Planetary Boundaries and construction: pressures on water, air, and soil in Jordan

1 Introduction

The Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework is a "safe operating space" for humanity. It represents essential Earth-system processes that need to be safeguarded for a sustainable future, including climate stability, clean water, and healthy soil (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015). These boundaries are not only scientific concepts but are the basis for the air we breathe and the water we drink and are directly connected to global objectives such as SDGs 6, 11, 13, and 15 (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015; Alawneh et al., 2021).

One of the principal activities that threaten to interrupt these natural systems is construction activity particularly in rapidly expanding cities. The purpose of this study is to examine urban construction in semi-arid Jordan from a PB framework perspective. We discuss the effect that building activity has on our local environment, and the effects of building activity on water scarcity, air quality and soil health. We also discuss how those pressures can be managed through project-level indicators and PB-informed governance benchmarks.

Currently, the "Iron Triangle" of cost, time and quality is the standard method of managing construction projects. In this model, environmental impact is frequently a secondary consideration or a "nice-to-have" and not a hard constraint. However, based on the research, the Earth's systems are already under stress, and to be “more sustainable” than a previous project is not enough (Whiteman et al., 2013). Relative improvements alone may be insufficient; however, translating global PBs into scientifically valid project-level allocations remains methodologically challenging. Accordingly, this study uses indicative, measurable, and enforceable governance benchmarks rather than formally downscaled PB allocations (Rieutor et al., 2025). However, setting such boundaries is difficult because of the constraints of regulation, funding, and market factors.

1.1 Jordanian context

Jordan is one of the countries most affected by water stress and suffers from chronic water-supply deficit, over-exploited groundwater resources, and growing competition among different demand sectors for water, including municipal, agricultural, and industrial uses (Alshboul et al., 2018; MWI, 2023). Although construction sites use blue water for concrete manufacturing, curing, dust control and services, water is often treated as an operating cost instead of the limited resource that is tied to another hydrological constraint.

Rapidly urbanizing regions are also experiencing pressure on air quality and soil. Particulates can be generated from excavation, hauling and demolition, and it is common practice to allow uncontrolled wash water disposal from cement to become contaminated with cement and cause site‑level contamination pathways. The situation of construction and demolition waste (CDW) management is still not well coordinated, not widely segregated, not widely recycled and with very limited circular practices (Al‑Shattarat et al., 2022). The lack of enforcement power makes it difficult to implement green building guidelines and voluntary sustainability initiatives in Jordan (Al-Mahadin and Al-Zu’bi, 2021). Therefore, site practices remain largely influenced by what it can cost, when it needs to be done and the immediate risk of not doing it. They are not necessarily influenced by boundary‑relevant performance.

1.2 Research gap

Internationally, PB research has progressed from global thresholds to sectoral applications, including corporate sustainability, life‑cycle impact assessment, and urban systems (Ryberg et al., 2018; Andersen et al., 2020; Speri et al., 2022). In the built environment, PB‑informed approaches have been used mainly to constrain design and material choices through LCA‑based analysis (Andersen et al., 2020; Hoxha et al., 2020). In parallel, circular construction research highlights material recovery, design for disassembly, and improved CDW governance (Pomponi and Moncaster, 2017; Leising et al., 2018), while digitalization research shows the growing feasibility of IoT‑based monitoring of environmental conditions on sites (Bilal et al., 2016; Dave et al., 2018; Akram and Hammad, 2021).

Despite these advances, three gaps remain particularly relevant for geoscience and society:

• Contextual gap: PB operationalization at active construction sites in water‑scarce, lower‑middle‑income settings remains limited, despite the direct relevance to clean water, clean air, and soil protection.
• Implementation gap: Few studies demonstrate how PB‑informed governance benchmarks can be made enforceable through construction contracts, procurement rules, financing conditions, and site‑level management routines.
• Governance gap: While governance and sustainability transition literature emphasizes policy mixes and enforcement, construction‑specific models that translate PB signals into practical accountability mechanisms are underdeveloped in the MENA region.

