identied are: (1) GB project delivery and
developments; (2) GB certications; (3) energy performance; and
(4) advanced technologies. Though deciding on the research in-
terest of a particular paper seems subjective and uncertain
(Themistocleous & Wearne, 2000), this classication was done by
the same group of researchers, which means that any differences in
opinions could be minimalized or even eradicated (Hong et al.,
2012). However, this classication was done purely for the pur-
pose of comparisons. Thus, the classication of GB papers, provided
herein, based on their research interests is considered to be valu-
able and apt for reference only to some extent. Each paper was
assigned to only one of the four main research interests. Thus, if a
paper seems to cover multiple research interest, it is grouped under
the best-t category.
A critical analysis of the selected GB papers showed that GB
studies, conducted during the studied period, mainly delved into
(1) GB project delivery and development issues (e.g. Li, Chen, Chew,
& Teo, 2014b; Mollaoglu-Korkmaz, Swarup, & Riley, 2013; Swarup,
58 A. Darko, A.P.C. Chan / Habitat International 57 (2016) 53e63

Table 4
Top 10 research centers publishing GB-related papers in construction (using the score matrix).

Rank Institution/university Country Researchers Papers Score

1 University of Colorado, Boulder US 4 4 3.33

2 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hong Kong 6 3 3.00
3 Michigan State University US 5 4 2.05
4 National University of Singapore Singapore 3 3 2.00
5 Stanford University US 5 2 2.00
6 Politecnico di Bari Italy 2 2 2.00
7 Pennsylvania State University US 3 4 1.95
8 Oxford Brookes University UK 5 2 1.88
9 Georgia Institute of Technology US 4 2 1.42
10 University of Hong Kong Hong Kong 4 2 1.26

Table 5 construction activities and an increased awareness of the world on

Contributions of authors to GB research (authors who scored at least one point). global climate change, GB has become more popular in recent
Researcher Papers Afliation Country Score years, and majority of the existing studies have concentrated on
GB project delivery and developments (see Table 6). The literature
Korkmaz, S. 4 Michigan State University US 1.54
Dewlaney, K. 2 University of Colorado, Boulder US 1.19
in relation to this topic covers a great variety of sub-topics that
Hwang, B. 2 National University of Singapore Singapore 1.07 basically focus on issues relating to the implementation and
Hallowell, M. R. 2 University of Colorado, Boulder US 1.00 development of GB projects. In other words, most of the previous
Ofori, G. 1 National University of Singapore Singapore 1.00 studies have mainly focused on the exploration of factors or aspects
Costantino, N. 1 Politecnico di Bari Italy 1.00
that have the potential of facilitating or hindering GB imple-
Berardi, U 1 Politecnico di Bari Italy 1.00
Wiston, N. 1 University College Dublin Ireland 1.00 mentation, such as project management or project delivery attri-
Levitt, R.E. 1 Stanford University US 1.00 butes that can affect or improve the nal outcomes of GB projects,
Perry, K. T. 1 Murray State University US 1.00 barriers to GB adoption, and benets of GB. As long as stakeholders
keep realizing that GB can positively impact and thus address
several environmental issues, it is predicted that more future pro-
Korkmaz, & Riley, 2011; Li, Chen, Chew, Teo, & Ding, 2011; Korkmaz, jects will be seeking green certication, thus the demand for green
Riley, & Horman, 2010; and; Horman et al., 2006; Theaker & Cole, construction will keep increasing. Hence, the sub-topics under GB
2001; Hwang, Zhao, & Tan, 2015); (2) issues relating to GB certi- project delivery and developments will continue to be in the in-
cations (e.g. Gou & Lau, 2014; Bendewald & Zhai, 2013; Berardi, terest of future researchers.
2012; Castro-Lacouture, Sefair, Flo  rez, & Medaglia, 2009; Bray & The second popular topic is GB certications. This topic deals
McCurry, 2006; and; Kosheleva & Elliott, 2006); (3) energy per- with issues such as the customization of GB certication systems,
formance of buildings (e.g. Sesana & Salvalai, 2013; Ding & assessment of environmental benets of GB certication systems,
Forsythe, 2013; Danatzko, Sezen, & Chen, 2013; and; Xu & Chan, and review of GB certication systems. The results in Table 6 show
2013); and (4) integration of advanced technologies into GB pro- that a number of research efforts have been devoted to these issues
jects (e.g. Inyim, Rivera, & Zhu, 2015; Wu & Issa, 2015; and; Bynum, and it is not surprising to discover this because a key catalyst for
Issa, & Olbina, 2013). Table 6 summarizes the four major research moving green buildings into the mainstream is the development of
topics together with their sub-topics and the percentage of papers reliable standards and evaluation criteria around the world
falling under each research topic. It shows that more attention has (Lockwood, 2006, p. 3). These research efforts have contributed to
been paid to GB project delivery and developments with 44% of the the development of worldwide GB certication systems, of which
papers falling under this area, followed by GB certications (31%), the most popular and internationally recognized ones include
energy performance (18%), and advanced technologies (7%). Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) (US) and
To provide detailed insights into the current status of GB BRE Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) (UK). GB certi-
research, the following sections will examine the previous studies cation systems provide methods, targets, and recognition for ef-
based on the identied research interests. This allows easier iden- forts that are made toward the development of GBs (Lee & Burnett,
tication of what remains to be done from what has been done, 2006). In turn, it only sufces to say that a building is green after it
based on which future research directions can be derived. has received a GB certication systems recognition. This study has
found that good efforts have been made toward a worldwide
4.3.1. Current status of GB research interests diffusion of GB certication systems and it is necessary to keep
Due to the negative environmental impacts of traditional promoting such efforts at different national levels. That is, in a given

