COVID-19 and Green Housing: A Review of Relevant Literature

Abstract

This review presents an analysis of three hypotheses. The articles provide a specific perspective on green housing before, during, and post COVID-19. The validations of these hypotheses were performed by analyzing the scientific literature worldwide and by adding a statistical analysis of appropriate articles from the Scopus database. The purpose of this review is to overview the research written on housing developments during the upsurge of COVID-19 along with the responses from the green building sector, because this field appears to be rapidly emerging by the sheer volume of research studies currently undertaken. Foremost peer-reviewed journals covering construction, urban studies, real estate, energy, civil engineering, buildings, indoor air, management, economics, business, environmental studies, and environmental sciences that were published last year were selected for review. The review was conducted by applying a combination of various keywords and the criteria for paper selection, including sustainable building, green construction, green building, resource-efficient, a building’s lifecycle, COVID-19, energy, water, consumption, health effects, comfort, occupant behaviors, policy, economy, Industry 5.0, energy-efficient retrofitting, and profit. Two, innovative elements in this study stand out when comparing it with the most advanced research on green housing before, during, and after COVID-19. The first innovation relates to the integrated analyses of COVID-19 pandemic, housing policies of countries and cities pertinent to COVID-19 that impact green housing and the wellbeing of their residents as well as the impact made by residents and a housing policy on the dispersion of COVID-19. This research additionally establishes that a green building analysis is markedly more effective when the analysis comprehensively covers the life process of a green building, the participating interest groups that have their own goals they wish to implement, the COVID-19 situation, and the external micro- and macro-level environments as a singular entity.