Cooperative learning in green building demonstration projects: Insights from 30 innovative and environmentally sustainable demonstrations around the world

Within the context of sustainable innovation in the building industry, the goal of this study is to investigate and discuss forms of cooperative learning in project organizations as an opportunity for realizing sustainable innovation. This paper analyzes 30 worldwide cases of sustainably innovative building projects, concentrating on the cooperative learning behavior of actors that ignite and contribute to sustainable building innovation. The analysis sheds light on three clusters of project organizations, their typical cooperative learning processes, and the cooperative sustainable learning effects achieved. Theoretically, this work contributes by suggesting an analytical model to study learning forms that support sustainable building innovation; practically, this study indicates that cooperative learning practices facilitate professionals, regardless of their role in project organizations, to be innovators in proposing and achieving green innovation in the construction engineering sector.