Motivators for Green Buildings: A Review

Abstract

Motivators can be defined as specific catalysts that drive people to act in a certain way. These motivators are important for promoting green buildings and have a clear impact on decision-makers to adopt and implement the green building concept in architectural practice. This paper presents a comprehensive literature review to identify the important motivators for the adoption of green buildings among the stakeholders of the construction industry, the categorization and efficiency of green building motivators, and also the strategies for green building motivators.

By reviewing 32 relevant studies conducted in different countries from 2008 to 2017, a total of 26 factors were identified as the main motivators to promote green buildings. These green building motivators were categorized into environmental, economic, and social motivators. With regard to efficiency, it was found that all green building motivators, whether environmental, economic or social are important for promoting green buildings and to determine a priority among these categories was not possible. The strategies for the adoption of green building motivators were also found. It is notable that the government has the greatest role to motivate stakeholders to adopt and implement the green building concept.

The literature review of this study has a wide scope, covering most of the countries in the world, including developed and developing countries from the West to East. Hence, unlike most studies on the main issue of this paper that focus on a specific country or region, this in-depth research led to the development of a list of motivators for green buildings, derived from an extensive range of nations, which vary from environmental, economic, and social aspects.

This paper is expected to provide valuable information for decision-makers in the construction industry, namely, governmental authorities, design teams, and owners of projects regarding what motivate people to help further promote green buildings. The findings may also be useful for researchers to pursue further analyses on similar topics.