This review presents an analysis of three hypotheses. The articles provide a specific perspective on green housing before, during, and post COVID-19. The validations of these hypotheses were performed by analyzing the scientific literature worldwide and by adding a statistical analysis of appropriate articles from the Scopus database. The purpose of this review is to overview the research written on housing developments during the upsurge of COVID-19 along with the responses from the green building sector, because this field appears to be rapidly emerging by the sheer volume of research studies currently undertaken. Foremost peer-reviewed journals covering construction, urban studies, real estate, energy, civil engineering, buildings, indoor air, management, economics, business, environmental studies, and environmental sciences that were published last year were selected for review. The review was conducted by applying a combination of various keywords and the criteria for paper selection, including sustainable building, green construction, green building, resource-efficient, a building’s lifecycle, COVID-19, energy, water, consumption, health effects, comfort, occupant behaviors, policy, economy, Industry 5.0, energy-efficient retrofitting, and profit. Two, innovative elements in this study stand out when comparing it with the most advanced research on green housing before, during, and after COVID-19. The first innovation relates to the integrated analyses of COVID-19 pandemic, housing policies of countries and cities pertinent to COVID-19 that impact green housing and the wellbeing of their residents as well as the impact made by residents and a housing policy on the dispersion of COVID-19. This research additionally establishes that a green building analysis is markedly more effective when the analysis comprehensively covers the life process of a green building, the participating interest groups that have their own goals they wish to implement, the COVID-19 situation, and the external micro- and macro-level environments as a singular entity.

COVID-19 and green housing: A review of relevant literature

The construction industry is one of the leading industries in the economy of any country. However, the industry is vulnerable to changes and uncertainties, either external or internal, due to its fragmented and dynamic nature. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which first emerged in Wuhan, China in 2019, is considered a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). COVID-19 has quickly spread all over the world resulting in significant social and economic consequences. The main objective of the study is to determine the challenges and opportunities due to the pandemic in the construction industry and to categorize them. Through a review of the existing literature and interviews with construction experts, the challenges and opportunities arising from the COVID-19 pandemic were listed. A questionnaire survey was designed to evaluate them. The principal component analysis (PCA) was utilized to group the identified challenges and opportunities. PCA was conducted with SPSS Version 25.0 software. The most critical challenges of the pandemic were determined as “the requirement of COVID-19 protocols,” “restriction on movement and travel,” “additional safety equipment use,” where the most important opportunities were found as “hygiene programs,” “use of technological tools effectively,” and “BIM-enabled construction.” The research contributes to the body of knowledge in terms of making construction practitioners beware of the main challenges and opportunities along with leading them to act toward change and uncertainty. This study further provides general guidelines and implications for practitioners and policymakers in case of similar outbreaks.

Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 on the United States Construction Industry: Challenges and Opportunities

An identification of strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) factors remains imperative for enabling a successful Smart Campus transition. The absence of a structured approach for analyzing the relationships between these SWOT factors and the influence thereof on Smart Campus transitions negate effective implementation. This study leverages a systems thinking approach to bridge this gap. Data were collected through a stakeholder workshop within a University of Technology case study and analyzed using qualitative content analysis (QCA). This resulted in the establishment of SWOT factors affecting Smart Campus transitions. Systems thinking was utilized to analyze the relationships between these SWOT factors resulting in a causal loop diagram (CLD) highlighting extant interrelationships. A panel of experts drawn from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and South Africa validated the relationships between the SWOT factors as elucidated in the CLD. Subsequently, a Smart Campus transition framework predicated on the CLD archetypes was developed. The framework provided a holistic approach to understanding the interrelationships between various SWOT factors influencing Smart Campus transitions. This framework remains a valuable tool for facilitating optimal strategic planning and management approaches by policy makers, academics, and implementers within the global Higher Education Institution (HEI) landscape for managing successful Smart Campus transition at the South African University of Technology (SAUoT) and beyond.

Facilitating successful smart campus transitions: a systems thinking-SWOT analysis approach

