Sustainability of the economy depends on the reduction of the environmental footprint of the supply and demand as economy relies on the production enabled by natural resources. The construction industry is one of the major industries influencing sustainable and social development. The construction industry and the built environment, however, have important environmental footprints. Therefore, the demand and supply sides in the construction industry must be transformed into more sustainable ones. Furthermore, the principles and emerging concepts of sustainable and innovative economy need to be adopted by the construction industry. Based on an in-depth literature review, this chapter focuses on the integration and impacts of the emerging concepts for the sustainable and innovative economy in the construction industry. This chapter is expected to be useful for academics, graduate and undergraduate students, researchers, policymakers, and construction industry professionals.
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Climate change, caused by the human activities and their production and consumption patterns, resulted in the deterioration of the world’s living conditions [changes in the precipitation rates, increase in the temperature and sea levels, melting ice in the poles as well as increased frequencies and magnitudes of disasters (e.g., floods, hurricanes)]. Climate change’s adverse affects can cause disasters (e.g. floods, etc.) which can destruct the production process and failure in the supply chain. Therefore, managers and business leaders have started to consider climate risk as a business risk in their companies’ investment decisions and in their efforts for enhancing resilience of their supply chain. Furthermore, deteriorated nature causes scarcity in production factors. Humanity’s environmental footprint both with respect to production and consumption patterns needs to be more sustainable so the world’s living conditions can be regenerated. Efforts for reducing environmental footprint of the production processes started to change production patterns. Sustainable production and consumption patterns do not only contribute to the sustainability of the world’s resources, but also to the sustainability of the production and economy due to their dependence on nature for the majority of the production factors. Sustainable development requires achievement of the long–term goals of sustainability: a balanced socio–ecological system (Bibri 2013, 2015; Bibri & Krogstie, 2017, p. 192).
Production and consumption models are being transformed from a linear economy to a circular economy (Yuan et al., 2006; Gómez, González, & Bárcena, 2017) which relies on the cradle-to-cradle cycle principle. Circular economy enables zero waste, synergy among businesses, efficiency in the resource usage, reduction in the environmental footprint, reduction in the costs, and increase in the competitiveness of the participated companies. The circular economy is fostered by the eco-industrial development and eco-industrial parks which are important for the sustainable development and for reducing environmental footprint of the production processes (Sertyesilisik & Sertyesilisik, 2016, p. 6) which ensure circular economy (Gómez, et al., 2017).