Sustainable Building Development in China – A System Thinking Study

The demand for sustainable building is increasing rapidly throughout the global construction marketplace. However, the real success of sustainable building development depends on the concerted effort of different stakeholders. Without knowing the drivers and barriers, it is difficult to introduce pragmatic policies and strategies to promote such development. While sustainable building development in China is still at an infancy stage, its experience should help other developing countries to develop a road map for developing sustainable buildings. In this paper, twelve semi-structured interviews with senior managers of listed real estate developers in China were conducted. The results indicated that government regulation, incentives and CEO's vision are the key drivers of sustainable building development. The most significant barriers identified by the interviewees are the additional costs due to sustainable initiatives, lack of customers demand and lack of mature green supply chain. To better understand the system structures causing these management problems, a causal loop diagram was developed to identify the relationships and the causal influences between the elements of the sustainable building development sector. Finally, a suite of effective sustainable strategies is proposed based on the findings.