A SWOT analysis of successful construction waste management

A SWOT analysis of successful construction waste management
Hongping Yuan
School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Jin Niu District, Chengdu, Sichuan 610031, China
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 27 July 2011
Received in revised form
6 August 2012
Accepted 15 August 2012
Available online 31 August 2012
Keywords:
SWOT analysis
Construction waste management
Strategy
China
a b s t r a c t
Recent years have witnessed a significant amount of construction waste as a result of rapid urbanization
and large scale of construction activities in China. However, compared to many advanced western
countries, very few studies have been carried out for investigating the construction waste management
problems in China. This study, by conducting a strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat (SWOT)
analysis, aims to help understand the status quo of construction waste management based on the
particular context of Shenzhen city in south China. Data supporting the analysis are derived from
multiple channels including governmental reports, waste management related regulations, literature
review, and focus group meetings. The study opens a window through which major stakeholders
involved can perceive the internal and external conditions of construction waste management in
Shenzhen. The seven critical strategies, which are presented based on the SWOTs identified, could be
useful for Shenzhen to develop and promote its future construction waste management at the strategic
level.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Construction waste has nowadays become a grievous problem
in China due to the significant amount of construction activities on
one hand and the poor construction waste management (CWM) on
the other. While pursuing and maintaining a high speed of
economy development, infrastructure and building construction
has been playing an essential role in the Chinese arena. Particularly,
in 2008, China proposed an investment plan for coping with the
economic problems caused by the World Financial Crisis of 2008. In
line with the program, a total amount of 4000 billion CNY
(1 US$ ¼ 6.3 CNY) was launched to stimulate the development of
national economy from 2008 to 2010. In the investment, around
2500 billion CNY (accounting for 62.5%) was used for implementing
construction projects, typically including development of infra-
structure, railway, highway and road, airport, hydraulic engineering
projects, and post-disaster rehabilitation for Wenchuan earth-
quake. Undoubtedly, the implementation of these projects leads to
a large volume of construction waste generated throughout the
country.
Nevertheless, practices of CWM and application of low-waste
construction technologies in the Chinese construction sector are
still at a lower level compared to those of some advanced countries,
such as USA, UK and Australia (Lu and Yuan, 2010). The poor
management of construction waste in China can be attributable to
various aspects. For example, there is a lack of precise and detailed
CWM related regulations that contractors can actually follow.
Consideration for environmental management issues including
CWM is not a priority when undertaking construction projects.
Industry stakeholders generally lack awareness about construction
waste minimization or environmental protection. Most of Chinese
construction projects do not have detailed waste management
plans at the project level. Construction waste generated on-site is
by and large poorly managed. Furthermore, the local government
does not launch long-run schemes with respect to construction
waste disposal especially for landfill planning and construction (Lu
and Yuan, 2010; Wang et al., 2011). All these problems demonstrate
a pressing appeal for the need to ameliorate current CWM practices
in order to minimize construction waste in China.
During the last decade, construction waste issues in China have
attracted significant attention from researchers, thus resulting in
a number of research outcomes published in various academic
journals. These outcomes witnessed clearly an increasing concern
about construction waste problems demonstrated by the academic
community. Nonetheless, it seems that the government and the
majority of industry stakeholders paid relatively less attention to
these problems. Meanwhile, although existing literature covers
a wide range of topics in relation to CWM, such as measures for
reducing construction waste, on-site construction waste sorting,
construction waste recycling and disposal, forecasting regional
construction waste generation through development of variousE-mail address: [e-mail].
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Journal of Cleaner Production 39 (2013) 1e8

quantitative models (Wang et al., 2011; Hao et al., 2007; Formoso
et al., 2002), there is limited research that can be used to assist in
strategically planning CWM in a given region.
Generally, strategic analysis and planning of CWM at the
regional level can contribute to CWM practices of a particular
region in three major dimensions. Firstly, it allows the government
and industry stakeholders to further their understanding of current
CWM situation in the region under study. Secondly, it enables the
identification of main problems that are faced by the construction
industry, based on which effective measures can be presented for
improvements. Finally, the analytic results can be useful informa-
tion to guide the development of CWM in the region in both the
short- and long-run. Therefore, this study aims at analyzing CWM
at the regional level in China. A SWOT (Strength, Weakness,
Opportunity and Threat) analysis approach is employed to achieve
the purpose. The analysis is based on an empirical investigation of
CWM in Shenzhen city of south China.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 is
an introduction of the research methodology adopted; Section 3 is
a thorough SWOT analysis of CWM in Shenzhen; Section 4 is
a framework incorporating seven critical strategies that can be used
to help address the CWM problems in the region; and finally we
draw the main conclusions.
