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To reduce carbon emissions in the electric vehicle (EV) market, the Chinese government has issued a subsidy scheme involving a subsidy threshold that is quite different from the fixed subsidy. This study aims to investigate competing EV manufacturers’ decisions on carbon-reduction (CR) technology investment under the subsidy threshold. We construct a Cournot game model involving two competitive EV manufacturers. The results show that decisions of the two EV manufacturers on investing in CR technology vary under different subsidy thresholds. Particularly, they would make the same investment decisions when the subsidy threshold is low or large, but achieve the opposite investment decisions when the subsidy threshold is intermediate. In the benchmark model where there is only one EV manufacturer, an EV manufacturer could always increase its profit from investing in CR technology when the subsidy threshold is low. In the Cournot model where there are two competing manufacturers, however, they may get involved in the Prisoner’s Dilemma and both manufacturers could suffer economic losses from CR technology investment.

Although a plethora of research has been conducted to investigate the economic performance of construction waste (CW) management, the vast majority of studies have concentrated on the economic feasibility of CW recycling, while ignoring the economic performance of CW reduction strategies and measures. Moreover, previous studies mostly focused on one specific waste stage for waste reduction, failing to envisage dynamic interactions among various factors inherent in different waste management stages including waste generation, on-site reduction, and waste disposal, which inevitably affects the effectiveness of implementing those management strategies. To address these research gaps, this study developed a system dynamics model to investigate the economic performance of CW reduction. The model is constructed based on the interrelationships of major factors affecting the economic performance of CW reduction and comprises three subsystems covering waste generation and disposal, waste reduction, and economic performance assessment. Data from a residential building project were used for model validation and simulation. The findings reveal four strategies to effectively promote the economic performance of CW reduction, including: enhancing waste sorting, reducing illegal dumping behaviors, promoting government's financial subsidy on waste recycling, and raising waste landfilling charge. Furthermore, model simulations inform that combining different waste reduction strategies could result in better outcomes than a single measure regarding CW reduction. This study is significant in revealing the interrelationships of factors affecting the economic performance of CW reduction. Meanwhile, the results are helpful for designing policies to improve CW reduction practice.

Building demolition waste presents a significant challenge due to its large scale. Especially, the treatment of waste (i.e. demolition, collection, sorting, transportation, recycling and landfill) has environmental implications, e.g. carbon emissions due to energy consumed by equipment and vehicles. Therefore, it is imperative to identify the appropriate waste treatment methods with low carbon emissions. However, previous studies predominately focused on quantifying the carbon emission of buildings. In contrast, the carbon emission derived from the treatment of building demolition waste is largely overlooked. A conceptual framework is developed in this study to facilitate the assessment of carbon emissions over the life cycle of building demolition waste. In this conceptual framework, Building Information Modelling provides an effective approach to harvest data and feed into the Life Cycle Assessment. Case study of a high-rise residential building was conducted to showcase how this framework can be implemented in practice. Results showed that the environmental benefit derived from recycling of building demolition waste varies from one material to another. The recycling of metal waste has far higher environmental benefits compared to masonry wastes. In particular, aluminum could contribute to as high as 45% of carbon emission reduction despite only accounting for 0.66% of the total weight. Across various lifecycle stages, the onsite collection and sorting is the biggest contributor to the total carbon emission. In addition, on-site recycling has better performance compared to factory recycling and landfill in terms of carbon emissions. Furthermore, a large scale inventories are developed as an outcome of this case study. These findings provide useful inputs to the future endeavor of building demolition waste recycling in a bid to reduce the associated carbon emissions.