While Ryberg et al. (2018), Andersen et al. (2020), and Speri et al. (2022) have successfully advanced PB operationalization through LCIA and urban-scale downscaling, these frameworks remain primarily assessment-oriented. They provide the "what" and "how much" but often lack an enforcement-oriented mechanism for active construction sites. There is a distinct "implementation gap" between these robust assessment models and the daily managerial reality of construction procurement, where relative sustainability often trumps absolute targets. This study shifts the focus from assessment metrics to governance levers, proposing a model that integrates PB benchmarks into contractual and financial protocols.

1.3 Research questions

This study addresses these gaps through the following research questions:

RQ1: How do current site‑level practices in Jordanian construction align with PB‑informed governance benchmarks relevant to clean water, clean air, and healthy soils?

RQ2: What managerial and institutional logics prevent a shift from relative to absolute sustainability in Jordanian construction management?

RQ3: What governance model can could potentially support the enforcement of PB‑informed performance in Jordanian construction through contracts, finance, and digital monitoring?

1.4 Contributions

This study has four contributions to geoscience and to society. First, it explicitly places construction practice within an Earth‑system and PB framework by considering construction sites as local interfaces where human activity exerts pressures on freshwater change, aerosol loading, and soils/land systems. Second, it provides multi-site, multi-stakeholder evidence from ten projects currently underway in a very water‑stressed country, mapping recurrent pressures on clean water, clean air and healthy soils, and linking them to hydrological scarcity and local environmental conditions. Third, it outlines three dominant managerial logics—Temporal Constraint Bias, Spatial Externalization and Economic Resourceism, which assist in explaining the limited internalization of geoscientific knowledge into daily decision-making regarding water scarcity, air quality and soil protection. Fourth, it proposes an Earth‑system governance pathway—the conceptual Planetary‑Contractual Enforcement Model (PCEM) and Jordan Absolute Sustainability Management (JASM) system—which connects PB‑informed indicators and illustrative governance budgets for freshwater, aerosols, and soils to contracts, finance, monitoring, and accountability. These frameworks may provide a basis for future testing in other water‑stressed and emerging‑economy contexts.

2 PB-informed governance benchmarks for construction management

2.1 Mapping Planetary Boundaries to construction

Following PB literature (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015; Ryberg et al., 2018) and PB applications to built environments (Andersen et al., 2020; Hoxha et al., 2020; Speri et al., 2022), we map each boundary to key construction‑management (CM) processes and example site‑level indicators (Table 1).

Table 1. Planetary Boundaries mapped to construction management connections and example site KPIs.

Figure 1 provides a conceptual mapping between the nine Planetary Boundaries and construction‑management domains. It shows that construction activities can exert direct pressures on freshwater change, biogeochemical flows, atmospheric aerosol loading, land‑system change, biosphere integrity, and novel entities through water use, wash‑water disposal, dust emissions, land disturbance, waste handling, and chemical storage. Climate change, ocean acidification, and stratospheric ozone depletion are mainly influenced indirectly through material choices, fuel use, cement-related emissions, and refrigerant handling. The figure therefore provides the conceptual basis for the indicators and PB‑informed governance benchmarks presented in Table 1.

The figure distinguishes boundaries affected directly by site activities, such as water use, dust generation, soil/runoff contamination, land disturbance, and chemical handling, from boundaries influenced mainly indirectly through materials, energy use, and supply chains.

The mapping in Table 1 and Figure 1 identifies which construction activities are relevant to each boundary and the types of site indicators that can be monitored. Building on this mapping, Section 2.2 specifies the PB‑informed practices that serve as benchmarks for assessing current construction management.

2.2 PB-informed construction-management practices

Based on international practice and literature (Pomponi and Moncaster, 2017; Leising et al., 2018; Akram and Hammad, 2021; Andersen et al., 2020; Chávez and Ramaswami, 2021), Construction-management practices that could potentially support the objectives of the PB framework typically include:

• Water stewardship: Closed-loop systems for process water, smart metering, and explicit water benchmarks in L/m² informed by local hydrological conditions (Chávez and Ramaswami, 2021; MWI, 2023).
• Circular materials and waste: Material passports, low clinker/binder or alternative binders, high separation rates for CDW, verified recovery/reuse or recycling channels (Habert and Roussel, 2009; Giesekam et al., 2014; Pomponi and Moncaster, 2017; Adams et al., 2017; Leising et al., 2018).
• Automated dust and air quality control: Monitoring PM₁₀/PM_2..₅ using IoT technology and automated suppression systems and contractual stop work triggers (Akram and Hammad, 2021; Dave et al., 2018).
• Whole-life carbon budgeting: BIM-integrated LCA and embodied carbon caps for projects, tied to design approvals and procurement decisions (Gupta et al., 2020; Hoxha et al., 2020).
• Biodiversity and land‑use management: No‑net‑loss or net‑gain policies, greenfield conversion caps, and monitoring of ecological indicators (Whiteman et al., 2013; Chávez and Ramaswami, 2021).