2. Research methodology
The key tool used for strategically planning CWM in Shenzhen is
a SWOT analysis approach, which originates from the business
management discipline and has been widely applied to a broad
array of disciplines. For example, by using the method, Halla (2007)
conducted a strategic urban development planning based on the
case of Dar es Salaam city in Tanzania and concluded that the
method is stronger than the procedural or master-planning
approach in planning cities. Recently, a SWOT analysis on envi-
ronmental management in Greek mining and mineral industry was
carried out by Nikolaou and Evangelinos (2010); the authors
claimed that the results could facilitate improved environmental
performance. In the discipline of waste management, an investi-
gation on formulating strategic action plans for municipal solid
waste management in Lucknow was performed; the study adopted
a research method of integrating stakeholder analysis into SWOT
analysis and presented a set of concrete strategic action plans for
both the community and municipal corporation to improve solid
waste management in that region (Srivastava et al., 2005). It is
evidently demonstrated by those studies that the SWOT analysis
approach is a better tool for investigating problems from a strategic
perspective. Thus it is adopted in the present study to strategically
analyze CWM in Shenzhen.
The research methodology used consists mainly of four parts,
which is shown in Fig. 1. In the first part, the latest status quo of
CWM in Shenzhen is introduced in detail by referring to informa-
tion collected from two sources: one is a thorough search and
examination of related government reports, CWM related regula-
tions and studies; the other is through consulting the government
department staff that are responsible for construction waste plan-
ning and management. Next, a group of research questions are
formulated aiming at diagnosing the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats of CWM in Shenzhen. In the third part,
a detailed SWOT analysis is performed based on the research
questions developed. Answers to those questions are abstracted
through analyzing information obtained from a series of focus
group meetings with major stakeholders concerned, which mainly
include government department staff, project developers,
contractors, on-site managers and engineers, and construction
waste contractors. The surveyed government staff are from the
Shenzhen Housing and Construction Bureau and responsible for
construction waste management in the region. Other stakeholders
surveyed have been involved in various construction projects and
CWM activities in the past years, and thus they are knowledgeable
about the CWM practices in Shenzhen. Four focus group meetings
are carried out in 2011 and 2012, and each lasts 40e50 min. The
main justification for involving the above stakeholders in the
focus group meeting is that they have a relatively in-depth
understanding of the CWM practices in Shenzhen. Although other
stakeholders’ opinions (such as workers) might be useful in
understanding construction waste problems, their viewpoints
largely focus on CWM issues at the project level instead of the
regional level. Given that the major aim of this study is to investi-
gate Shenzhen’s CWM practices from a strategic perspective, CWM
issues at the regional level should be the focal point. At last, based
on the SWOTs identified, recommendations for improving the
CWM situation in Shenzhen are presented in line with the principle
of ‘maximizing strengths and opportunities, transforming weak-
nesses to strengths, and minimizing threats’.
3. SWOT analysis of CWM in Shenzhen
3.1. Situation of CWM in Shenzhen
Shenzhen is a coastal city located in southern China adjacent to
Hong Kong. It was established as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in
1980 under China’s ‘open door’ policy. For many years before China
officially adopted a market economy, Shenzhen was the experimental
zone for China’s serial economic reforms. During the past two decades,
Shenzhen’s economy has developed rapidly transforming itself from
a small fishing village into a modern 1952 km2 city with a population
of around 8.46 million. In 2008, Shenzhen’s Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) was about 780.65 billion CNY with the value of the construction
sector accounting for 19.75 billion CNY or 2.5% of that value (NBS,
2009). It was also reported in the statistics that the completed floor
space of residential buildings, office buildings, commercial buildings
and industrial buildings in 2008 was 22.10 billion m2
, 2.02 billion m2
,
3.46 billion m2 and 5.18 billion m2
, respectively (NBS, 2009).
The large-scale construction activities that occurred in Shenzhen
have produced an overwhelming amount of construction waste.
Fig. 1. Research methodology.
H. Yuan / Journal of Cleaner Production 39 (2013) 1e82

According to the Shenzhen Environmental Protection Department,
the total volume of construction waste generated from building
projects in 2005 was approximately 6 million tons, which is an average
of about 17,000 tons per day (Li, 2006). According to an extensive site
survey of building construction, renovation and demolition projects
throughout Shenzhen, it is estimated by the Shenzhen Housing and
Construction Bureau that the proportion of waste generated from new
construction projects, waste from old building demolition and waste
generation due to building renovation is 43.6%, 46% and 10.4%,
respectively. It is also found that the major components of construc-
tion waste include concrete (slightly above 60%), mortar (14e16%),
brick (8e11%), metal (approximate 5%) and other mixed construc-
tion materials (SHCB, 2011). At present, the main means for disposing
of construction waste in Shenzhen is landfilling. Otherwise, the
generated construction waste would be dumped at some unautho-
rized areas, which would burden the environment and society a lot.
