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In light of climate change, the design and construction of buildings needs to shift from conventional to lower-carbon practices to maximise carbon reduction. Over the past few years, the zero carbon buildings (ZCBs) approach has been promoted worldwide as an effective way to reduce environmental impacts and mitigate climate change. Although zero-carbon policies, technologies, processes and products are widely available in the construction market, construction stakeholders play an important part in adopting relevant strategies to implement ZCBs successfully. This study investigates the knowledge of construction stakeholders involved in the design and construction of buildings regarding zero carbon initiatives in New Zealand.

The research was conducted using a literature review and an online questionnaire survey with various New Zealand's construction stakeholders.

The findings indicate a low level of knowledge regarding the design and construction of ZCBs. To successfully deliver ZCBs, the study suggests that construction stakeholders must have their self-awareness increased, especially in improving knowledge of whole-of-life embodied carbon reduction. The governments and construction sectors should devote more effort to establishing training programmes and knowledge-sharing platforms to improve stakeholder knowledge in carbon literacy, building assessment methods, energy modelling and life cycle assessment.

The research implications may assist the real-world uptake of the ZCBs approach by offering academics and practitioners an insight into the ZCBs knowledge gaps.

The main purpose of the study is to promote consideration of the issues and approaches available for costing sustainable buildings with a view to minimising cost overruns, occasioned by conservative whole-life cost estimates. The paper primarily looks at the impact of adopting continuity in whole-life cost models for zero carbon houses.

The study embraces a mathematically based risk procedure based on the binomial theorem for analysing the cost implication of the Lighthouse zero-carbon house project. A practical application of the continuous whole-life cost model is developed and results are compared with existing whole-life cost techniques using finite element methods and Monte Carlo analysis.

With standard whole-life costing, discounted present-value analysis tends to underestimate the cost of a project. Adopting continuity in whole-life cost models presents a clearer picture and profile of the economic realities and decision-choices confronting clients and policy-makers. It also expands the informative scope on the costs of zero-carbon housing projects.

A primary limitation in this work is its focus on just one property type as the unit of analysis. This research is also limited in its consideration of initial and running cost categories only. The capital cost figures for the Lighthouse are indicative rather than definitive.

The continuous whole-life cost technique is a novel and innovative approach in financial appraisal […] Benefits of an improved costing framework will be far-reaching in establishing effective policies aimed at client acceptance and optimally performing supply chain networks.

The continuous whole-life costing pioneers an experimental departure from the stereo-typical discounting mechanism in standard whole-life costing procedures.

This study investigates the barriers and drivers of using green methods and technologies (GMTs) in supportive educational buildings (SEBs) in South Africa, and assesses their impact on the circular economy (CE) in achieving net-zero carbon goals. While there has been extensive literature on green building technologies, there is limited research on the barriers and drivers of using GMT in SEBs, as well as their impact on the circular economy (CE) in achieving net-zero carbon goals.

This study adopts an interpretivist approach with an ontological basis, using an overarching case study of a SEB at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Semistructured interviews were conducted with executive UCT management, and a field survey of a UCT supportive education building was performed.

At UCT, multiple GMTs have been installed across various buildings to enhance monitoring and management of water and energy consumption. Moreover, initiatives to positively influence student behavior, such as water and energy-saving campaigns around UCT premises, have been introduced. The findings further indicate that UCT has recently emphasized the implementation of GMTs, resulting in improved resource efficiency, CE practices and progress toward achieving net-zero carbon targets for supportive education buildings and the university as a whole.

This research highlights the positive impact of GMTs on a SEB’s CE and net-zero carbon operations. As a result, facility managers should consider incorporating GMTs when planning the development or refurbishment of SEBs.

The authors explore the behaviour and perspectives of SMEs' owners towards a greener economy and its implications for net zero carbon emissions target.

The authors draw on the mirroring concept and 26 semi-structured interviews with SMEs' owners and managers to provide insights and explore the misalignment between SMEs' actions and perceptions and the technical architecture (and requirements) of achieving net zero carbon emissions in the UK.

The authors find that SMEs lack trust and are sceptical about the government's net zero emissions agenda. The authors also find that lack of understanding and perceived benefits, and supply chain complexities (end-to-end emissions) are the key factors hindering SMEs interests in engaging with better carbon emissions management and environmental management system (EMS). Moreover, pressure from external stakeholders, particularly banks and customers, is a strong driver to draw SMEs more effectively with sustainability and environmental impact disclosure.

The sample is limited to 26 SMEs' owners operating in seven industries. Future research could explore the result in other industries. Further research could also investigate how the sustainability reports produced by SMEs are useful for different user groups' decision-making. This study reinforces the social constructionist approach to advance our understanding of SMEs' actions towards carbon emission management and EMS.

This study shows how government policies and SMEs' interests can be aligned to achieve the net zero carbon emissions target.

