Optimising Industry Sustainability for a Future-Ready Built Environment

Dear Colleagues,

The construction industry is under growing pressure to address its environmental, social, and economic impacts. Optimising sustainability in the built environment more than regulatory compliance—it demands a holistic transformation across the entire construction industry. This involves embedding sustainable strategies, fostering innovation, and aligning stakeholder objectives with broader sustainability goals.

Sustainability optimisation calls for a systemic shift across research, industry, and policy cultures—particularly in enabling a future-ready global construction industry that is resilient, inclusive, and environmentally responsible. From a macro perspective, the primary research points include the following:

1. Sustainability and productivity—balancing long-term goals with construction efficiency.
2. Sustainability and resilience—ensuring that projects adapt to future challenges.
3. Sustainability and governance—promoting transparent and inclusive decision-making.
4. Sustainability and innovation—leveraging new materials, methods, and technologies.
5. Sustainability and affordability—ensuring access and equity in sustainable solutions.
6. Sustainability and survivability—aligning long-term goals with short-term stakeholder needs.
7. Environmental and economic sustainability—supporting growth without degrading the environment.
8. Social and economic sustainability—advancing equity and opportunity.
9. Context-appropriate and place-based sustainability—tailoring solutions to specific cultural, social, economic, and technological conditions.

The editing team invites researchers, practitioners, professionals, and policymakers to showcase their thoughts, applications, studies, developments, innovations, findings, experiences, recommendations, and other issues.

Some papers will be collected from the 48th Australasian Universities Building Education Association (AUBEA) International Conference (https://www.canberra.edu.au/about-uc/events/aubea-2025).

Dr. Xiancun Hu
Prof. Dr. Dalin Zeng
Dr. Yuting Chen
Guest Editors

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