Sustainable Construction as a Competitive Advantage

Abstract

Nowadays, sustainable construction (SC) is considered as a measure to support a healthy economy. The SC concept ensures quality of life and helps minimize the negative impact on the environment, human health, and biodiversity. SC fits into the modern sustainable development (SD) concept due to the ability to improve the environment, energy efficiency, and care for future generations. Despite numerous studies dedicated to the SC concept and implementation, practical matters related to SC including the importance of macroeconomic environmental sustainability are still insufficiently explored. The objective of this research is to study the practical issues of SC in the example of developing countries. Moreover, this work is aimed at determining the importance of the sustainable macroeconomic environment in ensuring SC. With the help of correlation and regression analysis effected for the purposes of the study, the direct connection and strong correlation between the GDP growth in the country and the number of large sustainable infrastructure facilities constructed and put into operation in the Russian Federation and China (correlation coefficient comprised 0.9987) were revealed. Within the current study, the experience of developing countries in SC is also discussed. It has been outlined that for emerging countries, the development of the construction industry environment within the framework of SC is possible in a sustainable business environment. The competitive advantages for SC are considered in social, economic, and environmental systems. Moreover, the models of formation and ensuring competitive advantages of the SC enterprise are presented. This paper reveals that the stability of the macroeconomic environment is a key factor in construction industry growth within the SC for developing countries.