2.3 Benchmark versus typical Jordanian baseline

Table 2 contrasts PB‑informed governance benchmark with typical Jordanian practice reported in the literature (Hrayshat, 2009; Al‑Shattarat et al., 2022; Al-Mahadin and Al-Zu’bi, 2021). Preliminary site familiarization informed the contextual interpretation of these published patterns; the study’s empirical audit and interview evidence are described in Section 4 and reported in Section 5.

Table 2. PB‑informed governance benchmark vs typical Jordanian baseline.

3 Literature review

This review develops the conceptual basis for the study in four connected steps. Section 3.1 establishes the relevance of PBs and absolute sustainability to construction; Section 3.2 identifies material and waste practices that generate boundary‑relevant pressures; Section 3.3 considers the monitoring tools required to measure and manage these pressures; and Section 3.4 explains why governance and enforcement mechanisms are necessary to convert PB‑informed governance benchmarks into construction practice in Jordan.

3.1 PBs, absolute sustainability, and the built environment

The PB research has advanced from global thresholds (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015) to sectoral and business applications (Whiteman et al., 2013; Springmann et al., 2018). Ryberg et al. (2018) associate PBs with LCIA and develop a framework for impact assessment which is consistent with PB thresholds. In the building and construction sector, Andersen et al. (2020) and Hoxha et al. (2020) show that PBs can guide and limit LCAs of buildings and materials, and that there are absolute limits on climate, freshwater and other boundaries that need to be taken into account during design and material selection. Speri et al. (2022) propose a framework for downscaling PBs to urban built environments, emphasizing the allocation of PB budgets to cities and infrastructure.

These studies collectively argue that absolute sustainability ultimately requires scientifically justified allocation approaches rather than incremental efficiency gains alone. However, such downscaling remains methodologically contested and is not performed in the present study.

For this study, this perspective provides the basis for assessing whether site practices affecting water use, dust emissions, and soil/runoff management are assessed against PB‑informed governance benchmarks in Jordanian construction.

3.2 Circular construction and materials

Circular Economy (CE) research on the built sector has focused on decreasing demand for virgin materials, the reuse and recycling of materials, and the disassembly and reconfigurability of buildings (Pomponi and Moncaster, 2017; Leising et al., 2018; Adams et al., 2017; Rabayah et al., 2024; Saraireh et al., 2026). Material substitutions, lower clinker content and enhanced end-of-life management are important tools to reduce GHGs and resource consumption, as demonstrated by Giesekam et al. (2014) and Habert and Roussel (2009).

These insights are directly relevant to the climate change, freshwater change, biogeochemical flows, land‑system change, and novel entities boundaries. In this study, they inform the assessment of cement use, CDW handling, chemical containment, and material practices against PB‑informed governance benchmarks for Jordanian construction.

3.3 IoT, digital twins, and construction monitoring

New methods of tracking and regulating environmental performance are becoming available as a result of digitization. Bilal et al. (2016) highlight opportunities for big data in construction, while Dave et al. (2018) discuss the use of IoT standards for enhanced lean construction management.

Anomaly detection for built assets enabled by digital twins is demonstrated by Lu et al. (2020). Akram and Hammad (2021) demonstrate IoT‑based real‑time dust monitoring and control on construction sites, confirming both technical feasibility and potential for enforcement of aerosol‑related thresholds. This research provides the technical basis for monitoring the water, dust, soil/runoff, and waste indicators assessed in this study, and for the digital monitoring component of the proposed JASM system.

3.4 Governance, enforcement, and transitions

Sustainability transitions literature stresses that structural change requires policy mixes that not only support sustainable innovations but also destabilize unsustainable regimes (Wüstenhagen et al., 2007; Sovacool, 2009; Kivimaa and Kern, 2016). In order to analyze the obstacles to sustainable technologies, Painuly (2001) offers a framework, and Bulkeley and Betsill (2013) draw attention to the difficulties of multi-level governance in urban climate action.