In many countries, construction industry contributes
as ignificant part of their economy. Construction
industry is one of the most complicated and
fragmented industries. It is very unique industry and
facing many problems such as low productivity, insufficient quality, poor
safety, time over-runs, cost over-run and others. In order to address these
long term problems various tools and methodologies have been developed.
One of the successful approaches adopted to address these problems is lean
construction. Lean construction is a new way to manage construction projects
that makes significant improvements on complex, uncertain and quick projects.
Lean Construction was proposed from Lean philosophies and theories that
have offered lots of benefits to the manufacturing industry. It was founded
by Toyota Motor Company in 1950’s to reduce manufacturing lead times,
eliminate non-value adding activities, and reduce variability. These goals
were obtained by methods such as pull scheduling, simplified operations, and
buffer reduction. Lean is about doing more with less time, inventory, space,
labour, and money. Lean production is a systematic elimination of waste
(i.e. overproduction, waiting, transportation, inventory, and over-processing,
defective units) and the implementation of continuous flow and customer
pull. There are five issues that drive lean construction including cost, quality,
delivery, safety, and morale. The first introduction of “Lean Construction” was
in the year 1992 and was introduced by the Finnish scientist, Lauri Koskela.
In his technical report “Application of the new production philosophy to
construction”, he described the applicability of lean philosophy in construction
industry. This book entitled “Introduction to Lean Construction” is an
effort to provide a comprehensive introduction of Lean philosophy and its
implementation in construction industry based on literature review.

Introduction to lean construction

: The COVID-19 pandemic represents a type of force majeure that signiﬁcantly and unex-pectedly affected all human lifestyles. This study includes an integrative review of articles published across Scopus and Web of Science journals and compiled using the systematic review methodology based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) Statement and VOSreview (visualization of similarities) software by deﬁning keywords that include “construction industry” and “force majeure” and “environmental risks” as a starting point. Moreover, the research years and the countries covered by this research were determined in a second stage. Finally, the abstracts of selected studies were reviewed in order to extract factors similar to the pandemic conditions of COVID-19 along with the brief results of the research. Out of 6384 publications identiﬁed and 56 publications reporting, 20 studies fulﬁlled the inclusion criteria with full text. Based on our ﬁndings, there has been a continuous growth of publications on construction risk and environmental research since 2010. Malaysia had the greatest contribution to the research topic of the countries covered by the study, followed by Egypt. The Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management journal published the greatest number of publications related to the research topic. In this review, the most important previous studies are classiﬁed according to their handling of force majeure and environmental risks and the most important factors mentioned in these studies are identiﬁed. In addition, recommendations are made for dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and for mitigating its effects on the construction industry in the Arab world and Malaysia. The results of this review will beneﬁt researchers and construction companies alike in furthering research on reducing the risks of COVID-19 to construction projects and avoiding the signiﬁcant economic loss that results from stopping these projects.

Construction Industry from Perspective of Force Majeure and Environmental Risk Compared to the COVID-19 Outbreak: A Systematic Literature Review

Purpose: The construction industry represents most of every country’s finances and vital to continued economic growth and activities, especially in developing countries. The impact of the severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 disease (COVID19) on the government’s income resulted in the expectation of many public projects being cancelled or delayed providing little opportunity for the emergence of new public projects. This study collated a global qualitative perspective (survey interviews) on the lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and the positive and negative impacts for future-proofing the construction sector. Design/methodology/approach: In total, 76 respondents from five continents excluding South America responded to the online open-ended structured questionnaire. Data collected were analysed through artificial inteligence analytics tool – Zoho analytics. Findings: The themes indicating the positive impact obtained from the interview were overhead cost reduction, remote working environment, focus on health and safety, improved productivity and sustainability goals while the themes signifying the negative impact were low business turnover, delays in construction payment and output, difficulties working from home and job losses. Supply chain management, construction project management improvement, concentration on health and safety and effective virtual working environment were collated as themes on lessons learned. Social implications: The major findings of this study emphasise on the need to improve the occupational health and safety and onsite safety measures for future proofing of the construction industry. Originality/value: The findings from the analyses made clear the imperativeness of the built environment research, with a focus on novel framework and strategies for future proofing the construction industry. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

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Lessons learned from the impact of COVID-19 on the global construction industry

The incessant reportage of cost overruns and abandoned projects in contemporary literature have accentuated the need for a re-examination of the nature of the cost management strategies deployed to these projects. This study explores the potential of kaizen costing strategy to engender effective cost management within construction project delivery systems in developing countries. Data collected during this study were analysed using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and systems thinking approaches to determine the criticality of the factors influencing the effective implementation of kaizen costing. Seven (7) archetypes leading to final causal loop diagram identified the incorporation of the plan–do–check–act approach to project and cost planning, the budgeting system of the construction companies, overhead cost reduction during construction and the overall procurement process. Executing these archetypes will potentially reduce high overhead costs, project cost and time overruns, as well as enhance construction industry sector growth policies and construction organisation corporate governance.

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AHP-systems thinking analyses for kaizen costing implementation in the construction industry.