This is the first study to examine the perceptions and behaviour of SMEs towards the ongoing pursuit of a greener economy in the UK, including the key factors driving their actions and reasoning.

This study aims to form a new concept of power-to-gas-based virtual power plant (GVPP) and propose a low-carbon economic scheduling optimization model for GVPP considering carbon emission trading.

In view of the strong uncertainty of wind power and photovoltaic power generation in GVPP, the information gap decision theory (IGDT) is used to measure the uncertainty tolerance threshold under different expected target deviations of the decision-makers. To verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model, nine-node energy hub was selected as the simulation system.

GVPP can coordinate and optimize the output of electricity-to-gas and gas turbines according to the difference in gas and electricity prices in the electricity market and the natural gas market at different times. The IGDT method can be used to describe the impact of wind and solar uncertainty in GVPP. Carbon emission rights trading can increase the operating space of power to gas (P2G) and reduce the operating cost of GVPP.

This study considers the electrical conversion and spatio-temporal calming characteristics of P2G, integrates it with VPP into GVPP and uses the IGDT method to describe the impact of wind and solar uncertainty and then proposes a GVPP near-zero carbon random scheduling optimization model based on IGDT.

This study designed a novel structure of the GVPP integrating P2G, gas storage device into the VPP and proposed a basic near-zero carbon scheduling optimization model for GVPP under the optimization goal of minimizing operating costs. At last, this study constructed a stochastic scheduling optimization model for GVPP.

In 2016 all new houses in England and Wales must be zero carbon. To date most work in zero carbon housing has been carried out on detached family housing typologies. Practice has shown that one of the overriding factors in the struggle to achieve zero carbon status (Code for Sustainable Homes Level 6) is the projected significant increase in construction cost. While grant funding can offset some of this increase, further costs savings will be required to allow developers to deliver affordable homes within reasonable profit margins. One result of this will be a reduction in design quality; which will impact on the quality of the spaces provided and the robustness and longevity of the construction and finishes. In order to deliver better design standards, higher density attached family housing models should be considered to ensure that a proportion of the projected increase in cost of the building fabric can be transferred to the internal volume of the house, thus achieving better quality living spaces. The following paper reviews the context for future housing provision in the UK and examines two existing medium density terraced housing developments. The existing examples reflect two contrasting approaches: one derived from low-energy principles utilising minimum space standards, the other reflecting the need for high quality spaces but at premium cost. A new medium density terrace model is proposed that deals with these conflicting demands to demonstrate that it is possible to provide affordable, high quality, higher density, family housing whilst meeting low energy targets.

The zero carbon building (ZCB) approach has gained momentum in improving energy performance and reducing carbon emissions. Despite policy promotion for achieving zero carbon, innovative business models (BMs) are needed to overcome the challenges and accelerate the ZCB uptake. However, little research has examined ZCB and BM in tandem, and business strategies for ZCB delivery. The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical relations between BM and ZCB.

Drawing on a critical review of the definitions, components, and theoretical bases of BM and ZCB, this paper develops a conceptual model that maps out the multifaceted interrelations between ZCB and BM at both project and organisational levels.

The results discover co-productive interrelations between BM and ZCB in four aspects, namely, value offering, project delivery process, stakeholder network, and revenue generation logic. Innovative BMs address the socio-technical challenges to delivering ZCBs through innovating BM components, while ZCB provides a new paradigm of organisational-level systems to BM innovations as a source of corporate competitiveness.

The findings will be of immense benefit to the decision makers of construction organisations in enhancing their business strategies for successful ZCB deliveries, and help to de-risk business innovations and ZCB take-up for their maximised synergies.

The findings contribute a novel approach to disentangling the complex co-productive interrelations between BM and ZCB. This review calls for a step change in future research into the two important areas, BM and ZCB, in an interrelated manner.

Achieving a zero-carbon city requires a long-term strategic perspective. The authors propose a decision-making model which would take into account the economic, environmental and social impacts for prioritizing the zero-carbon measures for sustainable urban transportation.

An integrated intuitionistic fuzzy gained and lost dominance score (IF-GLDS) model is introduced based on intuitionistic fuzzy Yager weighted aggregation (IFYWA) operators and proposed weight-determining IF-SPC procedure. In addition, a weighting tool is presented to obtain the weights of decision experts. Further, the feasibility and efficacy of developed IF-SPC-GLDS model is implemented on a multi-criteria investment company selection problem under IFS context.

The results of the developed model, “introducing zero-emission zones” should be considered as the first measure to implement. The preference of this initiative offers sustainable transport in India to achieve a zero-carbon transport by having the greatest impact on the modal shift from cars to sustainable mobility modes with a lower operational and implementation cost as well as having greater public support. The developed model utilized can be relocated to other smart cities which aim to achieve a zero-carbon transport. Sensitivity and comparative analyses are discussed to reveal the robustness of obtained result. The outcomes show the feasibility of the developed methodology which yields second company as the suitable choice, when compared to and validated using the other MCDA methods from the literature, including TOPSIS, COPRAS, WASPAS and CoCoSo with intuitionistic fuzzy information.

