Cleaner Technology Changes in the Danish Construction Industry

Major changes are facing the Danish construction sector due to new environmental demands posed on the sector. Although the majority of actors within the Danish construction sector hitherto have regarded the construction activities as environmentally unproblematic, a change has occured in the past years. The enormous amount of waste generated, the use of environmental damaging products, substances and materials, the use of large amounts of natural resources like energy, water and materials and tough working conditions have been questioned by many actors. There is now a growing awareness of the potential environmental threats and a growing will to change the current situation. With the latest action programmes from the Danish government with respect to waste, recycling and cleaner technology, the Danish construction sector is faced with governmental demands of reducing the amount and hazardousness of the waste and recycling at least 60% of the generated building waste in the year 2000. However, most of the actors within the construction sector are unprepared for this environmental conversion. Thus, there is a strong need to get a closer understanding of this conversion process to ensure that the environmental goals are met and the working conditions are improved.
The Ph.D.-project has an empirical as well as a theoretical orientation. The empirical object of the dissertation is:
· to describe and analyze the development of an environmental design tool for construction activities
· to discuss the former development of environmental planning models of construction as well as to discuss the policy implications for further develop-ment of environmental analysis models
The theoretical aim of the disssertation is:
· to discuss the constitution of power in socio-technical constructution processes
· to discuss the possibilities of using the social-constructivist approach to actively manage technological changes