Wiredscore within the Australian construction industry: Awareness, barriers and integrated mechanisms

WiredScore certification is popular in the U.S and United Kingdom built environment sectors. However, it’s uptake is low in Australia, and studies are limited in this area. Therefore, this study fills that knowledge gap, and assesses the awareness levels, barriers, and integrated mechanisms of the certification systems among Australian construction organisations. A mixed-method approach, comprising a scoping review, survey and semi-structured interviews with practitioners was adopted. Ten barriers, and 4 mechanisms were used, and data analysed using ranking and thematic analysis. Relative to the awareness, the majority understood the certification system. The most significant barriers were ‘cost and financing’, ‘lack of incentives’, ‘lack of client demands'and ‘lack of awareness of the construction industry’s clientele’. The least were ‘inadequate human resource & training'and ‘increase in project timeline’. The mechanisms of ‘proof of benefits by implementing WiredScore'and ‘cooperation and commitment of professional bodies to implementing the certification system'had the most and least effect respectively. The emergent implications are that increased awareness and education to contractors, clients, and end-users (tenants), could enhance the levels of technological certification systems adoption.