Understanding the implementation of net zero carbon buildings: a critical review of the barriers, drivers, stakeholders, and an examination of the underlying interactions

The building sector makes a significant contribution to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide; therefore, reducing this impact is critical. The concept of net-zero carbon building has been suggested as a measure to balance the carbon emissions and uptake associated with a building over its full life cycle. Net-zero carbon buildings are therefore encouraged as an important element of mitigation efforts in the built environment. In practise, their adoption remains slow, with multiple implementation obstacles, leading to a gap between policy aims and real-world action. Existing studies have highlighted key stakeholders involved in achieving net-zero carbon buildings and identified various barriers and enablers, most commonly economic and legislative factors. However, these issues have been treated mostly in isolation, from a primarily categorical approach. Conversely, stakeholders’ underlying interests and concerns, which help shape the perceptions of barriers, have been largely overlooked. This study, through an integrative review and synthesis, proposes how stakeholders’ concerns may shape and cognitively reinforce barriers to net-zero carbon building initiatives. The findings suggest that economic barriers are often linked to a short-term focus on profit and risk aversion, and legislative barriers are linked to perceptions that regulations are overly ambitious or ambiguous in their interpretation. These concerns are not only based on external factors, but they are just as likely to be rooted in uncertainty, concerns about unfairness, and fears of losing influence or skills; as such, they are closely tied to power dynamics, reinforcing existing hierarchies and creating tensions between groups. Without addressing stakeholders’ concerns holistically, key barriers are likely to persist, slowing the adoption and implementation of net-zero carbon buildings on a broader scale.