Environmental Impact Assessment Review

Volume 97, November 2022, 106897

Environmental and economic performance of prefabricated construction: A review

Sara Aghasizadeh a, Amir Tabadkani b , Aso Hajirasouli c, Saeed Banihashemi d

a
Department of Architectural Technology, Faculty of Architecture and Design, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim,
Norway
b
Stantec, Level 3/52 Merivale St., Brisbane, QLD, Australia
c
School of Architecture and Built Environment, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
d
School of Design and Built Environment, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia

Received 29 April 2022, Revised 19 August 2022, Accepted 22 August 2022, Available online 1 September 2022, Version of Record 1 September 2022.

Show less

Share Cite

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2022.106897
Get rights and content

Abstract
Recently, more attention has been devoted to Prefabricated Buildings (PBs) as an alternative technique for developing building sustainability.
Due to a great deal of discussion about the link between environmental and economic performance and a lack of critical review relating the
PBs to these two aspects, the main focus of this research is on the environmental and economic performance of PBs. Using a systematic search
and critical literature review, this paper reviews the significant studies in this area and discusses corresponding assessment methods, systems
boundaries, recommended methods, and research gaps. It is concluded that, on average, environmental dimensions of PBs have been studied
more than economic ones and with more certainty. It was also recommended to assess the economic profitability of PBs in a long-term period
utilizing various measurements. The contribution of this study can be summarized by 1) providing a deeper insight into both the
environmental and economic performance of PBs, and 2) identifying the research gaps and future research directions.

Introduction

Traditionally, building construction takes place on the building site and construction materials, components, and elements are transferred
from manufacturers to the site (Pervez et al., 2021). Conversely, prefabrication refers to the process of production, transfer, and preassembly of
panels, elements, or modules at a factory (i.e., off-site) in a controlled environment before assembling them in the final building site (Tavares et
al., 2019). Other phrases such as industrialized construction (Kedir and Hall, 2020), panelized construction (Lopez and Froese, 2016), and off-
site construction (OSC) (Sandanayake et al., 2019) are also used in this field. Although these terms have distinguished meanings, they can be
used interchangeably (Mao et al., 2013) to reach the highest level of equivalency.

Current literature defines different levels of prefabrication rates and degrees to establish a comparable base for further assessments. In this
regard, the prefabrication rate refers to the amount of concrete used for prefabricated components to the total amount of it in a single
construction (Liu and Chen, 2019). The concept of prefabrication rates, in the range of 0 to 100%, has been studied extensively to investigate its
impact on environmental and economic indicators. Apart from that, some studies categorized the prefabrication levels into different degrees,
from component level (such as staircase, balcony, or window) to non-volumetric pre-assembly (cladding panels, timber truss), volumetric
pre-assembly (packaged plant rooms or toilets), and modular units (completed building) (Tavares et al., 2019).

The performance of prefabricated buildings (PBs) compared to that of the conventional construction approach can be identified by
sustainability assessments which are intended to collect and provide data for building decision-makers (Bragança et al., 2010). To evaluate the
level of building sustainability, a variety of methods and approaches have been developed. Sustainable rating systems such as LEED, Green
Globes, BREEAM, and CASBEE are some of the important methods by which a “whole building” performance is assessed and compared with
other buildings (Fowler and Rauch, 2006). Another significant approach is developed in alignment with the life cycle basis of a construction
which can target the environmental dimensions as a life cycle assessment (LCA) or economic aspects as a life cycle cost (LCC).
Adopting prefabrication offers several advantages in the building sector. Reducing construction time and intensive workloads (Jaillon and
Poon, 2009; Jaillon and Poon, 2008) are among the economic benefits of prefab construction. Concerning environmental aspects, reduction in
material consumption and carbon emissions (Teng and Pan, 2020), energy efficiency (Tavares et al., 2019), and air and sound pollution decrease
(Nan and Jie, 2020) are identified as part of off-site construction privileges. Despite many well-reported benefits driving from the
prefabrication construction techniques, there are numerous drawbacks including a higher energy performance (i.e., overheating or
overcooling) (Ko et al., 2018), transportation constraints (Kamali et al., 2018), higher capital cost (Jaillon and Poon, 2008; Xue et al., 2017), and
poor communication between project stakeholders (Xu et al., 2019).

