Identification and Assessment of Risk Factors in Green Building Projects: A Multi-Dimensional Approach for Sustainable Infrastructure

This study establishes a structured framework to identify and evaluate risk factors that may hinder the achievement of sustainable development goals in green buildings and sustainable infrastructure projects. Fifty-six risk factors are identified and categorized into four risk groups, including stakeholder and management, financial and economic, technological and resource, and process and regulatory risks. The risk factors are evaluated across four risk indices related to probability of occurrence, manageability, impact on building performance, and project cost. Further, the severity of risks based on combining the four indices’ effects is quantified using a new Green Risk Index (GRI), while the relationships among all risk indices are determined. The strongest positive correlation is observed between the probability and the impact on cost, whereas a negative relationship is found between the probability and manageability. The analysis demonstrates that a risk factor related to the lack of knowledge about energy-saving procedures and environmental concerns during the design phase is the most critical, as it has the highest severity based on the GRI. “Non-compliance with environmental standards in project design” is also identified as a critical risk factor due to its high effect on building performance. Additionally, the risk factor associated with unstable funds from investors shows the highest effect on manageability. Process and regulatory is identified as the most critical risk group, encompassing the maximum number of key risk factors, and has the highest average weight related to the GRI. These findings reveal crucial vulnerabilities and underline the importance of targeted strategies to strengthen the use of nature-based solution frameworks for mitigating the risk effects in green buildings and sustainable infrastructures.