Table 6
Percentage of papers falling within the four main research topics/interests.

Research topics Sub-topics Percentage of

papers (%)

Green building project delivery
and developments
Green building certications
Energy performance
Advanced technologies
GB project management issues; Schedule performance and inuential factors; Resources and capabilities for 44
delivering GB projects; GB project delivery metrics; Health and safety management in GB; Safety risk quantication;
Project delivery attributes and features; Role of stakeholders; GB cost; GB design; GB barriers; GB Project delivery
methods; Benets of GB; Occupant satisfaction; Denitions/Emergence/Evolution of GB
Customization of GB certication systems; Assessing environmental benets of GB rating systems; Overview of GB 31
rating systems; GB assessment methods; environmental analysis; sustainability assessment
Energy consumption and efciency issues; Lifecycle energy analysis 18
BIM execution in GB projects, Simulation of Environmental Impact of Construction (SimulEICon) 7
 A. Darko, A.P.C. Chan / Habitat International 57 (2016) 53e63
country, there is the need to develop GB standards that suit the
local conditions. It is therefore considered that, in future, GB cer-
tication will continue to be a hot topic in GB research.
Regarding the third topic, energy performance, two sub-topics
were identied: energy consumption or energy-efciency of
buildings and lifecycle energy analysis. Buildings account for 40% of
the worlds total energy use. Hence, the need to reduce energy use
and introduce renewable energy sources in buildings have been
important and long-standing issues in the building industry. In the
European Union, for instance, it is stipulated in a recast directive on
the energy performance of buildings (EPBD) that by 2020, all newly
constructed buildings should reach nearly zero-energy levels
(Sesana & Salvalai, 2013), meaning that all new buildings are ex-
pected to be highly energy-efcient in less than a decade. Also,
energy-efciency is an essential requirement of GB certication
systems, that buildings that are not energy-efcient cannot be
certied as GBs (Howe, 2010). These issues have placed demand on
researchers to study into ways of improving energy performance of
buildings. Sesana and Salvalai (2013), for example, studied life cycle
methodologies (including Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life
Cycle Energy Analyses (LCEA)) and their implications for Nearly
Zero Energy Building (nZEB) design. Although there was a relatively
less research attention paid to issues that are specically focused on
improving the energy performance of buildings during the studied
period, it is projected that the interest on this topic will increase
and remain an important focus.
In fact, given the popularity gained by advanced technologies
such as building information modeling (BIM) in architectural
design and construction nowadays, it was unexpected to nd that
research attention on BIM is by far the lowest in the GB arena. This
may imply that the adoption of BIM in sustainable building design
is currently low. A careful review of the literature has shown that
this may be because it is difcult for the traditional BIM to handle
the complexities involved in GB projects (Inyim et al., 2015), but
more comprehensive studies on how to successfully introduce BIM
to support sustainable design decisions, which involve several
conicting project objectives, have yet to be conducted. This clearly
indicates that there is the need to address this problem, by making
advanced information communication technologies (ICTs) an
important focus of much GB research, in order to benet from their
abilities in fostering decision-making effectiveness at the design
stage of a project.
4.3.2. Knowledge gaps and future studies
In an effort to highlight research directions that are worth to be
further explored, this section is focused on pointing out gaps in the
existing body of knowledge. To conserve space, this study chose to
focus on three important gaps, with the rst two identied from
the rst research topic GB project delivery and developments and
the last one identied from the fourth research topic advanced
technologies:
(1) Barriers to GB adoption and strategies for overcoming the
barriers, especially in developing countries. GB has seen a
signicant growth during the past 15 years. Public awareness
on the benets of GB has increased as a result of prominent
documentarians, politicians, journalists, and celebrities
highlighting the impacts of the built environment on natural
resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions
(Robichaud & Anantatmula, 2011). Despite the benets of GB,
barriers to its widespread adoption still exist. In a particular
country, it is necessary to understand the barriers affecting
GB adoption in order to devise appropriate strategies to
overcome those barriers. Past studies have investigated fac-
tors hindering the adoption of GBs (Hwang & Tan, 2012;
59
