Construction professionals’ environmental perceptions of lumber, concrete and steel in Japan and China

As green building programs (GBPs) are introduced in Asian countries, the question of how GBPs evaluate the “greenness” of construction practice becomes one of the most critical uncertainties for the building material industry. To better understand construction professionals’ perception of greenness and the greenness of different building materials in Japan and China, surveys were conducted in both countries in 2009 and 2010. The surveys were designed to evaluate professionals’ perceptions of the relative importance of the major environmental attributes of resource efficiency. Chinese and Japanese professionals ranked the environmental attributes similarly even though their construction practices are very different. They perceive that saving energy and saving water are substantially more important environmental attributes than using renewable materials, having a low carbon footprint and using recycled materials. Second, the survey was designed to gain insights into the respondents’ perceptions of the relative environmental performance of the three major structural building materials (wood, concrete and steel). In both countries, construction professionals perceive lumber as having the best environmental performance relative to concrete and steel. However, Chinese and Japanese professionals have different perceptions of lumber in terms of its environmental friendliness. In Japan, energy efficiency of houses, the level of pollution generated during the manufacturing process, and CO2 emissions contribute to the evaluation of the environmental friendliness of lumber. In China, the sustainability of the resource is the main factor perceived as promoting the environmental friendliness of lumber.