Achieving sustainability is becoming increasingly critical for measuring the overall success of infrastructure projects. Given the complexity of such projects, the successful management of sustainability-related targets requires joint efforts from the major stakeholders involved, including project clients, contractors, suppliers, and the general public. Nevertheless, these stakeholders often have different, and sometimes even conflicting, concerns regarding the achievement of project sustainability. Confrontations and disputes can arise unless these concerns are carefully analyzed and addressed. However, we know little specifically about how major stakeholders perceive infrastructure sustainability and how their concerns differ in the three dimensions of project sustainability: economic, environmental, and social sustainability. This study investigated the major concerns of stakeholders in achieving sustainability in a typical infrastructure project (i.e., railway projects). A triangulated methodology was adopted, including a literature review, a questionnaire survey, and interviews to obtain data from project stakeholders. Based on the results, there was a significant divergence of views among stakeholder groups, and conflicts arose when there was a mismatch between stakeholders’ perceptions. A list of major concerns from each individual stakeholder group was ranked and discussed. Some measures for promoting the consensus on achieving project sustainability among different stakeholder groups were also provided. The study not only provides insights into understanding differences in the concerns of major stakeholder groups in achieving railway project sustainability, it also helps develop quantitative approaches for measuring the degree of consensus and conflict among major stakeholder groups so as to minimize their concern differences.

How to effectively deal with construction and demolition (C&D) waste problems has been challenging in many Chinese regions. This study investigated the most critical challenges and promising countermeasures of managing C&D waste in a typical economically developed region of Shenzhen in south China. Data were collected through review of literature and government regulations and reports, semi-structured interviews and group discussions with governmental staff and industry participants. Based on analyses of C&D waste generation, waste regulations, and major waste management practices in Shenzhen, five drawbacks were revealed, which are “immature regulatory environment for managing C&D waste”, “multiple government departments are separately involved in different C&D waste management processes but no one takes the leading role”, “lack of fundamental data in C&D waste”, “insufficient attention is paid to waste management in construction projects”, and “C&D waste recycling factories trudge toward growth”. Four measures are proposed accordingly, including “enhancing the effectiveness of C&D waste regulations in reality”, “collecting and releasing accurate C&D waste amount timely”, “enhancing C&D waste management”, “promoting C&D waste recycling further”, and “implementing an effective waste disposal charging fee”. Several practical measures are also proposed and discussed. The findings could be useful in aiding in establishing an interlocking system to improve C&D waste management practices.

Although building information modeling (BIM) holds the promise of significantly advancing the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) market worldwide, its widespread acceptance a...

In a duopoly market where exists technological differences, the inferior manufacturer always lies in the disadvantaged status because of the terrible energy efficiency in production. Lack of cooperation fee, and disadvantages in technology and skills are main barriers limiting the inferior manufacturer’s technological advancement. This study aims to investigate the inferior manufacturer’s cooperation with a third party under the Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) mechanism through a game theory model. The results show that: (i) Cooperation with a third party under the EPC mechanism could help the inferior manufacturer achieve technological advancement and gain more profits without bearing extra cooperation fees. (ii) When the inferior manufacturer carries out cooperation with a third party under the EPC mechanism, four major factors are critical, including the revenue sharing ratio of the third party, the service level of the third party, the market size and the energy price. (iii) In EPC cooperation, the optimal service level provided by the third party depends on the revenue sharing ratio. (iv) When the inferior manufacturer carries out EPC cooperation with a third party, the cooperation would reduce the market equilibrium price, enhance the total equilibrium quantities and in the meanwhile increase the total consumer surplus. Overall, the study contributes to exploring the feasibility of introducing the EPC cooperation to fulfill the inferior manufacturer’s technology advancement, in which the inferior manufacturer does not bear any extra fee for the cooperation. Particularly, the study contributes to investigating the manufacturer’s optimal cooperation decisions by assessing the EPC cooperation between the inferior manufacturer and the third party based on game-theoretic models.

Construction workers’ waste reduction behaviors (CWWRBs) have been critical given that workers directly use building materials and carry out on-site construction activities. However, to date, the underlying causations of CWWRBs have not yet been well revealed. This paper thus aims to identify major factors affecting CWWRBs based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and develop a simulation model to explore the causation of CWWRBs through a system dynamics (SD) approach. Based on simulation results of three typical groups of management measures, namely, reactive actions (RAs), prioritization (P) and preventive actions (PAs), it is found that overall RAs and P are more effective in improving CWWRBs, while the effect of RAs is the most significant. Besides, RAs would be more effective in the early period of construction processes while PAs more effective in the later period. This study not only, for the first time, presents a deeper explanation of causations of CWWRBs, but also provides a model through which construction waste management policies and measures can be simulated in advance to effectively improve CWWRBs.

