Examining Contemporary Issues for Green Buildings from Contractors’ Perspectives

Sustainable planning and design is a mass movement for changes in the construction industry. Among many other green building rating systems, the USGBC's LEED has been gaining momentum throughout the years since its advent. With sustainable design and construction, people could live in a more environmentally friendly world which would ensure that our future generations to come would have the necessary resources to live their lives comfortably and thrive. To implement the LEED process, construction contractors need to modify and enhance the way they have historically planned and executed design and construction work. With the rising change in the way a building is built to satisfy the LEED green building intents and requirements, there comes added fears and negative perceptions due to the lack of knowledge from the contractors’ perspectives. Thus, this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of 40 surveys collected from the contractors with previous experience in green building projects. The main issues include increased time demand, fear of change, increased equipment costs, fear of auditing of construction documents and many more. By examining the main issues contractors revealed with the green building delivery method, this study will serve as a platform in which future researchers may continue and expand on the issues and/or concerns in order to make the green building delivery method more acceptable to the general contractors and subcontractors.