Renewable Energy and Sustainable Practices in UK Construction Firms

This dissertation proposal examines the future of renewable energy within the UK construction industry. The proposal outlines the aims and objectives, which include highlighting challenges and opportunities related to implementing renewable energy solutions. A comprehensive literature review explores existing research on the benefits of renewable energy, barriers to adoption, and potential solutions. The methodology involves collecting primary data through interviews with construction company owners and secondary data from journals and articles. The proposal addresses limitations, such as sample size and access to resources, and includes ethical considerations to ensure participant well-being and data confidentiality. A detailed timeframe is provided, outlining the duration for each stage of the project, from the introduction to the conclusion. The proposal concludes by reiterating the importance of renewable energy in the UK construction sector and the potential for sustainable practices. The references include a wide range of academic sources that support the research.

Running head: RENEWABLE ENERGY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
RENEWABLE ENERGY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Name of Student
Name of University
Author’s Note

1RENEWABLE ENERGY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Main body..................................................................................................................................2
Aims and objectives...............................................................................................................2
Literature review....................................................................................................................3
Methodology..........................................................................................................................6
Limitations.............................................................................................................................6
Ethical considerations............................................................................................................7
Timeframe..............................................................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

2RENEWABLE ENERGY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Introduction
Usage of renewable energies in various sectors had been a common factor, whereas in
the UK construction industry, around 60% of the organizations are backing from the
utilization of solutions of renewable energy1. According to various researchers, most of the
firms in the field of construction has a concept that solutions of renewable energy are vital for
the purpose of ensuring their better future. Among them some of the organizations believed
that these solutions are to be adopted for reducing the emission of carbon-di oxide in the
environment. This proposal discusses about the future of renewable energy on UK
construction company.
Main body
Aims and objectives
This particular project describes regarding the renewable energy as well as its future
in the construction companies situated in UK. This project aims in highlighting the issues or
challenges faced by the construction industry within UK in initiating the usage of renewable
energy. It further presents studies presented by various authors in their studies along with the
solutions highlighted by them which could be used for mitigating the issues2. The issues that
had been discussed include the financial support for implementing sustainable practices along
with the contribution of every member within the organization for maintenance of the
practices.
1 Zhang, M. M., P. Zhou, and D. Q. Zhou. "A real options model for renewable energy
investment with application to solar photovoltaic power generation in China." Energy
Economics59 (2016): 213-226.
2 Kammen, Daniel M., and Deborah A. Sunter. "City-integrated renewable energy for urban
sustainability." Science 352, no. 6288 (2016): 922-928.

3RENEWABLE ENERGY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Literature review
According to various researchers, more than 65% of construction organizations have
an idea that usage of renewable energy would help them in attaining competitive advantage in
the field. As per the survey that had been designed for accessing the future requirements of
energy, the decision makers in the industry of construction had cited the utilization of energy
as one of the priorities besides office management and employment3. Besides this, three
among five organizations had agreed with the idea of selling energy, this had further
represented the appetite of the industry for sustainability. As per various researchers, instead
of being the most progressing industry, various construction organizations had faced barriers
when the initiative had been taken for implementing the sustainability change. Various
obstacles had been identified by the researchers, some of these obstacles include cost incurred
in the entire process and the uncertainty on how to approach various teams of senior
management or investors as obstacles for reaching their objectives of sustainability4.
According to numerous researchers, understating the benefits of renewable energy usually
tends to vary from industry to industry, but it has been great to observe the industry of
construction to undertake steps for sustainable future5. It has been imperative that numerous
3 Aflaki, Sam, and Serguei Netessine. "Strategic investment in renewable energy sources: The
effect of supply intermittency." Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 19, no. 3
(2017): 489-507.
4 Cameron, Peter. "International energy investment law: the pursuit of stability." OUP
Catalogue (2017).
5 Mazzucato, Mariana, and Gregor Semieniuk. "Financing renewable energy: Who is
financing what and why it matters." Technological Forecasting and Social Change 127
(2018): 8-22.