A new intuitionistic fuzzy symmetry point of criterion (IF-SPC) approach is presented to find weights of criteria under IFSs setting. Then, an IF-GLDS model is introduced using IFYWA operators to rank the options in the realistic multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) procedure. For this purpose, the IFYWA operators and their properties are developed to combine the IFNs. These operators can offer a flexible way to deal with the realistic MCDA problems with IFS context.

The purpose of the paper is to report research conducted to explore the insights of UK architects on the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) in relation to low carbon housing design and delivery.

To explore the awareness and knowledge of CSH in low carbon housing design and delivery in the UK, a mixed method approach comprising of interviews with architects in practice and academia were combined with questionnaires to UK sustainable architectural practices.

The results confirmed that, although UK architects are aware of CSH, it is only very few (11.8 per cent), who have the expert knowledge. This is in comparison to 52.9 per cent of those with some knowledge, and 35.3 per cent of those who are very knowledgeable in the use and implementation of CSH to design and deliver low carbon new homes in the UK.

The findings of this study are based only on the sustainable architects in the UK, therefore the findings may not represent the view of other constructional professionals in the UK.

The research focused on investigating the judging criteria and opinions of architects who are strongly identified with sustainable housing design practices in the UK. It explores the insights of architects on the CSH, because their knowledge, use and implementation of it, along with other information on low carbon housing design, from the onset determines how soon zero carbon homes in the UK can be achieved; leading towards tackling energy use in the UK and on a wider level, the European commitment reduction of energy consumption.

The paper is able to expose the weakness of architects in the use of information that is not represented graphically, pictorially or in the recognised Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) plan of work stages familiar to architects and the general construction industry in the UK.

There are 29 million homes in the UK, accounting for 14% of the UK's energy consumption. This is given that UK has one of the highest water and energy demands in Europe which needs to be addressed according to the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). Smart homes technology holds a current perception that it is principally used by “tech-savvy” users with larger budgets. However, smart home technology can be used to control water, heat and energy in the entire house. This paper investigates how smart home technology could be effectively utilised to aid the UK government in meeting climate change targets and to mitigate the environmental impact of a home in use towards reducing carbon emissions.

Both primary and secondary data were sought to gain insight into the research problem. An epistemological approach to this research is to use interpretivism to analyse data gathered via a semi-structured survey. Two groups of participants were approached: (1) professionals who are deemed knowledgeable about smart home development and implementation and (2) users of smart home technology. A variety of open-ended questions were formulated, allowing participants to elaborate by exploring issues and providing detailed qualitative responses based on their experience in this area which were interpreted quantitatively for clearer analysis.

With fossil fuel reserves depleting, there is an urgency for renewable, low carbon energy sources to reduce the 5 tonnes annual carbon emissions from a UK household. This requires a multi-faceted and a multimethod approach, relying on the involvement of both the general public and the government in order to be effective. By advancing energy grids to make them more efficient and reliable, concomitant necessitates a drastic change in the way of life and philosophy of homeowners when contemplating a reduction of carbon emissions. If both parties are able to do so, the UK is more likely to reach its 2050 net-zero carbon goal. The presence of a smart meter within the household is equally pivotal. It has a positive effect of reducing the amount of carbon emissions and hence more need to be installed.

Further research is needed using a larger study sample to achieve more accurate and acceptable generalisations about any future course of action. Further investigation on the specifics of smart technology within the UK household is also needed to reduce the energy consumption in order to meet net-zero carbon 2050 targets due to failures of legislation.

For smart homes manufacturers and suppliers, more emphasis should be placed to enhance compatibility and interoperability of appliances and devices using different platform and creating more user's friendly manuals supported by step-by-step visual to support homeowners in the light of the wealth of knowledge base generated over the past few years. For homeowners, more emphasis should be placed on creating online knowledge management platform easily accessible which provide virtual support and technical advice to home owners to deal with any operational and technical issues or IT glitches. Developing technical design online platform for built environment professionals on incorporating smart sensors and environmentally beneficial technology during early design and construction stages towards achieving low to zero carbon homes.

This paper bridges a significant gap in the body of knowledge in term of its scope, theoretical validity and practical applicability, highlighting the impact of using smart home technology on the environment. It provides an insight into how the UK government could utilise smart home technology in order to reduce its carbon emission by identifying the potential link between using smart home technology and environmental sustainability in tackling and mitigating climate change. The findings can be applied to other building types and has the potential to employ aspects of smart home technology in order to manage energy and water usage including but not limited to healthcare, commercial and industrial buildings.