Beneficial Roles of Metaverse for Achieving Sustainable Construction in South Africa

There is mounting pressure on the construction industry to embrace sustainable practices to address its significant environmental impacts. Technologies like the Metaverse offer transformative potential to revolutionise construction activities and processes toward achieving sustainability goals. The Metaverse, a virtual world where digital and physical realms converge, provides a unique real-time monitoring, design optimisation, and collaboration platform enabling sustainable construction practices across the project lifecycle. Hence, this paper explores the multifaceted benefits of the Metaverse for achieving sustainable construction in South Africa. The study adopted the quantitative research method and utilised a structured questionnaire administered to active construction professionals in the South African construction industry. Descriptive and exploratory factor analysis was employed to analyse the retrieved data. Findings from the study revealed twenty-two potential benefits of the Metaverse to achieve sustainable construction. By leveraging its immersive and interconnected capabilities, the Metaverse has shown the potential to transform the construction industry towards an eco-friendlier and resource-efficient future. It is recommended that the adoption and implementation of the Metaverse be encouraged among stakeholders to optimise its sustainable benefits in the built environment.