The adoption of green building is limited in Jordan due to cost sensitivity, awareness and implementation gaps, and insufficient institutional support and governmental action (Al-Mahadin and Al-Zu’bi, 2021; Jaradat et al., 2024; Saraireh et al., 2026). Al‑Shattarat et al. (2022) reports that institutional fragmentation and poor infrastructure are challenges in CDW management. Water scarcity is well known but not internalized in construction procurement and operations (Alshboul et al., 2018; MWI, 2023).

Taken together, this literature explains why PB‑informed technical practices alone may not be adopted under current cost, schedule, and enforcement conditions in Jordan (Schuetze and Hussein, 2023). It therefore informs the study’s examination of managerial barriers and the proposed governance model that embeds PB metrics in contractual, financial, digital, and professional levers.

4 Methods

4.1 Research design

A multiple case‑study design was adopted to generate rich, context‑sensitive evidence on PB‑relevant practices in Jordanian construction. The design combines on‑site audits using a PB‑derived checklist informed by PB‑LCA and built‑environment literature (Ryberg et al., 2018; Andersen et al., 2020; Hoxha et al., 2020; Speri et al., 2022); semi‑structured interviews capturing managerial rationales, institutional constraints, and views on enforcement, guided by barrier and transition frameworks (Painuly, 2001; Sovacool, 2009; Wüstenhagen et al., 2007; Kivimaa and Kern, 2016); and thematic coding and cross‑case synthesis into a PB‑impact matrix. This approach is suitable where controlled experiments are infeasible and systemic, context‑dependent dynamics are central.

4.1.1 PB downscaling approach

This study does not calculate formal quantitative allocations of global Planetary Boundaries to Jordan or to individual projects. Rather, the PB framework serves as a qualitative and heuristic structuring tool to (i) identify relevant pressures at the site level and (ii) establish illustrative project-level governance budgets for each of the key pressures (water, dust, soil/runoff, embodied carbon). These governance budgets are informed by Jordanian literature, case observations, relevant policy, and international construction benchmarks for buildings and infrastructure. The proposed budgets and thresholds are thus suggestive governance instruments, not biophysical allocations, designed to illustrate how to operationalize PB-informed governance benchmarks in construction management.

4.2 Case selection and profile

Ten active projects (P‑01–P‑10) were purposively chosen to reflect diversity in location (Amman, Zarqa, Irbid, Salt, Mafraq, and Sahab), project type (high‑rise commercial, residential, mixed‑use, industrial warehouses, public buildings, infrastructure, and retrofit), and contractor grade (National classification Grade A, B and C). Sites were selected based on the presence of active earthworks, concrete work or demolition to ensure that processes relevant to PB could be observed.

Purposive sampling was selected because the study was exploring and required information-rich cases in which PB-relevant activities could be directly observed. Inclusion criteria were that projects were active during data collection, involved earthworks, concrete activities, or demolition, represented variation in location, project type, and contractor grade, and permitted site access and stakeholder interviews. The sample was designed to capture contextual diversity rather than statistically represent Jordan’s entire construction sector. Accordingly, the findings support analytical generalization regarding recurring practices and governance mechanisms, but prevalence estimates should not be generalized nationally (Table 3).

Table 3. Case study overview.

4.3 PB checklist and site audits

The PB checklist identified indicators of freshwater change, aerosol loading, soil/runoff quality, land disturbance and related pressures and provided simple measurement directions and expected evidence, based on the PB-LCA and built-environment study (Ryberg et al., 2018; Andersen et al., 2020; Hoxha et al., 2020; Speri et al., 2022).

The checklist was developed from a geoscience point of view to track the pressures that routine activities at the site place on particular earth system processes. In the Jordan hydrological context, water abstraction and reuse indicators were associated with the freshwater change boundary, and with basin-scale water scarcity. Cement wash-water disposal, soil staining and soil pH were observed as proxies for perturbations of local biogeochemical flows and soil function, such as infiltration and runoff pathways. Dust emissions associated with excavation and demolition activities as well as haul roads were linked to the atmospheric loading of aerosols and their potential impact on air quality and radiative forcing in the local area. Land disturbance, soil compaction and sealing were related to land-system change and the integrity of the critical zone. Each site-level observation was then explicitly linked to one or more PB-relevant Earth system processes, and not to one or more managerial or compliance variables.