Moreover, the major concern in construction projects has been given
to some traditional project objectives such as cost, quality, duration,
safety rather than environment. There is therefore a big room for
improving its current CWM practice.
Similar to CWM practices in other regions, various stakeholders
are involved in the entire process of CWM in Shenzhen. The stake-
holders can be generally categorized into two groupings. One
grouping is mostly profit-oriented, mainly comprising project
developers, contractors, on-site managers and engineers, workers
and waste contractors, while the other grouping concerns much more
about the adverse impacts causing by construction waste, which
mainly encompasses related government department staff, the
general public, and related NGOs (Yuan and Shen, 2011). Since the
CWM in Shenzhen is almost at a relatively low level, it is difficult to
profit from managing construction waste at this point. This leads to
a fact that most profit-oriented stakeholders are reluctant to manage
construction waste. At present, promotion of CWM in Shenzhen
merely relies on the government’s efforts. Although the awareness of
the local government about CWM has been increasing these years, the
awareness of industry stakeholders and the general public is still low.
3.2. Formulation of research questions
The main research questions developed for performing the
focus group meeting are presented and explained below.
Q1: What are the strengths of Shenzhen when implementing
CWM?
The first question is concerned with identifying major strengths
of Shenzhen in implementing CWM. Specifically, the participants
might be asked questions like:
 What are the advantages when Shenzhen wants to promote
construction waste minimization and management?
 What are the factors enabling Shenzhen to be a strong
competitor in managing construction waste?
Q2: What are the weaknesses when Shenzhen performs CWM?
This question aims to identify the weaknesses that Shenzhen
might have in developing CWM. During the focus group meeting,
the participants were requested to express their opinions on
questions such as:
 What could be improved when promoting CWM?
 What is not done properly when implementing CWM?
 What obstacles prevent the promotion of CWM in Shenzhen?
 Which aspects as to CWM need to be strengthened?
Q3: What are the opportunities that Shenzhen can exploit to
develop CWM?
This question is intended to acquire information about what
opportunities Shenzhen might externally face in the future when
developing CWM. The question can be further explained by some
questions listed as follows:
 What chances that Shenzhen can take advantage of to promote
CWM would occur?
 What benefits would occur to facilitate an improved CWM in
Shenzhen?
Q4: What are the threats that Shenzhen might face when
developing CWM?
This question examines the threats that would prevent Shenz-
hen from improving its CWM situation. Similar questions include:
 What are the external obstacles that Shenzhen might face
when developing CWM?
 Are the supporting facilities for an improved CWM situation
available?
3.3. SWOT analysis of CWM in Shenzhen
SWOT analysis of CWM helps further the understanding about
both the external and internal conditions that Shenzhen would face
when developing CWM. Particularly, the internal conditions are
related to the strengths and weaknesses and the external condi-
tions refer to the opportunities and threats. A blow-by-blow
account of these SWOTs (see Table 1) identified from results of
the focus group meeting is provided below.
3.3.1. Strengths
3.3.1.1. S1: geographic location. As previously mentioned, Shenz-
hen is located in south China and adjacent to Hong Kong. In terms
of managing construction waste, the Hong Kong government has
realized the pressing need of preventing construction waste since
the 1980s and thus implemented a series of regulations for mini-
mizing the waste generated. Over the last two decades, the amount
of construction waste produced in Hong Kong has been reduced
significantly, from 8450 tons per day in 1990e3121 tons per day in
2009 (HKEPD, 2009, 1997). This is largely due to the increasing
effectiveness of CWM related regulations implemented in Hong
Kong for dealing with construction waste problems. In the process
of practicing those regulations, the Hong Kong government has
gained and accumulated lots of practical experience in how to
manage construction waste effectively.
Table 1
Results of SWOT analysis on CWM in Shenzhen.
Internal conditions External conditions
Strengths Opportunities
 S1: geographic location;  O1: special status as a SEZ;
 S2: strong awareness of the local
government about promoting CWM;
 O2: appeal for reducing construc-
tion waste in the country;
 S3: a leading role in promulgating
CWM related regulations in China.
 O3: extensive supports from
government and industry
associations.
Weaknesses Threats
 W1: incomplete CWM related
regulations;
 T1: limited landfills for receiving
construction waste;
 W2: low percentage of on-site waste
sorting;
 T2: low charge for landfilling
construction waste;
 W3: poor construction waste
reduction;
 T3: immature market for construc-
tion waste recycling;
 W4: lack of systemic planning of
construction waste recycling
facilities.
 T4: insufficient funds for support-
ing CWM research.
H. Yuan / Journal of Cleaner Production 39 (2013) 1e8 3