4RENEWABLE ENERGY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
enterprises of various sizes had agreed in working together with the energy provider for
implementing numerous changes that would be advantageous to every enterprise. UK had
been facing and is supposed to face in future a huge amount of shortfall in the capacity of
generating electricity. It has been identifies that the demise in coal would continue because
the carbon price of EUETS has been increasing rapidly6. Besides this, the ageing nuclear
power fleet is analysed to be decommissioning by the year of 2035.
As per the commitment made by UK to Paris, gas could not be utilized for the
purpose of filling the gap and there had been various questions regarding if adding up more
bioenergy could be beneficial for the industries7. According to various researchers, the
climate of UK is such that most of the amount of energy that would be required would be
obtained from wind8. In previous ten years, generation of wind in UK had increased to great
extent such that wherever an individual is, he would not be much far from a wind farm.
Besides this, wind is said to be contributing around 41 TWh/yr to the electricity generation of
the country9. Numerous policies that had been implemented within the year of 2012-2016, the
6 Sen, Souvik, and Sourav Ganguly. "Opportunities, barriers and issues with renewable
energy development–A discussion." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 69 (2017):
1170-1181.
7 Donovan, Charles W. Renewable energy finance: powering the future. World Scientific
Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., 2015.
8 Arnold, Uwe, and Özgür Yildiz. "Economic risk analysis of decentralized renewable energy
infrastructures–A Monte Carlo Simulation approach." Renewable Energy 77 (2015): 227-239.
9 Dai, Hancheng, Xuxuan Xie, Yang Xie, Jian Liu, and Toshihiko Masui. "Green growth: The
economic impacts of large-scale renewable energy development in China." Applied
energy 162 (2016): 435-449.

5RENEWABLE ENERGY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
country had faced a turn away from the wind power, this had reflected the popular sentiment.
As per studies, it had been identified that there had been a shift from various fossil fuels to
the sources of renewable energy that is required and had been hampered by various
distortions in the finance and regulation10. The oil as well as gas sector would be regulated in
order to ensure that the production had been increased as well as subsided for making it even
more competitive. The sector of renewable energy would be hamstrung with the help of
planning policy, obtains less amount of support that is financial in nature and is damaged
with the help of inconsistent policy11. These issues would be mitigated by providing a certain
level of playing field, this is because it will be enough for unleashing the ability of the sector
of renewable energy. This will be obtained with the help of removing subsidies from both the
factors and hence grant a certain presumption in the favour of developing to a certain site
which would be suitable for the renewable energy12. According to researchers these are the
popular as well as cheap actions which can be undertaken by organizations present in UK and
would help in the renewable energy to utilize strategies that could help organizations in
achieving its goals for decarbonisation.
10 Kim, Kyung-Taek, Deok Joo Lee, Sung-Joon Park, Yanshuai Zhang, and Azamat Sultanov.
"Measuring the efficiency of the investment for renewable energy in Korea using data
envelopment analysis." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 47 (2015): 694-702.
11 Bauwens, Thomas. "Explaining the diversity of motivations behind community renewable
energy." Energy Policy 93 (2016): 278-290.
12 Iychettira, Kaveri K., Rudi A. Hakvoort, Pedro Linares, and Rob de Jeu. "Towards a
comprehensive policy for electricity from renewable energy: Designing for social
welfare." Applied energy 187 (2017): 228-242.

6RENEWABLE ENERGY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Methodology
The methodology would describe the broad philosophical underpinning to the chosen
methods for the purpose of carrying out the research. The data that would be collected for this
particular research would be primary as well as secondary. Within these data collection
methods the data that would be collected will be qualitative as well as quantitative. Primary
data collection would be done by conducting a particular interview with the owners of certain
construction companies. The number of owners that had been included in the interview are
based on UK and are 12 in number. The data that had been collected from them would be
recorded in tabular format and the entire interview would be recorded in a video format. The
data that is secondary would be obtained from various sources like journals, articles and
books.
Limitations
The limitations of study is bound to be present even if the project is well planned. The
limitation of this particular project is as follows
1. Size of the sample: the sample size must not be too small otherwise it would be tough
to fund significant relation from the information that has been obtained. Sample size
must be such that it ensures the representative data and hence provide a clear
understanding to the audience. The sample size must not be too large as well because
it would consume more time than expected and would have the ability to mislead the
actual results.
2. Lack of research: lack of research has high chances to provide wrong or improper
data. The articles, journals and books are to be chosen such that they are relevant to
the research topic and they present data regarding the industries present in the country