For each site, auditors recorded freshwater change, including the water source (mains, tanker, reclaimed), presence/type of meter, evidence of reuse (settling tanks, filtration, reuse for dust control), and qualitative volume indicators (e.g., tanker arrivals/day).

For biogeochemical flows, auditors recorded the presence/condition of lined wash-out pits, visible cement/chemical staining and runoff pathways, and soil pH tests (pH strips) in fields at visibly affected areas.

For atmospheric aerosol loading, dust sensors were not observed. Proxy indicators included uncovered stockpiles, demolition methods, visible dust plumes, and the frequency and triggers for dust suppression—routine vs complaint.

For new materials and substances, auditors recorded indoor/outdoor storage of paints, solvents, adhesives, oils and bunding, separating waste into hazardous and non-hazardous waste, and whether manifests/receipts for hazardous waste disposal were available.

For waste and circularity, auditors recorded CDW separation (none/partial/systematic), on-site reuse practices, and records of offsite recycling/disposal.

For land-system change and biodiversity, auditors recorded greenfield disturbance, tree protection and vegetation clearing, and soil sealing/PAR at/near completion.

For energy and climate (proxy), auditors recorded the apparent load and type of generators and no-idle/economy signs of reducing energy.

The checklist used binary indicators (yes/no), ordinal indicators (none/low/moderate/high), and simple numerical or qualitative indicators. When permitted, photographic and documentary evidence, such as tanker invoices and waste-disposal receipts, was obtained. Each entry was also assigned a reliability flag indicating whether it was based on direct observation, documentary evidence, or interview data. When permitted, photograph and document references (e.g., tanker invoices, garbage receipts) were obtained. Each entry (direct observation, document, interview) was marked with the dependability flag.

4.4 Stakeholder interviews

Semi‑structured interviews were carried out with 30 contractors (owners/senior managers), 25 project managers (PMs), 11 site engineers, and two academic experts in sustainable construction/PBs. Based on literature about barriers and transitions (Painuly, 2001; Sovacool, 2009; Wüstenhagen et al., 2007; Kivimaa and Kern, 2016), the questions posed to the interviewees concerned regular site processes involving water, dust, waste, and hazardous materials; restrictions on procurement and tenders (such as lowest price focus); knowledge about circular practices, green materials, and PBs; and attitudes toward current enforcement and the adoption of new tools (such as sanctions, incentives, and IoT monitoring). Interviews (30–60 min) were audio-taped with informed consent and transcribed. Case IDs were matched with project IDs where possible (e.g., PM_08 → P‑03) (Table 4).

Table 4. Stakeholder perspectives (n = 68).

4.5 Coding and analysis

Transcripts and checklist entries were coded using a hybrid deductive–inductive approach, including deductive codes from the PB checklist (e.g., “water metering,” “wash‑pit,” “dust suppression,” “hazardous storage,” and “CDW separation”) and recurring inductive codes (e.g., “owner won't pay,” “municipality fines,” and “no time to monitor”). Codes were aggregated in an iterative fashion into higher-order themes, which yielded three main themes: Economic Resourceism, Spatial Externalization, and Temporal Constraint Bias. Approximately 20% of the transcripts and a sample checklist were independently coded by two researchers; differences were discussed, and the codebook was refined. To create the PB-impact matrix, checklist indicators were compiled per site and compared by project type and contractor grade.

4.6 Reliability, validity, and limitations

Reliability was reinforced by testing and improving the checklist on 2 sites and independent double coding of a sub-sample of interviews and checklists. Validity was achieved through triangulation of observations, interviews and documentary evidence (where available) and cross checking of reported practices with actual observations. Limitations include purposive selection of 10 sites (not statistically representative), snapshot audits rather than continuous monitoring, limited view of internal records, such as detailed water bills and fuel logs, and the possibility that interviews may be subject to social desirability bias. These constraints explain why the study concentrates on governance mechanisms which are dependent on ongoing digital monitoring and reporting using standardized formats.