Mulligan, Mollaoglu-Korkmaz, Cotner, & Goldsberry, 2014;
Williams & Dair, 2007; Winston, 2010). They have identied
factors such as high cost, lack of GB codes and regulations,
and lack of information as important barriers to GB adoption,
and have recommended measures to overcome the barriers.
However, it appears that all of these studies focused more on
GB barriers from the perspective of developed countries such
as the US, England, and Singapore. Given the acceleration of
infrastructural development and rapid urbanization experi-
enced by most developing countries (Du Plessis, 2007), the
need for GBs in the developing world has been spurred.
Construction companies in developing countries are striving
to integrate green measures into their construction plans to
mitigate the impacts of future large-scale development in the
built environment on the natural environment and human
health. Therefore, examining the barriers to successful
adoption of GB in developing countries, and devising stra-
tegies to break down the barriers for rapid and wider
adoption of the green concept in those countries should be a
promising research direction.
(2) Exploration of critical success factors (CSFs) for GB projects, and
their inuences on GB project outcomes. For a long time, the
topics project success and critical success factors have
been in the interest of many researchers. There are several
denitions of project success in the literature. One of the
earliest denitions was put forward by Ashley, Lurie, and
Jaselskis (1987 cited in Sanvido, Grobler, Partt, Guvenis, &
Coyle, 1992, pp. 95), who dened project success as hav-
ing results much better than expected or normally observed
in terms of cost, schedule, quality, safety, and participant
satisfaction.
The term CSFs has also been introduced over the last several
decades. In a business context, Rockart (1979, pp. 85) dened CSFs
as those few key areas of activity in which favorable results are
absolutely necessary for a particular manager to reach his or her
goals. Boynton and Zmud (1984, pp. 17) also dened CSFs as those
few things that must go well to ensure success for a manager and an
organization, and therefore, they represent those managerial or
enterprise areas that must be given special and continual attention
to bring about high performance.
In the context of project/project management, the term CSFs
was rst used by Rockart (1982 cited in Sanvido et al., 1992), and it
is dened as those factors predicting success on projects (Sanvido
et al., 1992, pp. 97). CSFs cannot only be used to develop a set of
strategies, to identify critical issues that are associated with the
implementation of a plan (Boynton & Zmud, 1984), but they can
also be used to direct the efforts of an organization towards the
development of a strategic plan (Munro & Wheeler, 1980). In
essence, CSFs can enable management and all project participants/
stakeholders to identify key or important areas of or issues on a
project that require special attention in order to meet project goals
or to achieve success/high performance.
The study and application of CSFs has, therefore, been postu-
lated as a promising approach for the construction industry to
improve project efciency. However, as remarked by Li et al. (2011),
most of the previous studies (Ashley et al., 1987; Florence, 2005;
Iyer & Jha, 2006; Sanvido et al., 1992) have focused on the tradi-
tional iron triangle criteria of measuring project success (i.e.
quality, cost, and schedule/time) to develop CSFs for general and
conventional projects rather than GB projects. Factors such as
energy-efciency, improved occupants health, and environmental
protection make GB projects unique, therefore there has been an
urgent need for the building sector to include an extra dimension
(i.e. the environment) to its success paradigm (Ofori, 1992).
60 A. Darko, A.P.C. Chan / Habitat International 57 (2016) 53e63
A critical review of the literature has shown that few studies
have started to investigate factors or project delivery attributes that
potentially affect the success of GB projects in the construction
industry. For example, Lapinski, Horman, and Riley (2006) discov-
ered that ve key value-added processes contribute to the suc-
cessful delivery of GB projects: (1) deciding to evaluate and adopt
sustainable objectives at the very early stage of the project, even as
early as capital budgeting; (2) identifying and pursuing building
features that naturally align with sustainability; (3) aligning sus-
tainable objectives to the business case of the project; (4) devoting
time to align individual team member goals with project goals; and
(5) selecting an experienced design and construction team at the
early phase of the project. With cost, quality, sustainable high-
performance, and schedule as dependent variables and project
delivery system, owner commitment, project team procure-
ment, design integration, contract conditions, construction
process, and project team characteristics as independent vari-
