Review of Barriers to Green Building Adoption

The need to implement sustainable development (SD) in the construction industry has given birth to the green building (GB) movement. GB is a promising construction approach through which the construction industry contributes to SD. However, the adoption of GB has been hampered in many parts of the world by numerous barriers. To date, no attention has been paid to the need to review existing knowledge of barriers affecting GB adoption. This paper presents a systematic review of literature on barriers to GB adoption published in academic journals. It has been found that lack of information, cost, lack of incentives, lack of interest and demand, and lack of GB codes and regulations are the most reported barriers in the literature. Recommendations are offered to overcome the barriers to facilitate the adoption of GB. This review provides a valuable reference for both industry practitioners and policy makers to implement GB. Moreover, a developed checklist of GB barriers in this paper can be useful to scholars for further empirical studies.