Building material enterprises (BMEs) and waste recycling enterprises (WREs) are two critical stakeholders in construction waste recycling, and their decisions toward waste recycling are influential to development of waste recycling market. However, the present literature fails to consider consumers’ quality perceptions of recycled materials when investigating stakeholder decisions in the market, which significantly affects understanding of stakeholder decisions on waste recycling. To address the research gap, this study investigates from a theoretical perspective the optimal strategies of the BME and the WRE by considering consumers’ quality perceptions toward recycled materials. The game theory is employed to develop models and analyze stakeholder decisions in the context of different construction waste (CW) recycling scenarios. It is found that the consideration of consumers’ quality perceptions toward recycled materials shapes three CW recycling scenarios (i.e., business stripping mode, business monopoly mode, and business cooperation mode) in the waste recycling markets. When there is a demand for recycled materials, the BME should take good use of its labor and capital advantages to actively develop the waste recycling market for higher profits. However, when there are already independent WREs, the BME should perform waste recycling business jointly with the WRE. In addition, there exists stable competitive market equilibrium, depending on low consumer quality perception of recycled materials produced by the BME and small consumer quality perception disparity between recycled materials provided by the two enterprise groups. Under the circumstance, the BME and the WRE can achieve a win-win situation for gaining profits. This theoretical study contributes to a new perspective (i.e., consumers’ quality perceptions) for better understanding decisions of major stakeholders (i.e., the BME and the WRE) on CW recycling. In addition, the study for the first time introduces the game theory into explaining CW recycling, which may enhance the effectiveness of policies aiming at promoting CW recycling practices.

Implementing construction and demolition waste (CD in the meanwhile, very limited studies have focused on examining stakeholders’ decision interactions and their impacts on waste recycling. This study thus aims to address these research gaps through investigating the profits of two stakeholders (i.e., the waste producer and the recycler) in CD in the meanwhile, the recycler can always obtain more profits when its waste processing capacity is insufficient to handle the generated C&D waste. If the investment cost coefficient is relatively higher, a “win-win” situation for obtaining benefits can be achieved for both the waste producer and the recycler. The comparison of environmental impacts in the two waste recycling market scenarios reveals the optimal market scenario having more environmentally friendly advantages. To our best knowledge, this study is the first attempt to analyze the dynamic interactions of the waste producer and the recycler in C&D waste by differentiating the market scenarios. It is anticipated that the research outcomes could be valuable by not only contributing to existing C&D waste management body of knowledge, but also providing managerial insights about how stakeholders can be encouraged to promote C&D waste recycling.

Due to significant environmental, social, and economic impacts, the last decades have witnessed a rapid growth of research related to construction and demolition (CD (2) developing comprehensive pollutant control measures to treat CD (3) improving the recyclability of CD (4) developing the advanced performance evaluation criteria for wasted materials and recycled products; (5) extending the research boundary of CD (6) understanding the dynamics and mobility during the life cycle of CD (7) developing CD (8) developing advanced methods to assess the CD (9) exploring the more efficient use of information technologies in CD (10) reducing CD and (11) reducing C&D waste during the building operation. These findings are not only valuable to better understand the C&D waste research, but also useful to assist practitioners to further improve C&D waste management performance, and mitigate associated pollution.

To alleviate the generation of grave construction waste, it is imperative for China to minimize its construction waste; however, critical measures that are effective in managing construction waste have yet to be fully explored and understood. Through a literature review, semistructured interviews, questionnaire, and statistical analysis, this study investigates critical measures for the effective management of construction waste in China. The study identifies 16 critical management measures and further categorizes them into five components, including “ameliorate major stakeholders' awareness and behavior,” “improve regulatory environment,” “enhance onsite construction waste management,” “promote construction material use efficiency,” and “measures related to design-out waste and recycling.”

Effective risk management is critical to the success of infrastructure projects. Although several studies in the literature have focused on various aspects of infrastructure project risk management, limited efforts have investigated the overall dynamics of infrastructure project risks and how dynamic risk interactions can affect a project schedule. This study, therefore, takes a holistic view to investigate the effects of dynamic risk interactions on a schedule delay in infrastructure projects. First, major risks that can cause a schedule delay in infrastructure projects are identified through a review of related literature and questionnaire survey. Second, the interactions among main variables related to infrastructure schedule risks are analyzed using causal loop diagrams. Afterward, a system dynamics (SD) model for the investigation of risk effects on a project schedule is developed based on the causal loop diagrams and the underlying relations among the variables. Finally, the model is applied...

