A knowledge-driven management approach to environmental-conscious construction

This paper aims to introduce a knowledge-based managemental prototype entitled E+ for environmental-conscious construction relied on an integration of current environmental management tools in construction area. The overall objective of developing the E+ prototype is to facilitate selectively reusing the retrievable knowledge in construction engineering and management areas assembled from previous projects for the best practice in environmental-conscious construction. The methodologies adopted in previous and ongoing research related to the development of the E+ belong to the operations research area and the information technology area, including literature review, questionnaire survey and interview, statistical analysis, system analysis and development, experimental research and simulation, and so on. The content presented in this paper includes an advanced E+ prototype, a comprehensive review of environmental management tools integrated to the E+ prototype, and an experimental case study of the implementation of the E+ prototype. It is expected that the adoption and implementation of the E+ prototype can effectively facilitate contractors to improve their environmental performance in the lifecycle of projectbased construction and to reduce adverse environmental impacts due to the deployment of various engineering and management processes at each construction stage.