Integrating lean and sustainability for waste reduction in construction from the early design phase

Abstract

Lean and sustainability are found to have the same agenda of waste reduction. Sharing waste reduction is particularly important for understanding how lean and sustainability can be weaved together to support mutual benefits. However, many publications concentrate on these strategies in isolation, paying less attention to their integration in the design phase. This paper presents an exploratory study from extant literature. It reviews more than 30 papers that have been published from 2018 to 2023 and examines the concepts of lean and sustainability on the issue of waste reduction from the early design phase. It explores the opportunities to enhance environmental and construction performance by implementing sustainability-lean practices to reduce the sources of waste generated in different design stages. Results indicate that ‘Clearness, recognition, and Communication’, ‘Inappropriate supplying of information’, ‘Coordination and accuracy’ and ‘Design Expertise’ are the most important sources of design waste since they have the highest number of waste causes. Results show that design waste sources are affected the most by a wide practice of embedding waste reduction strategies in the Preparation and Briefing and Technical Design stages. The paper shows the most applicable lean tools that aim to reduce waste from the early design phase. The overall conclusion of this study is compatible with the same studies worldwide, which were applied in terms of increasing the performance of the waste reduction plan in construction by identifying the sources of design waste to achieve positive outcomes in terms of environmental, social, and economic dimensions.