Governance mechanisms are crucial to the success of joint-venture (JV) megaprojects. Although both contractual and relational governance mechanisms are studied to maximize cooperation and minimize opportunism, the relative effectiveness of each mechanism remains unclear, particular in JV megaprojects. Based on the transaction cost economics and relational exchange theory, this paper presents a case study of Chinese JV megaprojects to explore the impact of governance mechanisms in promoting cooperation and restraining opportunism. Specifically, this paper investigates how guanxi, as a contextual variable, affects effectiveness of different governance mechanisms when dealing with cooperation and opportunism in JV megaprojects. The analysis is based on data collected from 377 respondents. The findings suggest that guanxi plays an important role in affecting the effectiveness of partnership governance mechanisms in megaprojects. In the low guanxi scenario, both contractual and relational governance me...

Construction waste is the main waste generator in the Hong Kong and Pearl River Delta Regions. Its impacts on the environment in these two regions have become a serious problem to society. To minimize resource consumption and in accordance with worldwide environmental protection, construction waste management is urgently needed. Therefore, this paper conducts analysis in construction waste problems and challenges in the Hong Kong and Pearl River Delta Regions. Structured interviews were conducted. Suggestions to improve construction waste management in these two regions are given in this study.

The past two decades have witnessed the steady growth of the Chinese economy. As a major contributor to the economy development, the construction industry in China has also grown at an even pace. Like the cliche ‘you cannot improve what you cannot measure’, it is crucial to measure the performance of the construction industry in order to maintain its growth and reduce its drawbacks over the long-term. This research, therefore, aims to develop a model for evaluating the performance of the construction industry by using the factor analysis method. A case study of Shanghai is conducted on the basis of the proposed assessment model by using relevant data from 1999 to 2004. The results indicate that the annual performance of the construction industry in Shanghai is moving towards a better direction, particularly from the year 2002 on. It is also found that the proposed model using factor analysis method can overcome the shortcomings of other similar assessment methods in terms of obvious correlation am...

The current urban renewal programs in some developing countries, such as China, are at the expense of demolishing a huge number of existing buildings without distinction. As a consequence, the buildings’ short lifespan due to premature demolition and resultant adverse impacts on environment and society have been criticized for not being in line with sustainable development principles. This study therefore examines impacts of urban renewal practices on buildings’ lifespan by referring to a typical urban renewal region in western China – the Gailanxi region of Chongqing city which is considered representative. Findings show in current practices, little consideration is given to the implications of building demolitions across economic, social and environmental horizons collectively. As a result, premature demolition due to requirements of urban renewal has been a major factor leading to the significantly short lifespan of buildings. This is against the core intention of implementing urban renewal, which is promoting sustainability of the cities. Particularly, buildings’ short lifespan results in consequences against sustainable construction principles, such as energy and resources waste, construction waste generation, environmental pollution, and higher lifecycle costs of buildings. Furthermore, building demolitions without distinction lead to losses of valuable historic buildings. Therefore, the urban renewal process presents a paradoxical phenomenon: the promotion of sustainable construction versus buildings’ short lifespan. The dominance of economic consideration in the decision-making on buildings is considered as the underlying reason to the paradox. The learned experience presented in this study should be built into the decision-making process for carrying out future urban renewal programs. First Publish Online: 19 Dec 2013

This research aims to identify the major cost-overrun risks in construction projects in China and to develop strategies for minimising these risks. The cost-overrun risks were first drawn from literature. Questionnaires were then designed and disseminated to seek professionals’ perspectives regarding the likelihood of occurrence and their impacts. Strategies to manage the identified key risks were then developed based on the analysis of findings. It is found that 15 risks are crucial to the cost-overrun of construction projects in China. The main strategies to manage these risks are presented during the analysis. The information revealed in this research would be appealing to all parties considering seizing construction business opportunities in China. In particular, the key cost-overrun risks factors identified in this research would be useful to practitioners in China and those in other countries in order to better manage such risks.