Interstitial emergence for green building: the emergence of Green Building Practices and Assessment Schemes

Abstract

The overall progress towards sustainability in the built environment has been repeatedly criticized for being slow, patchy and failing to have any significant impact. Over the past 20 years, a myriad of environmental assessment schemes have emerged to aid the adoption of green building practices in the construction industry. While these schemes have been touted as steering the drive towards sustainability, the framing of the concept ' green building ' has been criticized for not resonating with industry professionals; with a chasm existing between practices codified in schemes and what is technically possible and expedient. This paper sets out to explore the emergence of building environmental assessment schemes-how they are created and developed, and which actors influence the contents. The point of departure is that how assessment schemes are developed affects the content, and in turn various actors' ability and willingness to engage with them. Drawing on the field-based theory proposed by Fligstein and McAdam and the concept of interstitial emergence, we explain how green building practices have emerged in the building industry. We explain how a field/interstice for green building has appeared as industry actors engaged in various strategic actions in response to the budding green building movement. As this field emerges, and actors begin to make sense of the green building concept, various frames, templates or guidelines are developed to codify emerging new practices. The fluidity of the green building concept and the heterogeneous nature of professional practices means that actors may have varied conceptualizations of green building. The challenge in the development of assessment schemes is, thus, the operationalization of the concept 'green building' to resonate with the various professional actors in the industry. We posit that the development of schemes must consider issues of cognitive and normative legitimacy in order to garner the support of professional actors. We conclude by making a case for the need to empirically explore the role of industry professionals and other actors in the establishment of Building Environmental Assessment Methods (BEAMs).