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The review of the three categories of literature reveals three common needs toward more integrated, holistic and participatory approaches in addressing stakeholder mutual benefits for sustainable housing implementation. These three needs direct the establishment of the research objectives in Chapter 1. They revolve around the two-fold investigation of collaborative theories in sustainable housing implementation: (1) establishing the “consensus” on critical factors of sustainable

housing development; and (2) developing the “collaborative and communicative”

actions based on balanced stakeholder needs to convey the consensus knowledge.

These three needs are set out in more detail as follows.

2.5.1 Gap in Common Understanding of the Challenges to Achieving Sustainability Benefits and their Mutual Influences

Although a large amount of international work has identified benefits and factors affecting the implementation of sustainable housing, they mostly focused on the overall drivers and barriers of sustainable housing development. There has been little literature that examines the linkage between their overall factors and how they affect stakeholder benefits. Moreover, limited exploration of the mutual influences of the overall factors leads to a lack of guidance for the actions of stakeholders. This is because the dimensions of sustainable value exceed the traditional boundaries, requiring consideration of external factors such as the softened format of input and output of corporations. Confronted with a complex system with systemic causes and effects, neither the commonly identified “top 3” factors nor the “checklist” is adequate to clarify the layers of driving forces and priorities. In fact, random, excessive and sometimes convoluted factors could in contrast obstruct the joint endeavour.

The above issue deserves more scrutiny to identify the challenges for stakeholders to achieve benefits from sustainable housing development, and understand the mutual influence (driving power and dependence) between factors affecting stakeholder benefits. This discussion about what influences stakeholders’

benefits from sustainability and how to prioritise and tackle the challenges will provide the basis for establishing common knowledge and developing a shared vision of sustainable collaboration and benefits; this, in turn, will supplement the application of collaborative theories in sustainable housing development on the first

“consensus” or “common” level.

2.5.2 Gap in Employing Comparative Study to Examine Multiple Stakeholders’

Perceptions on Benefits and Roles

The second gap concerns the imperative to establish collaborative theories in sustainable housing development on the further “collaborative” or “done by each toward the others” level. Currently, there has been little focus on the diverse perceptions of sustainability benefits and roles in the housing supply chain.

Woodhead et al. (2009) pointed out that the key challenges when working with messy problems are: differing stakeholder and related various societal expectations, unquestioned assumptions, and misaligned policies and incentives. A successful delivery of a housing project entails the participation of government agencies, developers, builders, architects, engineers, financial institutions, real estate agents, and homebuyers. Confronted with the complex decision-making situations of sustainability, key stakeholders often lack the willingness to balance benefits, burdens and long-term goals, and to take the other’s perspective and reconcile differences. This creates asymmetry of information and knowledge concerning sustainable building, and asymmetry of costs and benefits in this area (Barlow &

Ozaki, 2003; Laffont & Martimort, 2002). As a result, the stakeholders, particularly housing industry practitioners, individually claim to support the notion of green buildings but each say they lack the power to change the marketplace (Sayce, 2007).

In fact, no single stakeholder or entity can control the issue or determine its outcome.

Stakeholders closely depend on one another for the realisation of their individual needs and goals.

For these reasons, more research is needed about the diverse perspectives, similarities and differences of stakeholders’ roles, work process, and benefit flows from engaging in sustainable housing via a comparative analysis. This process to engage multiple actors in jointly diagnosing problems and exploring solutions is essential in achieving a commonly agreed guideline and a win-win situation using dynamic supply chain collaboration.

2.5.3 Gap in Consolidating Existing Policies and Potential Collaborative Actions with a Systematic Framework

Upon the examination of stakeholder mutual benefits on two dimensions of collaborative theories, a practical framework to guide stakeholder actions in operational terms needs to be further established. Margerum (2002) argued that “a collaborative approach tens to emphasize a holistic approach that gives equal weight to a range of objectives”. Therefore, the criterion for collaborative planning should not be how to create one dominant policy response but to integrate a range of policy responses to address common goals and balance mutual needs. It should factoring in the interactions between the solutions, and systemises existing and potential

strategies, so everyone’s needs and preferences will be considered rather than

“averaged out”, and thus stakeholder-specific solutions can be created.

2.6 SUMMARY

This chapter examines the extant research on the current unproductive situation in which many believe that promoting housing sustainability and running a successful business are mutually exclusive. The research question is identified: how sustainable housing provides heterogeneous stakeholders their specific benefits and interests using the dynamic nature of the housing supply chain and sustainability, instead of being hindered by the nature. The research therefore highlights the importance of establishing a framework for mainstreaming sustainable housing, which could demonstrate the highest degree of mutual benefits, or multi-win situation, via a synergy of key stakeholders in a dynamic supply chain. The research design is outlined in detail in Chapter 3.