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Selected Papers from the CIB WBC 2025—Sustainable Development and the...
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Selected Papers from the CIB WBC 2025—Sustainable Development and the Built Environment: Legal Challenges and Opportunities

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Construction Management, and Computers & Digitization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2026) | Viewed by 5139

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Makarand Hastak

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
Interests: infrastructure planning; risk management and decision-making; disaster risk reduction; profitability of construction companies; built environment law; construction engineering and management; intelligent planning units
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Behzad Esmaeili

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
Interests: human factors; human AI teaming; smart occupational safety; risk and decision making
Dr. Andrew Agapiou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G1 1XQ, UK
Interests: built environment law and ethics; contract administration; professional practice; responsible innovation; digitalisation in construction; sustainability; BIM
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Buildings invites contributions aligned with the CIB World Building Congress 2025, hosted at Purdue University. The Congress theme, “Sustainable built environment–the role of the construction community in meeting the UN SDGs”, offers an opportunity to explore interdisciplinary approaches to global challenges in construction and design as they relate to the sustainable built environment.

The Special Issue will focus on legal considerations for addressing SDGs in the built environment and ethical practice across the life cycle of buildings and infrastructure. We invite empirical, theoretical, and practice-based papers addressing social, environmental, legal implications, and the legal/contractual transformations required in the built environment to effectively address the SDGs. Contributions are particularly encouraged from participants of the CIB WBC 2025, as well as members of CIB Task Groups and Working Commissions.

The Special Issue welcomes original contributions from conference participants and broader academic and professional communities. Submissions should address the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of innovation, responsibility, ethics, law, and the Sustainable Development Goals in the built environment.

We welcome empirical studies, theoretical contributions, legal and policy analyses, case studies, and interdisciplinary research from across architecture, engineering, construction management, law, planning, and design fields.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Regulatory pathways to SDG compliance in urban development;
  • Climate resilience and building codes: legal innovations and challenges;
  • Human rights, housing law, and the right to a sustainable living environment;
  • Circular economy and construction waste regulation;
  • Green finance, eSg disclosure, and legal accountability in real estate development ;
  • Litigation, enforcement, and the role of environmental courts in upholding SDG commitments

Prof. Dr. Makarand Hastak
Dr. Behzad Esmaeili
Dr. Andrew Agapiou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable construction law
  • environmental regulation
  • built environment governance
  • legal barriers to sustainability
  • climate-responsive policy
  • green infrastructure compliance