Limitations include possible observer bias during site audits, restricted access to project records, interview response bias, the absence of longitudinal monitoring, and uncertainty surrounding the heuristic PB thresholds; these risks were partly reduced through checklist standardization, triangulation, and independent coding.

4.7 Ethics, consent and data management

Due to the low risk and professional focus, the Master Program Committee, Faculty of Engineering, Isra University, approved the protocol without requiring formal ethics approval.

Data were anonymized and stored on secure institutional servers. Potentially identifying photos are excluded from publication. Anonymized checklists and de‑identified interview excerpts are available on reasonable request (see Data availability).

5 Results

5.1 PB-impact matrix: local earth-system pressures

The checklist data identified recurrent misalignment with PB‑informed governance benchmarks. These observations when viewed through the PB lens reflect the localized pressures that construction activities have on the hydrosphere (freshwater withdrawals and contamination), atmosphere (aerosol emissions), and soils/land systems (altered pH, compaction, and sealing) in a semi‑arid, water‑stressed environment. Table 5 summarizes the impacts observed per boundary; Figure 2 presents this PB-impact matrix in a heatmap format, by stages of the project and by Planetary Boundaries.

Table 5. Planetary Boundary impact matrix (Jordanian construction sites).

*Severity is an aggregated qualitative assessment across sites.

Key counts showed that only 1/10 sites had a functional water meter, while 0/10 implemented systematic water reuse. Eight out of 10 sites discharged cement wash water into unprotected soil; only two had rudimentary, poorly maintained pits. Three out of 10 sites, all Grade A, implemented frequent, proactive dust spraying, while the remaining seven relied on ad hoc or complaint-driven measures. Only 1/10 sites practiced partial CDW separation, and none kept comprehensive recycling or disposal manifests. Five out of 10 sites stored paints or solvents without secondary containment, and none had complete hazardous waste documentation. Grade A contractors showed somewhat better dust control and housekeeping, but systemic deficiencies persisted across grades, particularly around water, soil, and circularity.

5.2 Managerial logics

Thematic analysis yielded three reinforcing managerial logics.

• Economic resourceism: Water and gasoline are not assets of the environment but rather are line item expenses. The priority is given to water based on water tanker pricing, and not ecological considerations (Alshboul et al., 2018; MWI, 2023). Low bids were preferred by the contractors while clients were hesitant to invest in green mixtures (low clinker) or recycling systems, because such solutions would require higher prices (Giesekam et al., 2014; Habert and Roussel, 2009).
• Spatial externalization: The impacts are managed to not create nuisance or fines (dust on street and neighbors’ complaints) and to not decrease ecological impacts. By contrast, municipal designations tend to focus upon public sites and seldom penetrate the site limits to inspect and enforce soil. This is in line with broader governance issues reported by Bulkeley and Betsill (2013).
• Temporal constraint bias: Schedule risk and liquidated damages dominate decision-making. Environmental controls are described as optional when they are perceived as a threat to deadlines, as described by Sovacool (2009) and Kivimaa and Kern (2016) as transition barriers. As one PM put it: “Schedule penalties hit first.” Dust suppression, CDW separation and careful chemical handling are secondary to time and cash-flow.

These logics are why voluntary guidance and training without robust enforcement and aligned incentives is not an effective method for meeting PB‑informed governance benchmarks.

5.3 Variation by contractor grade and project type

Grade A sites (P‑01, P‑03, and P‑07) had some dust suppression measures, some improvement in housekeeping, and occasional neighbor relations policies, but no systematic water metering, reuse, or carbon management. Grade B/C sites (P‑02, P‑04, P‑05, P‑08, P‑09, and P‑10) had a higher frequency of inadequate chemical storage, lack of metering, and inadequate dust and waste controls. Variations by project type (residential, commercial, infrastructure, and public buildings) were relatively small compared with systemic governance and market factors.

5.4 Comparison with PB‑informed governance benchmarks

Compared to the PB‑informed governance benchmarks (Section 2), observed practices lag in water stewardship, circularity, aerosol management, carbon budgeting, and biodiversity/land-use. This supports international PB and circularity research and recent multidimensional assessment of Jordan’s construction sector (Andersen et al., 2020; Pomponi and Moncaster, 2017; Speri et al., 2022; Al‑Ahmad et al., 2026) that the construction business is not entirely sustainable, particularly in water-scarce Jordan.

