Call for Papers for a Special Volume of Journal of Cleaner Production on Sustainable and Resilient Construction: People, Places, Product and Processes
摘要截稿:
全文截稿: 2018-09-24
影响因子: 7.246
期刊难度:
CCF分类: 无
中科院JCR分区:
• 大类 : 环境科学与生态学 - 1区
• 小类 : 工程:环境 - 1区
• 小类 : 环境科学 - 1区
• 小类 : 绿色可持续发展技术 - 1区
Overview
1. Introduction
The construction industry as a sector is resource intensive, wasteful and energy intensive. It consumes over 50% of all raw material extracted globally, produces 25-33% of waste in the EU, emits the highest level of carbon by sector and is responsible for 40% of global energy use in the buildings it produces (EU 2015; Ruuska & Häkkinen 2014; UNEP 2015). The industry is often characterised as unique. A multiplicity of stakeholders come together, including developers, architects, engineers and other consultants, contractors, sub-contractors, individual tradespeople and materials suppliers, in temporary organisations that are the construction project. Beyond the project, individuals, communities and societies are affected, both positively and negatively. Policy, regulation and market forces are seen as critical in influencing higher levels of sustainability but the fragmented nature of the sector, its adversarial nature and avoidance of risk can act as barriers. However, in seeking to improve the industry, comparisons are frequently made with other sectors, including the car industry and steel manufacture. But from the perspective of making the built environment more environmentally sustainable, how valuable is it to consider construction as a production process? On the one hand, the built environment is a product which can be assessed on its environmental impact through schemes such as BREEAM and LEED. On the other hand, the construction process assembles components (materials) of greater or less environmental impact, as do production processes in other sectors. Can perspectives which have proven useful in understanding how other industries can radically reduce their environmental impact be applied to construction? Have approaches from other sectors been applied successfully? Can construction be considered as a production process or are piecemeal, component approaches more useful?
Significant work has already explored some organisational processes, including environmental management systems, green business models, procurement and design, and materials, including techniques for complex decision-making on selection, life-cycle analysis and properties of specific materials such as concrete, asphalt, steel and wood. Previous Special Volumes in the Journal of Cleaner Production (including Zhang et al. 2018 Sustainable urban transformations; Li et al. 2017 Urban ecological infrastructure; Zhang et al. 2015 Regenerative sustainability for the built environment) have included cutting-edge research in many of these areas. However, given the complexity of construction and the multiple contexts which impinge on the built environment (societal, organisational, technological and smart, macro-economic, political and regulatory), many gaps remain. Our objective with this Virtual Special Issue is to provide a multidisciplinary platform (in keeping with the long-established strength of the Journal) to all researchers with an interest in construction, with the aim of integrating multiple perspectives on this critical sector. What policy and regulatory instruments have been found to be successful? How can the notion of circular economies be applied to not only specific materials such as aggregate but to other construction products? What management approaches facilitate more sustainable business models? And where are the people in this? How can the education and professional socialisation of construction professionals contribute to change? Do ethics or personal morality influence the behaviour of construction professionals in their daily work? How can the insights on pro-environmental behaviour and practices from environmental psychology and sociology be applied? Can community involvement be harnessed to develop a more sustainable built environment and can perspectives from urban planning yield more sustainable cities?
Our Call for Papers for this Virtual Special Issue is intended to bring together a more comprehensive and interdisciplinary set of perspectives on sustainable construction. We encourage contributions at all levels of analysis from the person to the project to the city. We particularly welcome transdisciplinary approaches which synthesise different perspectives, and integrative papers which summarise current progress and set out substantive directions for future research. Of value too are case studies of successful development and initiatives from around the world, with evidence of how success has been evaluated, and of particular interest are comparative studies which show learning from projects in the developing and developed world. A set of sub-themes is described below but is not exclusive – high-calibre research on any aspect of sustainable and resilient construction is invited.
1.1 Sub-themes
Theme 1: Insights from social sciences on sustainable construction
It can be argued that the changes needed to transform construction into a sector in which environmental and social sustainability and resilience are embedded within processes, business models and everyday decision making are ultimately changes in human behaviour. Perspectives which examine technology, planning processes, policy and other aspects contribute useful knowledge but perspectives which focus on the individual actor must surely offer additional valuable insights. Persson and Grönkvist (2015) proposed personal commitment to be potentially the strongest factor driving green building in Sweden, and Olazabal and Pascual (2015) investigated the role of cognition in stakeholders involved in decision-making in urban low-carbon transitions. Generally, however, the person and the social group (organisation, project, community) are under-researched when it comes to examining sustainable and resilient construction. This sub-theme invites papers which draw on theories and methods from the social sciences to investigate the construction sector. Potential areas include psychological research on pro-environmental behaviour, motivation, identity, decision-making and resilience; organizational and management research on projects, organizational development and change management, leadership, power, creativity and innovation; and sociological theories on social practice. In addition to recent empirical studies, papers which demonstrate novelty in applying appropriate theoretical frameworks from the social sciences with the potential to advance the field of sustainable and resilient construction are particularly welcomed.
