• Energy Research
• HK close

Abstract As a response to mitigate various negative environmental effects of the construction industry, recent years have witnessed a growing interest in green building technologies (GBTs) adoption and development. Consequently, many studies have been conducted on the forces driving the GBTs adoption in different countries. However, there have been few studies identifying the driving forces (DFs) for GBTs adoption in developing countries such as Ghana. This study aims to identify the major DFs for GBTs adoption within the developing country of Ghana. To achieve the objective, 21 DFs were identified from a comprehensive literature review. Through a questionnaire survey with 43 professionals with green building experience, the results first indicated that “setting a standard for future design and construction”, “greater energy efficiency”, “improved occupants' health and well-being”, “non-renewable resources conservation”, and “reduced whole lifecycle costs” were the top five forces driving the GBTs adoption. Further comparative analysis showed that the topmost rank of “setting a standard for future design and construction” is unique for GBTs adoption in only the developing country of Ghana, not in the developed country of the US. Additionally, factor analysis revealed that the underlying forces for the 16 significant DFs were environment-related, company-related, economy and health-related, cost and energy-related, and industry-related forces. This study improves understanding of the major DFs for GBTs adoption, providing a valuable reference for practitioners and policy makers to promote the wider adoption of GBTs. Future study will investigate the interrelationships between the significant DFs and their impacts on the GBTs adoption process. Future work is also required to employ a larger sample and investigate in greater detail the differences between the GBTs adoption DFs in Ghana and many other specific countries.

The transportation sector generates enormous amount of environmental emission. This study aims to assess the environmental impact of the environmental emissions in a transportation infrastructure project life cycle. Using the fast track transportation project in China as a case study, the materials used and the energy consumed over the life cycle were converted into environmental emissions. The life cycle of fast track transportation project was divided into three phases including construction, maintenance and repair, and demolition phases. Both qualitative and quantitative method were applied to explore the environmental impact of transportation project. The life cycle assessment (LCA) method was used for the development environmental impact assessment (EIA) model to analyze the contribution of each process in the transportation project life cycle. The empirical results show that the construction phase has the highest environmental impact (62.7%) in the fast track transportation project life cycle, followed by the demolition (35.8%) and maintenance phases (1.7%). Among the materials used in the fast track transportation project, steel has the highest proportion of environmental impact in the construction phase (55.5%). This indicates the enormous environmental impact of the construction phase in fast track transportation project life cycle results from the use of steel material. This study contributes to reducing environmental emissions by revealing the greatest phase of environmental impact and material-source of environmental impact over the life cycle in a transportation infrastructure project.