Air pollution is a global concern, especially in cities and urban areas, and has many implications for human health and for the environment. In common with other industrial sectors, the construction industry emits air pollutants. In scientific literature, the contribution the construction industry makes to air pollution is underexposed. This systematic literature review (SLR) paper gives an overview of the current literature regarding air pollution within the construction industry. Air pollution is discussed focusing mainly on three levels: (i) buildings and their building life cycle stages, (ii) construction processes and components, and (iii) building material and interior. The final sample of the SLR comprises 161 scientific articles addressing different aspects of the construction industry. The results show that most articles address the use stage of a building. Particulate matter in different sizes is the most frequently examined air pollutant within the SLR. Moreover, about a third of the articles refer to indoor air pollution, which shows the relevance of the topic. The construction industry can help to develop a healthier built environment and support the achievement of cleaner air within various life cycle stages, e.g., with optimized construction processes and healthier materials. International agreements and policies such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can support the sustainable development of the construction industry.

The construction industry adds a high share to global CO₂ emissions and, thus, to the global climate crisis. Future buildings need to be planned, constructed, operated, and deconstructed in a lifecycle-oriented manner so that the building stock represents a capital asset for future generations. The greatest leverages for reducing a building’s CO₂ emissions lie in the early project phase and subsequently in the tendering and awarding process, which makes early Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) indispensable. In this study, we set a sociological research framework consisting of (i) choosing a research topic, (ii) conducting a literature review, (iii) measuring variables and gathering data, (iv) analyzing data, and (v) drawing a conclusion. Since there are countless studies that apply LCA in the construction sector for environmental assessment, emission reduction, or decision support, we posed the question of whether LCA was also applied in the public building tendering and awarding process. Furthermore, we focused on identifying obstacles to LCA implementation in this early project phase. Therefore, we applied the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and conducted a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). The results show that numerous articles focused on sustainable tendering or green public procurement in the construction industry; however, the LCA method is scarcely used in the procurement processes (19 articles in the final sample). Based on our findings, the main obstacles to LCA implementation in the procurement process are highlighted in the study. In the future, the mandatory integration of LCA into the procurement process will be crucial to reduce the CO₂ emissions generated by the construction industry and thus contribute to the EU climate target plan to ensure carbon neutrality by 2050.

Over the past decades, it has become apparent that increasing demands in the construction industry have repeatedly led to project delays and increased project costs in practice. These demands have increased as a result of international and national action plans that have been developed to achieve the climate target paths and, therefore, the necessary reduction of CO₂ emissions in the construction industry. We address this problem by developing a sustainable construction maturity model (SCOMM) to answer the following research question: “What is a holistic quality assurance tool for the early design phase of buildings to monitor (sustainable) planning practices in order to achieve better certification results?”. The model includes a self-assessment procedure for the building design process, based on Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination (SPiCE) and the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) building certification system. The results show that systemic interactions between sustainability criteria can be identified in the early design phase, allowing the quality of planning practices to be evaluated and early project management to be implemented to achieve the best certification results. Our findings will enable clients and users of the construction industry to better manage the complexity of the sustainable design process and avoid undesirable developments in building projects.

In order to achieve the climate goals, the implementation of sustainable construction is becoming more and more topical in the construction sector. Due to very long service lifes especially in railway projects, the consideration of life-cycle aspects into the early design process is of great importance. Regarding the assessment of the economic pillar of sustainability, life-cycle costing has become an established method. This study presents the application of life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) for decision aiding in railway construction. The two tunnel tubes of the project Koralmtunnel (KAT) are connected with approximately 70 cross-passages (CPs) at intervals of around 500 m. These CPs serve as escape-ways and additionally host utility rooms for technical equipment (telecomunication, power supply and remote control). First thermal simulations revealed indoor temperatures up to 80 ^[openbullet] C due to the heat release of the technical equipment without implementation of technical cooling systems in operation phase. This is caused by the limited heat transfer with the surrounding rock and with the adjacent running tubes. Therefore, the implementation of a cooling system is necessary. It is stated that higher indoor temperatures lead to reduced service lifes of the installed telecommunication systems. By the application of Arrhenius equation, the influence of several indoor target temperatures on the expected life time of the installed telecommunication systems has been determined. In order to meet target temperature requirements appropriate scenarios including different cooling scenarios have been designed. Finally, LCCA by application of the net-present value-method (NPV-method) was conducted in order to determine the most economical solution regarding CPs cooling systems based on selected target-temperatures.