ables, Korkmaz et al. (2010) investigated the factors that can lead to
the successful delivery of GB projects. They found that the timing
of project participants involvement in the delivery process and
owner type are important factors for GB project outcomes.
Swarup et al. (2011) adopted and investigated the inuences of the
project delivery attributes developed by Korkmaz et al. (2010) on
project outcomes and identied that strong owner commitment
towards sustainability, the integration in the delivery process by
an early involvement of the constructor, and the early inclusion of
green strategies are attributes that can have important effects on
sustainability goals. Li et al. (2014b) explored the critical recourses
and capabilities for design rms to successfully deliver GB projects.
The impact of main delivery methods (including construction
management at risk (CMR), design-bid-build (DBB), and design-
build (DB)) for GB projects on the level of team integration,
which is known to have an inuence on better project outcomes,
were also investigated by Mallaoglu-Korkmaz et al. (2013). How-
ever, Li et al. (2011) argued that most of the above studies only
emphasized on factors that are unique to GB projects (such as early
adoption of sustainable objectives), which are not even reorganized
as CSFs for better project performance in terms of quality, time, and
cost by most previous researchers. Acknowledging this, Li et al.
(2011) attempted to address the problem by also exploring few
critical project management factors for delivering GB projects.
Hwang and Ng (2013) also studied critical project management
knowledge and skills of project managers for executing GB projects.
There are several inadequacies associated with the existing
studies on factors affecting the success of GB projects, which should
lay a solid foundation for future researchers to probe into the issue
and develop the knowledge base in this area. First, studies on fac-
tors predicting success on GB projects are limited. Second, the
existing literature on this topic is mainly project or project
management-based. That is, previous researchers have placed
more emphasis on project-related and project management-
related factors. It should be noted that factors for a successful
project go beyond just project-related factors and project man-
agement actions; thus, other important project success factors such
as human-related factors (e.g., project team leaders working rela-
tionship with others), the external environment (e.g., political in-
uences), and project procedures (e.g., tendering methods) (see, for
example, Chan et al., 2004) are yet to be tested on GB projects.
Third, rigorous studies to verify the extent of inuence of different
factors on GB project outcomes would be valuable in future. Lastly,
as indicated earlier, the application of CSFs in CM research has over
the years concentrated on cost, time, and quality (the traditional
project success criteria) for benchmarking project performance. In
future, expanding the denition of CSFs to take account of envi-
ronmental and sustainability issues should be of some practical use
to industry practitioners to further understand factors or key areas
to consider to successfully deliver projects that are effective in
terms of cost, time, quality as well as meeting sustainability (i.e.,
environmental, social, and economic) goals.
(3) Studies on the implementation of advanced information
communication technologies (ICTs) e BIM e in GB design and
construction. ICTs, such as BIM, have, today, seen a wide-
spread use in the architecture-engineering-construction
(AEC) industry for enhancing decisions during the design
and construction of a project. The design and construction of
a project is a complex task full of uncertainties and to facil-
itate communication among the multiple parities and teams
involved in this operation, ICT is the key (Verbeeck & Hens,
2010). Rather than making decisions that consider individ-
ual components, ICT allows for decision-making that takes
the whole project into account, thereby eliminating any
unexpected consequences (Verbeeck & Hens, 2010). In gen-
eral, the AEC industry utilizes ICT for three main purposes:
(1) communications; (2) computing and processing; and (3)
information management and service (Inyim et al., 2015).
Because BIM allows multiple personnel to work in a collab-
orative manner and serves several objectives at the same
time, it is regarded as an example of advanced ICT approach
in information management and services.
According to Bynum et al. (2013), BIM is capable of accelerating
the extraction of knowledge that have been accrued in multiple
simulations that can be used in dening product development
standards and suggestions. Thus, the BIM model itself is useful for
generating a number of effective solutions throughout the
modeling of a project. A building information model comprises of
the buildings actual assemblies and not just a mere two-
dimensional (2D) representation of the building that is easily pro-
