The design of effective policies for the promotion of sustainable construction materials

This research explores the associated effects of policy tools employed to promote sustainable building materials. By comparing the original motivations and intended effects of these policies and their actual outcome, and subsequently understanding the reasons behind any disparities between them, we suggest ways by which future policy planning can be improved. This research is based on seven detailed case studies. They cover the applications of virgin material taxes in Denmark and Sweden, forest management and biodiversity legislations in United States' Northwest and its coupling economic adjustment initiative, legislations/public outreach/demonstration projects on the use of substitute fuels for cement manufacturing in United States and the United Kingdom, and economic incentives to promote afforestation/reforestation in Chile. Each of these cases is attended by negative, unanticipated outcomes. By analyzing these outcomes, we observe that a negative and unanticipated policy outcome occurs when a sustainability indicator/issue is either completely ignored by policymakers, or the policymakers fail to identify intrinsic but inconspicuous links between seemingly disparate indicators.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Kua, Harn Wei, 1971-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John Fernandez and Nicholas Ashford.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/37266
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/37266

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37266