Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the barriers inhibiting the adoption of green building and measures to promote this approach in Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach: Barriers and measures were identified and examined by using a combination of research methods, including literature review, questionnaire survey, and in-depth interviews with the construction industry-related practitioners working in Pakistan. Ranking technique and factor analysis were used to identify the significant issues associated with the adoption of green building practices. Findings: As per the survey results, the most critical barrier is “lack of awareness among people about the importance and advantages of adopting green building practices,” followed by “lack of incentives from government” and “lack of green building codes and regulations,” respectively. The results also indicate that most important measure to promote the adoption of green buildings is “creation of public awareness toward green initiatives through seminars, workshops, and discussions,” followed by “availability of green building codes and regulations (mandatory to apply)” and “financial incentives and penalties by the government (e.g. soft loan, tax) for promoting green building practices,” respectively. Research limitations/implications: Research limitation is that its findings, other than Pakistan, cannot be generalized to other developing countries. Practical implications: Findings of the research will be helpful in sensitizing the regulatory agencies, the policy makers, and the building construction practitioners about the barriers to adoption of green building practices. The suggested measures will help in devising policies and economic measures to promote the construction of green and environment-friendly buildings. Social implications: This research will help the common people to know about the importance of green buildings that may lead to a deviation from the practice of traditional buildings to a widespread trend of building green buildings. This will lead to drastic reduction in demand for energy and considerable monetary savings for the common people. Originality/value: The findings of this study are expected to contribute valuable information to decision makers for the better understanding of key issues that call for more attention in the promotion of efforts of green building practices in Pakistan. The results are based on the perception of local stakeholders, but might also be helpful for policy makers in other countries.

With increasing focus on more nuanced aspects of quality of life, the phenomenon of urban visual pollution has been progressively gaining attention from researchers and policy makers, especially in the developed world. However, the subjectivity and complexity of assessing visual pollution in urban settings remain a challenge, especially given the lack of robust and reliable methods for quantification of visual pollution. This paper presents a novel systematic approach for the development of a robust Visual Pollution Assessment (VPA) tool. A key feature of our methodology is explicit and systematic incorporation of expert and public opinion for listing and ranking Visual Pollution Objects (VPOs). Moreover, our methodology deploys established empirical complex decision-making techniques to address the challenge of subjectivity in weighting the impact of individual VPOs. The resultant VPA tool uses close-ended options to capture the presence and characteristics of various VPOs on a given node. Based on these inputs, it calculates a point based visual pollution scorecard for the observation point. The performance of the VPA tool has been extensively tested and verified at various locations in Pakistan. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such tool, both in terms of quantitative robustness and broad coverage of VPOs. Our VPA tool will help regulators in assessing and charting visual pollution in a consistent and objective manner. It will also help policy makers by providing an empirical basis for gathering evidence; hence facilitating evidence-based and evidence-driven policy strategies, which are likely to have significant impact, especially in the developing countries.

Over the last three decades, special economic zones (SEZs) have given new impetus to the ever-growing export-oriented industrialization in developing countries. Where various economies have benefited from SEZs, many zones have ended up becoming enclaves with trifling advantage. The SEZs in Pakistan have experienced the same fate and have failed to contribute to exports, employment, and creating linkages with the domestic economy. Recently under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), SEZs are proposed to be set up in Pakistan, with a hope to fuel the stuttering economy. However, it is pertinent first to understand the local context and device policies considering stakeholders’ perspectives. This study aims to identify the factors for the successful implementation of SEZs derived from the regional context of Pakistan. In-depth interviews are conducted from the most relevant stakeholders, who have been involved in the development of SEZs. The results pointed towards the removal of political influence over zones and government taking the lead role in deciding the types of industry to be invited in these zones. Each zone should have a clear vision of development based on its locational advantage. The zone promotions should be based on competitiveness rather than fiscal incentives. Joint ventures and PPP should be encouraged inside the zones for sustainable operations.

Urban visual pollution is increasingly affecting the built-up areas of the rapidly urbanizing planet. Outdoor advertisements are the key visual pollution objects affecting the visual pollution index and revenue generation potential of a place. Current practices of uninformed and uncontrolled outdoor advertising (especially billboards) impairs effective control of visual pollution in developing countries. Improving this can result in over 20% reduction of visual pollution. This article presents a spatial decision support system (SDSS) to facilitate all the stakeholders (development control authorities, advertisers, billboard owners, and the public) in balancing the optimal positioning of billboards under the governing regulations. In terms of its technical implementation, SDSS is based on well-known geospatial open source technologies and uses an analytical hierarchy process AHP-inspired approach in spatial decision-making. It can help users through its category-specific user interface to identify potential sites to position new billboards and the selection of boards from existing sites based on a wide variety of characteristics. The observations of all stakeholders have been recorded through panel feedback to assess the system’s initial effectiveness. The proposed system has been found functional in identifying hot spots for the focused management and exploration of the best suitable sites for new billboards. So, it helps the advertising agencies, urban authorities, and city councils in better planning and management of existing billboard locations to optimize revenue and improve urban aesthetics. The system can be replicated in other countries irrespective of spatial boundaries by incorporating jurisdictional rules and regulations.