Theme 2: Education for sustainable and resilient construction
Creating and maintaining a sustainable society is a major concern of the global community in a world confronted with unstable economic conditions, negative effects of climate change, depletion of natural resources, and conflicting cultural and social values. Many proponents believe that education can be an effective approach to raise awareness about the issues, inculcate appropriate and desirable values and understanding, and provide the necessary knowledge and skills to individuals and communities which allow them to participate in the creation and maintenance of a sustainable future. A recent Special Issue has examined the concept of sustainability as a ‘golden thread’ throughout education in general (Holm et al. 2018). For the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) professionals of the future, in particular, education has the potential to offer opportunity for ‘changing the mindset’ in terms of knowledge on sustainability and knowledge expectations. It is these AEC professionals from whom society will require foresight and leadership once they join and contribute to the workforce. This theme invites papers that address and share research on the topic of education for sustainable and resilient construction. The special edition team would be pleased to discuss potential research paper(s) where the authors are engaged in research that will effect change in the way education is delivered for the future Built Environment professionals.
Theme 3: Urban planning
Global environmental changes are currently steering urban planning in a new direction. Concepts of sustainability, transformation, climate change adaptation and mitigation as well as resilience are slowly being mainstreamed in regulatory frameworks, and there is a general ‘call for change’ in current planning practices. That call is also evident in the New Urban Agenda and through the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which have set ambitious targets for cities around the world. Some cities will need to reassess their development goals and planning instruments to incorporate new challenges stemming from global change (e.g. migration flows and land grabbing). Others will need to address questions of how to create safer and more equitable built environments. In the developing world, the shift to sustainable development requires leapfrogging traditional industrial-based trajectories. However there are many constraints, which include political and fiscal power control, access to development finances, absence of robust multi-level cooperation, low level institutional capacities as well as crucial deficits of skills in many parts of the world.
In light of the global call for a forward-looking urban agenda, several questions need to be asked. Should new land and property development be allowed if and when the majority cannot afford them? In low-economic states, should basic infrastructure (water, sanitation, solid waste, energy) be provided on a subsidized basis to include all at short/medium term, potentially at the expense of larger-order infrastructure (e.g. broadband, railways)? Should planning, regulating and taxing urban services be assigned to local authorities? What is the role of housing? And can construction models truly be transformed to accommodate more inclusive, socially and environmentally sustainable, resilient and economically successful development pathways?
This theme seeks papers that address the added value of integrating city planning, global changes and sustainable construction. It welcomes papers which address critical issues such as inclusive development, poverty and inequality, ecosystems, resource efficiency and whose responsibility it is to ensure delivery of a sustainable and resilient built environment. Given that African, Asian and Latin American cities are progressively being configured over longer time periods through policies and land-use planning, the question of secured built environments in these regions are particularly welcome.
Theme 4: Sustainable technologies in construction
Green Building is the practice of improving the building’s efficiency considering not only use of energy, water, and materials but also the site on which it will be placed, with the main goal of reducing the impact on the environment and human health throughout the whole building life cycle (design, construction, operation, maintenance and demolition). A further goal is to reduce construction costs and building maintenance. Improving today’s conventional design, building practices and standards, extending the building’s life by making it more durable and efficient, minimizing its operative cost, increasing its productivity, and giving a healthier living and working environment to its occupants should be the aspirations of those in the AEC sector. Seeking research which presents advances from the insights published in Zhang et al. (2015, 2018), this theme invites papers addressing research on emerging technological advances that have made in-roads into the key goals of Green Building. Papers that share research on the design and implementation of green building processes are especially welcomed.
Theme 5: Low-carbon construction
Mitigation of global climate change and development of low carbon economies have become subjects of worldwide concern. As one of the highest energy-intensive sectors, the construction industry is seen as a key area in promoting decarbonisation (Lai et al. 2016) – cutting carbon emissions in construction turns out to be imperative for it to achieve sustainable development. Over the past decades, the proposition of low-carbon construction seems to provide new prospects in emission reductions. Against this background, this theme calls for papers addressing research on the construction sector, with concerns on its current status, technology frontiers, development trends and environmental impacts from the perspective of low-carbon pathways. Specifically, issues of interest in this theme include energy consumption and carbon emissions in current and future construction; energy performance standards and measurement of improvement in low-carbon construction; low-carbon consumption behaviours related to the construction sector; policy modelling and technology simulation for low-carbon construction. Papers on the topic of the environmental benefits of relevance to low-carbon construction are especially welcomed.