What enables climate-responsive and resource-efficient office buildings in a small island developing state? a stakeholder-weighted readiness gap analysis

Abstract

Climate-responsive and resource-efficient office buildings, often described in practice as green office buildings, are increasingly promoted in Small Island Developing States (SIDS). However, there remains limited understanding of how policy, finance, skills, and supply conditions interact to constrain adoption, as the literature largely focuses on barriers and drivers rather than readiness as a systemic condition. This study aims to examine what enables such buildings in Mauritius through a systems-informed, stakeholder-weighted readiness gap analysis. A mixed-methods approach combined 33 survey responses with five expert interviews. Survey respondents were regrouped into four stakeholder clusters such as developer/owner, government/policy, commercial/advisory, and technical delivery. Weighted Likert-scale responses were normalised into four readiness domains: market and finance, technical and supply, policy and institutional, and collaboration and delivery. Interview evidence was coded into causal relationships to produce a qualitative system map and identify reinforcing adoption traps and leverage points. The largest weighted gaps were found in market and finance readiness (0.735), technical and supply readiness (0.666), and policy and institutional readiness (0.652), while collaboration and delivery showed a lower but still material deficit (0.449). By contrast, respondents expressed strong support for feasible implementation priorities, particularly flood resilience (0.860), life-cycle assessment (0.852), daylighting (0.843), rainwater harvesting (0.843), passive cooling and efficient air-conditioning (0.834), and digital technologies (0.831). The findings show that the main challenge is not the absence of technical pathways, but weak enabling conditions. The paper contributes a multi-stakeholder study and a practical readiness-to-action framework for scaling uptake in SIDS office building markets.