Roles of key stakeholders in delivering net zero carbon building: a fuzzy cognitive mapping approach

Net Zero Carbon Building (NZCB) has drawn substantial attention to effectively reduce carbon emissions. To intrinsically realise Net Zero Carbon (NZC) in the building sector, key stakeholder involvement is crucial. However, it is unclear how these stakeholders would assist in achieving NZC in the building sector. To fill this gap, this study investigates the key stakeholder roles in achieving NZCB in Australia through a questionnaire survey. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences was adopted for the statistical data analyses for the key stakeholder roles in achieving NZCB. While the Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) technique was employed to map and analyse the stakeholder roles. 10 key stakeholders were identified to assist in realising NZCB. 5 out of 28 stakeholder roles were revealed in this study as the most significant in achieving NZCB. Specifically, the findings of this study show that the role of the key stakeholder is pivotal in all NZCB stages but predominant in the preconstruction, construction, operation and maintenance stages. By employing FCM, this study enhances the body of knowledge by developing a novel causal-relationship model of stakeholder roles in NZCB. The most influential stakeholder roles determined from the “what-IF” scenario features of the FCM would assist policymakers and decision-makers in developing efficacious policies to expedite the development of NZCB. Finally, the limitation of this study is that results obtained from the FCM could be influenced by the stakeholder's attributes. Future research should explore how stakeholder attributes could influence stakeholders' roles in delivering NZCB.