Low carbon building performance in the construction industry: A multi-method approach of project management operations and building energy use applied in a UK public office building

Abstract

The "performance gap" in the United Kingdom construction industry is a persistent problem as new building development projects underperform more often than not. The "performance gap" is partially attributed to the number of stages involved in building project development and the coordination difficulties of partners with different incentives. The project outcome is important for energy consumption, carbon emissions and occupant well-being. Thus, it is important to study the project management process in terms of the standard time, cost and quality parameters, but also in terms of project partner incentives and coordination, and the subsequent energy performance and resultant indoor environmental conditions. A system dynamics model of project management processes is developed to explore the implications of partner coordination for building quality. The system dynamics model is coupled to a building performance simulation model to explore building energy consumption and Indoor Environmental Quality, and apply this on a recent building project case study. Results show that greater project partner alignment can reduce annual energy consumption up to 12% and CO2 emissions up to 37%, with greater emphasis in the design stage of the project subject to resource availability. The trade-offs involved on value appropriation are considered and discussion of results points to possible ways for improvement.

A Scientometric Review of System Dynamics Applications in Construction Management Research

“…Regarding energy management, due to the fact that construction industry is an energy-intensive industry, increasing studies have utilized SD to analyze the variables that affect energy consumption. SD was applied in an investigation of office building projects, which indicated that the strengthening of the partnership could result in 12% reduction in energy consumption and 37% reduction in CO2 emissions [4]. In addition, SD was employed to seek out a solution for reducing energy consumption in school buildings [52].…”

“…On the other hand, the influence of these multiple factors is usually dynamic and relatively unstable [3]. However, traditional methods, such as delay analysis and the critical path method, cannot accurately understand the complexity of projects and evaluate the dynamic change [4]. Accordingly, it is significant to solve complex and dynamic problems in construction management research.…”

Carbon Emission Governance Zones at the County Level to Promote Sustainable Development

“…First, a large number of studies on lowcarbon indicators have been conducted on urban clusters [1][2][3], large cities [4,5], and other large-scale objects, such as research on low-carbon urban assessment [6,7] and carbon emission estimation methods [8,9]. Second, studies on governance methods have proposed some carbon emission governance tools [10,11] or models [12][13][14][15], targeting one aspect, such as production or building, of governance, at the city level [16][17][18]. Third, many carbon emission governance case studies have been conducted on small-scale objects, such as urban centers [19], communities [20][21][22], and industrial parks [23,24].…”

Low carbon building performance in the construction industry: a multi-method approach of system dynamics and building performance modelling

“…The framework is intended for exploration of CSC operations management effects on operational building performance, and its application in a case is documented in Papachristos et al (2018a;2020). The development of the framework thus seeks a theoretically based generality and methodological rigour, but also practical relevance as it can be applied on a case by case basis (Ketokivi and Choi, 2014).…”

“…It should be noted that the evaluation of building performance is not limited to energy and indoor environmental quality (Papachristos, 2015;Papachristos et al, 2020). The focus of this paper is on energy performance and indoor environmental quality but other aspects of building performance such as financial performance, productivity, health and safety could also be evaluated (Lai and Man, 2017).…”