7RENEWABLE ENERGY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
mentioned in the topic13. This is the key point which if missed might provide improper
data and hence the analysis that would be carried out would provide improper results.
besides this, citing the research studies from the basis of the literatures that had been
selected is very important, this would help in laying a foundation for understanding
the research problem that is being investigated.
3. Access to the resources: while carrying out the research, proper access to resources is
very important. The study depends on having proper access to organizations, people,
documents and data, access must be denied in some ways. Approaching to people and
organizations for the purpose of collecting primary data is very important.
Ethical considerations
The ethical considerations that are included within the research are as follows
1. The individuals who have participated in the research must not be subjected to harm
in any way
2. Respect for dignity of the participants of the research must be a priority.
3. Complete consent must be obtained from all the participants before the study is
carried out and the primary data collection is done.
4. The protection of the security of the participants of the research should be ensured.
5. Proper level of confidentiality of the research that has been carried out must be
ensured.
Timeframe
Milestone Time required
13 Dai, Hancheng, Xuxuan Xie, Yang Xie, Jian Liu, and Toshihiko Masui. "Green growth:
The economic impacts of large-scale renewable energy development in China." Applied
energy 162 (2016): 435-449.

8RENEWABLE ENERGY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Introduction 1 week
Aims as well as objectives 1 week
Review of Literature 3 weeks
Methods 1 month 1 week
Limitations 2 weeks
Ethical considerations 1 week
Conclusion 3 weeks
Conclusion
This project discusses regarding the, renewable energy and its future on the
construction companies of UK. This particular project includes various milestones, these
milestones, these milestones include various data. it further discusses regarding the issues that
are faced by the companies in attaining their goals of sustainability and further provides some
solutions that had been suggested by various researchers in order to mitigate the issues. The
milestones include introduction which provides a brief description of the entire project, aims
and objectives which presents the aim of the research, literature review which presents the
data obtained from papers published by various authors. Methodology described the methods
that are used by the project, limitations and ethical considerations describes regarding the
factors that would be considered before the process of primary data collection is carried out.

9RENEWABLE ENERGY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
References
Aflaki, Sam, and Serguei Netessine. "Strategic investment in renewable energy sources: The
effect of supply intermittency." Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 19, no. 3
(2017): 489-507.
Arnold, Uwe, and Özgür Yildiz. "Economic risk analysis of decentralized renewable energy
infrastructures–A Monte Carlo Simulation approach." Renewable Energy 77 (2015): 227-239.
Bauwens, Thomas. "Explaining the diversity of motivations behind community renewable
energy." Energy Policy 93 (2016): 278-290.
Cameron, Peter. "International energy investment law: the pursuit of stability." OUP
Catalogue (2017).
Dai, Hancheng, Xuxuan Xie, Yang Xie, Jian Liu, and Toshihiko Masui. "Green growth: The
economic impacts of large-scale renewable energy development in China." Applied
energy 162 (2016): 435-449.
Donovan, Charles W. Renewable energy finance: powering the future. World Scientific
Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., 2015.
Iychettira, Kaveri K., Rudi A. Hakvoort, Pedro Linares, and Rob de Jeu. "Towards a
comprehensive policy for electricity from renewable energy: Designing for social
welfare." Applied energy 187 (2017): 228-242.
Kammen, Daniel M., and Deborah A. Sunter. "City-integrated renewable energy for urban
sustainability." Science 352, no. 6288 (2016): 922-928.

10RENEWABLE ENERGY DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Kim, Kyung-Taek, Deok Joo Lee, Sung-Joon Park, Yanshuai Zhang, and Azamat Sultanov.
"Measuring the efficiency of the investment for renewable energy in Korea using data
envelopment analysis." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 47 (2015): 694-702.
Mazzucato, Mariana, and Gregor Semieniuk. "Financing renewable energy: Who is financing
what and why it matters." Technological Forecasting and Social Change 127 (2018): 8-22.
Sen, Souvik, and Sourav Ganguly. "Opportunities, barriers and issues with renewable energy
development–A discussion." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 69 (2017): 1170-
1181.
Zhang, M. M., P. Zhou, and D. Q. Zhou. "A real options model for renewable energy
investment with application to solar photovoltaic power generation in China." Energy
Economics59 (2016): 213-226.