| dc.description.abstract | In our master’s thesis, we examine which industry institutions affect actors’
measures to reduce their indirect CO2 emissions in the Norwegian architectural,
engineering and construction industry. The industry is characterized by having
some of the highest levels of CO2 emissions in the world, thus making it an
important field to explore. Through a comparative multiple case study, we examine
institutional differences between one state-owned enterprise and two private firms,
all three being high performers in terms of environmental development. However,
general environmental development within the industry is slow, and the industry at
large is defined by transactional and traditional methods of value creation. As such,
we use the institutional theory of the firm to improve our understanding of how
change happens in institutionalized fields. Through semi-structured interviews with
highly knowledgeable informants and secondary sources of data such as
environmental reports and contracts, empirical data was collected to enable a
rigorous examination of the industry. Our findings suggest that factors such as
differences in business models, financing, laws and regulations, norms and an
overall transactional focus are the most important elements to understand how the
field may change and reduce their indirect emissions. We finally suggest a model
that informs our current understanding of how the industry may move toward the
emission-free construction site. | en_US |