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  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 837 KB  
Article
Scenario Planning for a Sustainable Reduction in Construction Delay and Disruption Disputes
by Vasil Angelov Atanasov
Buildings 2026, 16(5), 1007; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16051007 - 4 Mar 2026
Viewed by 391
Abstract
Although the expected future impacts of climate change on the construction sector are significant and commonly accepted, the prospect and viability of contractual solutions to mitigate such effects lack investigation. Scenario planning enables leaders to prepare for the future by revealing the impending [...] Read more.
Although the expected future impacts of climate change on the construction sector are significant and commonly accepted, the prospect and viability of contractual solutions to mitigate such effects lack investigation. Scenario planning enables leaders to prepare for the future by revealing the impending opportunities and threats to businesses and markets. This article offers analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of published literature and results from a scenario-planning workshop. The study reveals that climate change and profit margins are the main forces that will impact the construction sector in 2030. Evidential materials, contract provisions, and data repositories involving existing and emerging technologies are the three tenets of an innovative conceptual solution that can reduce delay and disruption disputes. This is significant because, inter alia, as the consequences of climate change are likely to increase, contract terms that allocate risks associated with it are likely to be modified, and insurance companies are liable to increase indemnification premiums, or become unable to cover such risks. The offered solution, namely the Trilateral Model, increases the sustainability of construction contracting in this context through a clear, impartial, acceptable, and effective risk allocation mechanism that mitigates the impact of those forces and offers contractual certainty. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the CIB WBC 2025—Sustainable Development and the Built Environment: Legal Challenges and Opportunities)
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24 pages, 448 KB  
Article
Ascertaining the Reasons for Escalation of Disagreements over Extension of Time Assessments from Construction Delay Claims into Disputes
by Vasil Angelov Atanasov
Buildings 2026, 16(4), 872; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16040872 - 21 Feb 2026
Viewed by 614
Abstract
Disputes over delay assessments are costly, persistent, prevalent worldwide, often funded by taxpayers, and negatively impact productivity in the construction sector. The identified academic literature argues that the main causes of the escalation of disagreements over delay assessments from contract claims into disputes [...] Read more.
Disputes over delay assessments are costly, persistent, prevalent worldwide, often funded by taxpayers, and negatively impact productivity in the construction sector. The identified academic literature argues that the main causes of the escalation of disagreements over delay assessments from contract claims into disputes (or factors) are objective factors, particularly unavailability and/or inadequacy of relevant project data. However, those findings are not based on comprehensive investigations of all factors involved, employing research methodologies that rely upon real-life project data. This article contributes to the fulfilment of the aforementioned knowledge gap. Published literature and twenty-one case studies were evaluated to identify the factors. The research findings revealed that although data-related issues were often important factors, they were not the main and/or most frequently identified ones. Subjective factors, including manipulation of programme activity completion dates, reliance on biased assumptions when data is unavailable, misinterpretation of material records, and self-serving delay analysis, were the main factors. The findings suggest that the root cause of this issue is the exploitation of systemic flaws, including the unavailability of good/best practice guidance on assessing the impact of delays, deficient contract provisions, inadequate impartiality, divergent priority of interests, unexploited technologies, and the confidential nature of dispute resolution methods. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the CIB WBC 2025—Sustainable Development and the Built Environment: Legal Challenges and Opportunities)
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22 pages, 704 KB  
Article
Good Practice Guidance for Selecting Delay Analysis Methods
by Vasil Angelov Atanasov
Buildings 2026, 16(4), 831; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16040831 - 19 Feb 2026
Viewed by 682
Abstract
The appropriateness of delay analysis methods (DAMs) has been at the core of disagreements over delay assessments during the past decades. Delay experts continue to disagree over their suitability while not offering best or good practice guidance. Scholars are critical of their performance [...] Read more.
The appropriateness of delay analysis methods (DAMs) has been at the core of disagreements over delay assessments during the past decades. Delay experts continue to disagree over their suitability while not offering best or good practice guidance. Scholars are critical of their performance while not proposing pragmatically superior DAMs. Judges do not deal with this issue while insisting that the parties should accept the DAMs and indicating that the DAMs should be accurate, effective, and harmonized with contracts. However, the parties are heavily reliant on expert advice and model agreements, which do not offer adequate delay analysis terms, although contract terms are not only well-established legal instruments but also a requisite for clear risk allocation and certainty. While the need for an effective DAM selection model in this context is obvious, such a model has not been offered. Instead, guidance on a set of endorsed DAMs has been provided, but legal systems continue to generate disputes over delay assessments. This paper evaluates published literature and contributes to the fulfilment of this knowledge gap by offering a DAM selection model that is based on six recognized DAMs and is instrument-based, precision-oriented, impartial, effective, and coordinated with legal systems and construction contracts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the CIB WBC 2025—Sustainable Development and the Built Environment: Legal Challenges and Opportunities)
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21 pages, 798 KB  
Article
Early Settlements of Construction Disputes in Public Projects: An Archetype for Reducing Disagreements over Delay Assessments
by Vasil Angelov Atanasov
Buildings 2026, 16(3), 597; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16030597 - 1 Feb 2026
Viewed by 853
Abstract
This study aims to improve early settlements of construction delay disputes via contract claims procedures. The research method includes the evaluation of twenty-one case studies, academic and grey literature and case law concerning disagreements over delay assessments. The results reveal the two primary [...] Read more.
This study aims to improve early settlements of construction delay disputes via contract claims procedures. The research method includes the evaluation of twenty-one case studies, academic and grey literature and case law concerning disagreements over delay assessments. The results reveal the two primary root causes of the escalations of such disagreements from contract claims into disputes, including the fact that legal systems do not offer best or good practice guidance on delay analysis methods, and construction agreements infrequently ensure contractual certainty and a clear risk allocation for the measurement and management of delays. The proposed archetype provides (i) a useful analytical framework that enhances the construction and legal professionals’ understanding of dispute causation and (ii) an integrated solution that incorporates contractual and procedural reforms and technological solutions, ensuring the production and distribution of reliable source materials, mechanisms that improve contractual certainty, and a reduction in the data repositories and the professionals currently involved in the assessment of delays. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the CIB WBC 2025—Sustainable Development and the Built Environment: Legal Challenges and Opportunities)
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13 pages, 218 KB  
Article
The Reliability of Expert Evidence in Construction Litigation: Towards Institutional Reliability
by Andrew Agapiou
Buildings 2025, 15(23), 4215; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15234215 - 21 Nov 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1249
Abstract
This article examines the institutional reliability of expert evidence in construction litigation in England and Wales. Drawing on doctrinal analysis, practitioner interviews, and comparative evaluation of Australia, Singapore, and international arbitration, it argues that reliability should be understood not as an ethical virtue [...] Read more.
This article examines the institutional reliability of expert evidence in construction litigation in England and Wales. Drawing on doctrinal analysis, practitioner interviews, and comparative evaluation of Australia, Singapore, and international arbitration, it argues that reliability should be understood not as an ethical virtue of individual experts but as a systemic property of evidentiary governance. Despite the procedural safeguards of Part 35 of the Civil Procedure Rules, expert independence remains undermined by adversarial incentives, methodological inconsistency, limited judicial capacity, and weak enforcement. Comparative models demonstrate that concurrent evidence, expert accreditation, and structured judicial oversight can effectively realign procedural incentives with epistemic integrity. The article proposes four interdependent reforms—accreditation, methodological standardisation, judicial capacity-building, and feedback-based oversight—to embed reliability as a procedural norm within the Technology and Construction Court. By reframing reliability as an institutional obligation rather than a moral aspiration, the study contributes to wider debates on evidentiary governance, procedural justice, and the regulation of expertise in technologically complex adjudication. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the CIB WBC 2025—Sustainable Development and the Built Environment: Legal Challenges and Opportunities)
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