How Different Stakeholders Perceive Benefits, Challenges, and Barriers in the Implementation of Green Technology Projects

Differing stakeholder interests often lead to the application of varying criteria when evaluating green technology projects. This heterogeneity can impede project outcomes by making it challenging to reconcile conflicting perspectives. The present study empirically examines stakeholder alignment in relation to the perceived benefits and barriers to green technology implementation. Insights from a focus group comprising 15 project stakeholders were used to identify key barriers, which were subsequently ranked using survey data collected from 286 UAE-based stakeholders. A customised fuzzy-based Failure Mode and Effects Analysis tool (FMEA–FST) was applied to prioritise these factors. The results reveal significant variation in the salience of factors across stakeholder groups, highlighting both notable differences and shared framing biases. The study’s originality lies in its use of the bespoke FMEA–FST model to prioritise factors, thereby identifying the relative importance of benefits, barriers, and challenges. Notably, ‘Lack of support from senior management’ emerged as the most critical factor across all categories, while ‘Potentially lower benefits for small or less complex projects’ was deemed the least important. To foster greater stakeholder alignment, the study recommends strengthening social relationships to bridge divergent perspectives. Limitations include the inability to account for changes in factor salience across different stages of the project lifecycle, as well as the exclusion of temporal and typological effects. These limitations present opportunities for future research.