duced by computer-aided design (CAD) drawings (Krygiel & Nies,
2008). There are a number of books and papers on BIM. For
detailed description of the BIM concept, it benets, etc., the reader
is referred to Eastman, Teicholz, Sacks, & Liston, 2011; Azhar, 2011.
One of the important benets of BIM is its ability to be used to
virtually construct a building prior to the actual construction of the
building. This does not only provide an effective means for checking
the constructability of the building in the real world and for
resolving any uncertainties during the process, but it also allows for
efciently designed buildings that reduce materials wastage, pro-
mote the use of passive design strategies, and ensure energy-
efciency (Bynum et al., 2013). In view of these benets of BIM, a
considerable amount of research has been carried out to further
improve its capabilities in general or conventional building design
and construction (Azhar, Nadeem, Mok, & Leung, 2008; Eastman
et al., 2011).
The design and construction of green or sustainable buildings is a
more complicated and an arduous task than that of conventional
buildings because of the need to consider environmental friendly
objectives. In order to achieve better GB project outcomes or sus-
tainability goals, the making of appropriate decisions regarding the
selection of the buildings materials and components at the design
phase is a critical step (Flager, Welle, Bansal, Soremekun, &
Haymaker, 2009). It is commonly acknowledged that BIM is a
crucial tool for addressing the challenges, especially the design
decision-making challenge that is as a result of the consideration of
multiple and usually competing sustainability (economic, social, and
environmental) criteria, associated with green construction. For
example, it has been reported that BIM provide rich information and
parametric models that provide immediate insights into how various
design decisions will impact the sustainability performance of a
 A. Darko, A.P.C. Chan / Habitat International 57 (2016) 53e63
building (Wu & Issa, 2015). This helps the designer to select the best
combination of components and materials for achieving the desired
sustainability goals. McGraw-Hill Construction (2010) also empha-
sized that the adoption of BIM necessitates design integration, which
normally engages all project participants to effectively collaborate,
share information, communicate, and make decisions on how to
achieve common GB project goals. Recognizing the potentials of BIM,
few companies that are developing GB projects have started
embracing and implementing BIM in their projects. This has given
birth to the term green BIM; that is, the use of BIM tools to help
achieve sustainability objectives (McGraw-Hill Construction, 2013).
This study has found that, so far, very little research has been
conducted on the subject of green BIM. The few papers identied
have been very recently published. For example, Wu and Issa (2015)
conducted a study on the business case of green BIM to identify the
general execution planning of BIM application in GB/LEED projects.
They proposed an integrated green BIM process map to help
address unique business processes of implementing BIM in LEED
projects, in order to promote and facilitate green BIM practices.
Through an internet survey for contractors and designers, Bynum
et al. (2013) investigated the existing trends of BIM application in
general and in enhancing sustainability in the construction in-
dustry, and concluded that problems with interoperability continue
to persist in BIM applications. Inyim et al. (2015) also argued that
due to multi-criteria decision-making, the traditional BIM has
limited capability in supporting GB design and construction pro-
cesses. Based on this, they presented Simulation of Environmental
Impact of Construction (SimulEICon) as an extension/modication
of the traditional BIM, which integrates a multi-objective tool, ge-
netic algorithm (GA), with BIM. They claimed that SimulEICon has
the capability of nding GB solutions in a more optimal way.
In summary, as in the case of CSFs, the immaturity of research in
the area of green BIM, which could be attributed to the fact that
green BIM is an emerging practice in the AEC industry, presents
another potential direction for future researchers to add to the
knowledge base. Based on the literature review, specic issues that
could be addressed by future research comprise: (1) what other
possible modications/extensions can be made to BIM to further
enhance its ability to support GB decisions (would it be benecial to
integrate it with more objective tools such as data envelopment
analysis (DEA) and fuzzy sets theory/fuzzy logic)?; (2) how best can
the interoperability problems associated with BIM applications be
resolved to improve its capabilities in GB design and construction?;
(3) factors for enabling BIM diffusion and actual implementation in
GB projects; and (4) assessment of the actual impacts of BIM on GB
project outcomes.