COVID-19, social distancing, self-isolation, quarantine, furlough, palliatives, and many more emerged as the new vocabularies of the entire world, construction industry not excluded. It is precisely a decade from the last pandemic experienced by the human race. However, the current disease outbreak called Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) was announced, which hit all the nations of the world within four months and was declared a pandemic in March 2020. This outbreak disrupted businesses around the globe, including built asset procurement and facility management. The United Kingdom, through the Construction Leadership Council, for instance, in responding to this unprecedented situation, published a new Site Operating Procedure (SOP). The effect of this pandemic in these extraordinary times posed both positive and negative impacts in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction, Owner and Operator (AECOO) industry. Its effect has brought about innovative and diverse use of technology in an exemplary manner which may change the course of construction even after the extinction of coronavirus. This study explores the effects of COVID-19 on the built asset procurement and potential opportunities for the construction industry through a quantitative means. A survey was carried out on the built asset procurement professionals for the data collection. 71 questionnaires were received from Architects, Building Engineers, Civil/Structural Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Construction / Project Managers and Quantity Surveyors. SPSS 25 software (a social science statistical package) was used for the analysis of the data. The result reveals some challenges in the area of workflow and supply chain disruption, new policy issues, workers’ anxiety and review of COVID-19 vs Force Majeure in standard forms of the construction contract. However, opportunities evolved in the field of modern procurement planning, the necessity for virtual working and unique design considerations. This study is essential to paving the way for the development of additional contingency plans and a new working strategy in a minimised human contact situation caused by the pandemic.

COVID-19 pandemic: the effects and prospects in the construction industry.

PurposeAbandonment poses a range of effects detrimental to the development of a country such as Nigeria. Restoring such infrastructure in a sustainable manner is a challenge identified in the literature. The aim of this study is to evaluate a novel approach – the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) to identify the sustainability criteria for the redevelopment of abandoned infrastructure in Nigeria. The literature evidences use of TOPSIS in various development contexts, but not in the context of redevelopment of abandoned infrastructure.Design/methodology/approachThis study explores the potential of TOPSIS in the sustainable redevelopment of abandoned infrastructure in Nigeria through a combination of a quantitative method of data collection – questionnaire – and a case study. The case study focuses on the abandoned Federal Government Secretariat in Lagos. One hundred and sixty-one (161) participants responded to the questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using TOPSIS analytical technique.FindingsRefurbishment is considered as the most sustainable alternative for the redevelopment of abandoned infrastructure. For criteria consideration, structural integrity and foundation categorized under the technological attributes ranked highest for refurbishment and conversion alternatives. Waste generation and prevention and profitability top the list for demolition and procurement respectively.Social implicationsThe social benefit of this study is to bring building considered to be an eyesore back into use.Originality/valueThe findings from the analysis orchestrates the importance of the built environment research concentrating on innovative frameworks for sustainable redevelopment of abandoned structures in the construction industry.

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TOPSIS analysis for sustainable redevelopment potential of abandoned infrastructure in Nigeria

PurposeEstablishing a more sustainable built environment is an increasing global concern for the construction industry. Despite the intrinsic and extrinsic obstacles the stakeholders face, huge efforts are required to transition to a smooth, sustainable construction (SC) practice. This study identifies and discusses cogent obstacles to SC in developing nations.Design/methodology/approachThe Preferred Reporting Item for systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) approach was employed to establish research work in SC for developing countries. The databases used were Scopus and Web of Science. Meta-analysis of keywords was analysed thematically. The initial broad search returned 8,420 publications which were filtered and reviewed in-depth to fit the aim of the study, produced only 21 relevant publications from the years 2000–2021.FindingsThe four identified themes of obstacles to SC in developing countries are as follows: construction professional training and education, clients' attitudes and awareness, construction industries' culture and capacity and governments' regulation, policies and economy. The key barriers identified from the meta-analysis include inadequate training and education amongst construction professionals, poor execution of sustainability ethics, poor populace attitude towards sustainability, poor awareness and understanding, dearth of precise data and integrated study and inappropriate priorities about sustainability.Originality/valueThe originality in this study are themes drawn from millennium development goals (MDGs) and sustainable development goals (SDGs) publications related to SC. Consequently, the final framework presented a holistic approach to surmounting the established limitations and aided recommendations for future studies. Thus, setting a background for developing strategies to overcome the limitations and further attain sustainable development (SD).

Mercy Ogunnusi

Papers

Lessons learned from the impact of COVID-19 on the global construction industry

AHP-systems thinking analyses for kaizen costing implementation in the construction industry.

COVID-19 pandemic: the effects and prospects in the construction industry.

TOPSIS analysis for sustainable redevelopment potential of abandoned infrastructure in Nigeria

Establishing the limitations of sustainable construction in developing countries: a systematic literature review using PRISMA