Net Zero and Productivity in Construction: Why do builders do what they do?

Alice Owen’s recent research collaboration with Niamh Murtagh (UCL) and Kate Simpson (Nottingham Trent University) revealed the motivations that drive builders’ decision making, especially when working on existing buildings. Why, or why not, do they consider carbon and climate issues in their work? Small firms dominate construction work carried out on existing houses, so they hold the key to transforming homes for net zero but carbon reduction just doesn’t align with their decision making criteria at the moment. There’s more information in a blog posted last summer and also in Chapter 11 “Understanding what shapes pro-environmental behaviours in small construction firms” of the just published Routledge Handbook on Environmental Change.