5. Concluding remarks
The mounting global concerns on sustainability and climate
change have made GB one of the major issues in the construction
industry. There have consequently been proliferations of research
on GB in recent years. As a result, the objective of this study was to
provide insights into GB research trends and developments in the
construction industry by systematically analyzing GB research pa-
pers published in 10 selected CM journals, namely BE, JCEM, CME,
JGB, HI, SD, JME, BRI, ECAM, and PICE-CE from 1990 to 2015.
A total of 61 GB-related papers were analyzed in this study.
Analysis of the annual number of published papers revealed an
increasing trend of GB research publication in recent years.
Developed countries such as the US, Hong Kong, the UK, Singapore,
and Italy have made the most contributions to GB research by
publishing majority of the GB-related papers. Albeit developing
countries such as China, Egypt, and Colombia made good efforts to
promote GB research, they are expected to increase their efforts,
61
given the rapid rate of urbanization experienced in the developing
world. Regarding institutions, it was identied that researchers
from University of Colorado, Boulder (US), the Hong Kong Poly-
technic University (Hong Kong), Michigan State University (US),
National University of Singapore (Singapore), and Stanford Uni-
versity (US) published most of the GB research papers. Four cate-
gories: (1) GB project delivery and developments; (2) GB
certications; (3) energy performance; and (4) advanced technol-
ogies were identied as the main research interests of GB publi-
cations. Among them, GB project delivery and developments has
been the dominant topic and will continue to be a hot issue in
future research.
Furthermore, based on the analysis of current status of GB
research interests, future research directions are proposed. First,
despite barriers to successful adoption of GB have gained attention
from researchers, studies on GB barriers in developing countries are
rarely reported in the literature. For future studies, it would be of
interest to explore and examine barriers affecting the GB market
from the perspective of developing countries, and propose solu-
tions to overcome these barriers in specic developing countries
for rapid and wider adoption of GBs. This may be a promising
approach to alleviate the negative impacts that future develop-
mental activities may bring upon human health and the environ-
ment. It was also identied that the application of CSFs in CM
research has not yet broadly considered sustainability and envi-
ronmental issues in measuring project success. The major impli-
cation of this nding is that future studies should focus on CSFs for
GB projects. The future studies could specically develop a con-
ceptual framework on CSFs for GB projects and provide a practical
denition of what CSFs mean in the GB arena. By so doing, industry
practitioners may better understand the pivotal attributes to suc-
cessfully deliver projects that meet cost, time, quality as well as
sustainability objectives. Lastly, as an emerging practice in the AEC
industry, green BIM has been found to have received very little
research attention. Hence, it is recommended to conduct further
studies on how to successfully apply BIM tools to improve GB
design and construction decisions.
Though the objectives of this study were achieved, conclusions
from the results should be drawn in the light of some limitations.
The rst limitation comes from the relatively small sample size of
61 papers (which is attributed to the limited number of search
keywords used) analyzed in this study. This is justied by the
impracticality of considering all possible GB research keywords in a
single review study. Therefore, it is acknowledged that although the
selected papers can reect the overall GB research trend, not all
relevant studies have been reviewed. It is also appreciated that this
review is not exhaustive as it was restricted to only the construction
industry, limiting the generalizability of the ndings to other in-
dustries. Future review may be required to increase the sample size
and probably focus on GB in other industries as well, to provide
ndings that would be useful for future proong of what have been
reported in this paper.
The information presented in this paper may be valuable for
both industry practitioners and researchers to gain an under-
standing of the current status and future direction of GB research.
Researchers in particular may benet from research directions to
nourish the existing body of GB knowledge.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the Department of Building and Real
Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University for funding this
research. We also acknowledge the anonymous reviewers and ed-
itors who provided constructive comments for improving this
paper.
62 A. Darko, A.P.C. Chan / Habitat International 57 (2016) 53e63

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