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Construction clients as drivers of change? How communities filter institutional pressures for sustainability

A. de Gier,Stefan Christoffer Gottlieb,N. Frederiksen

Published 2025 in Construction Management and Economics

ABSTRACT

Abstract In recent years, global environmental health has rapidly degraded, making sustainability a common objective. In industries associated with significant CO2 emissions, this has prompted increased legislative efforts to coerce and incentivize companies to act. The construction industry, however, faces challenges in reducing its environmental impact due to its fragmented and decentralized structure. For this reason, construction clients have been identified as potential drivers of change, yet their ability to do so remains understudied. Drawing on institutional theory and qualitative methods, we examine how public, private, and social housing clients in Denmark respond to emerging sustainability pressures and explore how community affiliation influences these responses. Our findings reveal that different client communities filter sustainability demands differently, resulting in both converging and diverging organizational responses within the field. Despite field heterogeneity, sustainability initiatives often align with dominant community logics, resulting in the formation of islands of homogeneity. Additionally, we highlight the role of structural and governance elements, such as certification schemes and legislation, in shaping field dynamics. On this basis, we encourage future research to explore sources of isomorphic pressures and the consequences of organizational responses at the field level to provide more nuanced understandings of institutional change within the construction industry.

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