Proposal of New Indicators for Assessing Sustainability in Industrialised Construction

The construction sector is undergoing a transformation and has established itself as an approach with the potential to improve the efficiency, quality, and sustainability of building projects. However, their contribution to sustainability is not fully reflected in the evaluation frameworks in use today. These were largely developed within traditional construction models and tend to prioritise the environmental dimension over social and economic ones. Previous studies have highlighted that significant shortcomings exist in the way industrialised construction is represented within the main sustainability assessment frameworks, in particular regarding the benefits associated with controlling the construction process, such as optimised timelines, cost certainty, decreases in unforeseen problems, improved workplace conditions, or the optimisation of logistics. These aspects, closely linked with social and economic sustainability, are seldom assessed explicitly by existing indicators. This article proposes a new set of indicators aimed at specifically assessing how industrialised construction contributes to sustainability in building projects. The proposed indicators are designed to complement the current assessment tools and focus on capturing the advantages gained from production in controlled environments, forward planning and a skilled workforce, paying special attention to economic and social dimensions and controlling the construction process.