Evaluating the Awareness of Designing Out Waste in Construction: A Lean–Green Synergy

The construction industry generates millions of tons of material waste annually throughout a project’s life cycle. In Lebanon, one million tons of Construction and Demolition Waste were generated during the years 2009 and 2010. To support organizations in enhancing their environmental efficiency, the Green paradigm has emerged. Such a paradigm can be complemented with the Lean management approach paving the way for a Lean-Green synergy. This synergy is based on the alignment of the two approaches on the need to minimize waste, in its different forms, as well as maximize stakeholder value; the client, and the environment. As such, this paper introduces the concept of the Design out Waste (DoW) approach. This approach aims to improve the sustainability aspect of a project, throughout its lifecycle and starting from the early design phase, supported by Lean tools and principles. Specifically, the aim of this paper is to investigate the current state and examine the level of awareness of implementing DoW principles in the Lebanese construction industry through conducting surveys. The survey results showed a low level of awareness of the DoW approach among practitioners in Lebanon with little attention given to waste minimization when making decisions.