Is building construction approaching the threshold of becoming unsustainable? A system theoretic exploration towards a post-Forrester model for taming unsustainable exponentialoids.

摘要

The construction industry is a major contributor to emissions and pollution and is a main world resource consumer (prime matter, energy, labor, capital). Because of this, the industry is formulating short and long-term sustainability targets. Europe has issued long-term objectives that will require huge adaptations of the industry. The US is slow to adopt a similar agenda, but will soon realize that voluntary incentive programs such as LEED, all of the presently conceived conservation, green and high-performance sustainable measures and Carbon Trading strategies, that even if adopted globally, are vastly insufficient to achieve the 'necessary targets' in a timely manner. The problem starts with the need for understanding what is meant by 'necessary targets.';The dissertation starts with a verification of the global challenges that face the industry. Given its projected growth in resource consumption and emissions generation in response to global population growth and improving standards of living, it will be shown that these trends point towards an unsustainable future for both resource consumption and emissions generation. The trends are analyzed in the form of so-called "exponentialoids1" as introduced by Garcia Bacca (1989). It is shown that the industry will become unsustainable within the next 75 years unless substantial reductions in emissions and resource depletions can be effectuated, or, in other words, the exponentialoids can be tamed. The 'necessary targets' are understood in this dissertation as unsustainable exponentialoid growth.;There are no reliable studies that predict whether the required reductions in ecological impacts can actually be realized, and if so, on what time scale. In fact, currently no available system representations of the industry can serve as the basis for studying long-term sustainability through the twenty-first Century. It is articulated that we live in a post Forrester era in which hard dynamic systems are no longer accepted as adequate representations to study the dynamics of complex systems such as economies and industry sectors. Uncertainties, capacity for self-organization, adaptability, inventions, economic conditions, entrepreneurship, the role of regulations, etc. call for system thinking which is not based on reductionism but analyzes complexity (Lewin 1993) to its full extent, in order to construct a novel "worldview2" of the industry. The dissertation argues that such a worldview requires a philosophical induction (a theory) of the nature of all the forces that move the industry and a mechanism for understanding how complex forces aggregate and affect an exponentialoid.;The answers provide an articulation of the complexity of the construction industry. They expose the shortfalls of current research models inspired on Forrester's (1971) work and his followers as a way to prepare the grounds for a heuristic/theoretical new approach to complex problems. (Abstract shortened by UMI.);1The term exponentialoid is used to denote a force with multiple and complex sources. Exponentialoid is a key term encompassing major concepts that is further elaborated and expanded in collateral material presented in the appendices such as Appendix I The nature of Exponentialoids. 2Worldview definition adopted from the McGraw-Hill Online Learning Center of the Central Connecticut State University, found in http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072549238/student_view0/glossary.html : The collective interpretation of and response to the natural and cultural environments in which a group of people lives. Their assumptions about those environments and the values derived from those assumptions. Other terms that encompasses the concepts of worldview to some degree or another are: paradigm and mindset. According to Popper a worldview is a subjective state, consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously present which filters or frames the way reality is perceived. Popper's method of analysis will be expanded later on.