These days, both researchers and constructors have been attracted to the advantages of prefabricated construction (Hosseini et al., 2018; Jin et
al., 2018). This growing interest leads to an increase in studies on the sustainability of PBs and has encouraged researchers to publish review
papers on this topic. Focusing on PBs as a whole building, Jin et al. (2018) and Wuni et al. (2020) accomplished a bibliometric analysis of the
latest research publications and extracted the trends and themes. Findings in the former review (Jin et al., 2018) revealed that the number of
papers has been steadily increasing since 2000 and at least 32% of countries were active in the PBs sustainability field. Moreover, embodied
carbon and energy, resource efficiency, recycling, and construction waste were among hot topics in the current research. Considering
environmental aspects of PBs, Jin et al. (2019) conducted a critical review of existing research assessing the environmental performance of off-
site constructed facilities and demonstrated that LCA was the most commonly-used method to analyze energy consumption and carbon
emissions. Based on a systematic review, two other review papers done by Teng et al. (2018) and Kedir et al. (Kedir and Hall, 2020),
concentrated on carbon emissions and resource efficiency, respectively. Teng et al. (2018) designed a system framework to represent several
gaps in previous research and suggested future research direction. Despite many studies reviewed and evaluated globally, (Brissi et al. (2021)
reviewed multifamily housing in the United States focusing on sustainability dimensions, and discussed briefly the design importance on the
uptake of PBs in multifamily housing.

Modular buildings as a specific way of prefabrication have been considered in a few other review papers. Nazir et al. (Assad Nazir et al., 2020)
reviewed the current literature in terms of the construction methods within the UK including conventional and modular residential
construction and provided a comprehensive assessment of the corresponding advantages and disadvantages. Boafo et al. (2016) also examined
the different ranges of literature located in China to clearly define the prefabrication level of existing cases and study their performance
regarding thermal behavior. In another study by Kamali and Hewage (2016), the environmental performance of modular buildings compared
to conventional ones was assessed through a life cycle perspective, additionally, the benefits and challenges of the modular construction
method were critically reviewed. The role of modularity in sustainable design was evaluated by a systematic review (Sonego et al., 2018)
performed by Sonego et al. in which the authors investigated the intersection of sustainable design and modularity. In the case of a
prefabricated component in buildings, the thermal and environmental performance of two types of prefabricated walls were reviewed based
on China's construction (Wuni et al., 2020) and results showed that using prefabricated components could increase the thermal performance
of buildings. The existing literature mainly focused on the assessment of modular construction as a specific type of PBs or the environmental
aspects of PBs in a specific country. To this end, there is still a lack of a comprehensive review of the performance of prefabricated buildings
considering different levels of prefabrication.

Although, sustainability assessments of buildings consist of the triple bottom line (i.e., environmental, economic, and social) (EN 15643:2021,
2021) that target planet, profit, and people, respectively. Due to the large area of these triple domains and the complexity of social
sustainability metrics (Dixit et al., 2013), social performance is out of the scope of this review. On the other front, there has been a great deal of
discussion about the link between environmental and economic performance (Cohen, 2014; Schaltegger and Synnestvedt, 2002; Wagner et al.,
2001). According to one viewpoint, enhanced environmental performance primarily incurs additional expenditures and lowers profitability.
However, it has also been argued that greater environmental performance would result in cost savings and increased sales, hence improving
economic performance (Schaltegger and Synnestvedt, 2002).

All things considered, the main objective of this research is to critically review the research studies that have been conducted to evaluate the
environmental and economic performance of prefabricated construction. Moreover, the benefits and drawbacks of adopting PBs are critically
analyzed to identify the existing research gaps in these fields. In more detail, this research has the following objectives:
- To explore the current body of knowledge on the environmental and economic performance of the PBs at different levels.

- To review various methodologies, research focus, and building types used in the collected publications within the recent decade.

- To investigate the current methods of environmental and economic assessments and the obtained results.

- To define the potential directions that need to be worked on in future research.

The paper structure contains the following sections:

- Section 2 explains the methodological structure applied in this paper to select the relevant papers.

- 3 Environmental performance, 4 Economic performance evaluate the environmental and economic performance discussed in the literature
including their system boundary and the obtained results. Fig. 1 illustrates the framework of these two sections in detail.

- 5 Conclusion, 6 Future research agenda explain the summary and outlook of the selected literature and future research agenda,
respectively.
Section snippets

Methodology

As a methodological framework, this paper uses a systematic search and critical review based on the classification defined in (Grant and Booth,
2009). To have a comprehensive systematic search, a specific method (Mengist and Soromessa, 2020) is accomplished to extract the existing
studies about PBs and their impact on both environmental and economic aspects. In this respect, a combination of keywords is chosen by
authors which were extracted from the literature and several review papers such as …

Environmental performance assessments

Through a comprehensive literature review conducted in this paper, more than three methods of environmental assessments have been
identified as it is shown in Table 3. References are sorted based on the publication year, from the latest to the oldest. In the following
paragraphs, these different methods are discussed in detail.…

