A Bibliometric Analysis of Sustainable Construction Practices—Implication on Construction Productivity

Abstract

Damages being done to the ecosystem have continued to foster the clamor for sustainable development practices across sectors, including the construction industry. The construction industry’s operations account for about 33% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on the earth, thereby making sustainable construction practices (SCPs) central to the global sustainable development goals. A bibliometric analysis was conducted to map the existing literature in SCPs research field. The analysis was utilized to ascertain the growth trajectory of publications in SCPs research domain, most productive and influential authors, collaboration among authors, geographical distribution of publications, and ultimately the emerging knowledge areas (EKAs) in the research field. The EKAs include: lean construction, procurement, energy, recycling, construction ecology, lifecycle costing, construction waste, and sustainable design. These knowledge areas have varying degree of implication on construction productivity. However, some of the knowledge areas, which include lean construction, energy, construction ecology, and sustainable designs have more notable implications on construction productivity. Documents published in the Scopus database were considered for analysis due to the wider coverage of the database. Besides, the study is limited to journal articles published from 2002–2021. Construction stakeholders can adopt the research findings to develop a framework that promotes SCPs and contributes to improving construction productivity. The reported knowledge areas provide directions for future research, whereas, factors with more notable implications on construction productivity should be investigated more extensively to determine their extent of implication.