Economic performance assessments

To assess the economic aspects of PBs, the current literature employed various methods such as LCC, cost-benefit method, and total cost
calculation (). LCC has been utilized to evaluate the costs related to every phase of a building life cycle and clarify the distribution of the costs
within all phases (Samani et al., 2018). In the case of comparing different design options in PBs, the environmental benefits could be supported
by cost-related factors. For instance, Balasbaneh and Ramli (…

Conclusion

In this paper, a systematic search and critical review of existing studies on the environmental and economic aspects of PBs were carried out. As
a result of reviewing the selected literature critically, the main findings can be summarized as follows:
1. Regarding the environmental performance of PBs, GHG emissions and thermal performance are the two main factors that have been widely
assessed in the literature. Within the building life cycle, the production phase, specifically raw material supply,…

…
Future research agenda

Based on the literature review and to address the gaps identified in the existing body of knowledge, the following is proposed for future
investigations. The two first items are related to both environmental and economic performances, while the others are separated based on
these two aspects. Fig. 6 presents the framework of knowledge gaps and future research in summary.

Concerning both environmental and economic performance, production and construction processes were taken into consideration…

Declaration of Competing Interest

None.…

References (78)

M.K. Dixit et al.

System Boundary for Embodied Energy in Buildings : A Conceptual Model for Definition
(2013)

B. García de  Soto et al.

Productivity of digital fabrication in construction : cost and time analysis of a robotically built wall
Autom. Constr. (2018)

J. Hong et al.
Barriers to promoting prefabricated construction in China : a cost-benefit analysis
J. Clean. Prod. (2018)

M.R. Hosseini et al.

Critical evaluation of off-site construction research : a scientometric analysis automation in construction critical evaluation of o
ff -site construction research : a scientometric analysis
Autom. Constr. (2018)
L. Jaillon et al.
The Evolution of Prefabricated Residential Building Systems in Hong Kong: A Review of the Public and the Private Sector
(2009)

R. Jin et al.
A holistic review of off-site construction literature published between 2008 and 2018
J. Clean. Prod. (2018)

M. Kamali et al.
Life cycle performance of modular buildings: a critical review
Renew. Sust. Energ. Rev. (2016)

M. Kamali et al.
Development of performance criteria for sustainability evaluation of modular versus conventional construction methods
J. Clean. Prod. (2017)

M. Kamali et al.
Life cycle sustainability performance assessment framework for residential modular buildings : aggregated sustainability indices
life cycle sustainability performance assessment framework for residential modular buildings : aggregated sustainability indices
Build. Environ. (2018)

A. Kyriakidis et al.
Comparative evaluation of a novel environmentally responsive modular wall system based on integrated quantitative and
qualitative criteria
Energy (2019)

View more references

Cited by (8)
Optimization model for selecting optimal prefabricated column design considering environmental impacts and costs using
genetic algorithm
2023, Journal of Cleaner Production

Show abstract

Resource-use intensity and the labour market: More for less?

2023, Environmental Impact Assessment Review

Show abstract

Life cycle environmental and cost assessment of prefabricated components manufacture

2023, Journal of Cleaner Production

Show abstract

Mitigating lifecycle GHG emissions of building sector through prefabricated light-steel buildings in comparison with traditional
cast-in-place buildings
2023, Resources, Conservation and Recycling

Show abstract

Towards a Net-Zero Carbon Economy: A Sustainability Performance Assessment of Innovative Prefabricated Construction
Methods Used for Affordable Housing in the Global South
2023, SSRN

Optimal Design of Segment Storage and Hoisting of Precast Segmental Composite Box Girders with Corrugated Steel Webs
2023, Buildings

View all citing articles on Scopus

Recommended articles (6)

Research article

A hybrid model of external environmental benefits compensation to practitioners for the application of prefabricated
construction
Environmental Impact Assessment Review, Volume 81, 2020, Article 106358

Show abstract

Research article

Holistic life-cycle accounting of carbon emissions of prefabricated buildings using LCA and BIM
Energy and Buildings, Volume 266, 2022, Article 112136

Show abstract

Research article

Reducing building life cycle carbon emissions through prefabrication: Evidence from and gaps in empirical studies
Building and Environment, Volume 132, 2018, pp. 125-136

Show abstract

Research article

Adoption of prefabricated housing–the role of country context

Sustainable Cities and Society, Volume 22, 2016, pp. 126-135

Show abstract

Research article

Embodied energy and greenhouse gas emissions analysis of a prefabricated modular house: The “Moby” case study
Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 212, 2019, pp. 1044-1053

Show abstract
Research article

The exploration of the life-cycle energy saving potential for using prefabrication in residential buildings in China
Energy and Buildings, Volume 166, 2018, pp. 561-570

Show abstract

View full text

© 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. or its licensors or contributors.

ScienceDirect® is a registered trademark of Elsevier B.V.