5.5 Proposed governance model: PCEM and JASM

5.5.1 Rationale

From an Earth‑system governance perspective, information-based and solely voluntary tools are inadequate to manage sectoral pressures on freshwater, aerosols, and soils against PB-informed governance benchmarks, particularly given the entrenched managerial logics identified in this study (Painuly, 2001; Sovacool, 2009; Wüstenhagen et al., 2007). Consistent with calls for transformative policy mixes (Kivimaa and Kern, 2016) and PB‑informed corporate governance (Whiteman et al., 2013; Chávez and Ramaswami, 2021), a new model must link PB-informed indicators and governance benchmarks to tender evaluation and contracts, access to and conditions of finance, digital monitoring and enforcement, and professional accountability.

Governance architecture is addressed by the Planetary-Contractual Enforcement Model (PCEM), while site-level implementation is handled by the Jordan Absolute Sustainability Management (JASM) system.

PCEM and JASM are conceptual, study-derived governance frameworks; they have not yet been implemented or empirically validated and therefore require pilot testing and systematic evaluation before being presented as validated management systems.

5.5.2 Planetary‑contractual enforcement model (PCEM)

PCEM is conceived as an Earth-system governance instrument that translates PB-informed indicators and indicative governance benchmarks for freshwater use, dust/aerosol emissions, and soil/runoff quality into binding project rules across procurement, finance, monitoring, and professional accountability. PCEM operates through four main levers.

The procurement and legal lever requires all eligible public (and incentivized private) projects to submit a Planetary Boundary Commitment Plan (PBCP) at tender, including a project water budget (L/m² and total), an embodied‑carbon target (kg CO₂e/m²), soil/runoff protection measures (wash‑out pits, containment), and a dust monitoring/control plan. Tender evaluation assigns ≥15% of the score to benchmark performance. Contracts tie benchmark-related milestones (e.g., metered water use, soil‑pH compliance, and dust exceedance rates) to progress payments and retention.

Under the financial lever, banks adopt an environmental risk rating for construction loans, incorporating PB criteria. Projects with strong PBCPs and demonstrated performance against the governance benchmarks receive improved terms (e.g., modest interest discount and eased collateral), aligning with ESG trends (Bilal et al., 2016; Gupta et al., 2020). Repeated failures to meet governance benchmarks affect future access to finance.

The digital monitoring lever requires the mandatory installation of smart water meters on main supply lines and boundary PM₁₀ sensors on larger urban projects. Data are fed to a shared platform accessible to the client, municipality, and lender, enabling near‑real‑time oversight and automated alerts (Lu et al., 2020; Akram and Hammad, 2021; Dave et al., 2018).

Under the professional and regulatory lever, professional bodies (e.g., Jordan Engineers Association) embed PB responsibilities in codes of practice. Documented, repeated failures to meet PB-informed governance benchmarks can trigger professional warnings and as needed, sanctions.

PCEM thus responds to calls for policy mixes that both support sustainable practices and challenge incumbent regimes (Kivimaa and Kern, 2016), while proposing a way to translate PB-informed governance into construction controls (Whiteman et al., 2013; Chávez and Ramaswami, 2021).

5.5.3 Jordan absolute sustainability management (JASM)

JASM is a proposed on-site implementation system intended to operationalize PB-informed governance benchmarks at the project level. It is designed to translate agreed illustrative budgets and thresholds … into potential day-to-day management procedures on construction sites and is structured in three layers.

Layer 1: Project PB Budgets (PBBs). Indicative quantitative governance budgets are established at contract award for each project, informed by the PB framework, Jordanian environmental conditions and policy, observed practices, and relevant construction benchmarks, including water use, embodied carbon, soil/runoff quality, and aerosol concentrations.

These PBBs are heuristic governance thresholds, not scientifically downscaled allocations of the global PBs. They are informed by observed practices in Jordan, applicable policy, local environmental conditions, and relevant international construction benchmarks.

The water PBB establishes the total allowable construction water use in L/m² and in total, derived from typical baselines and adjusted in light of Jordan’s water strategy (MWI, 2023; Alshboul et al., 2018).

The carbon PBB establishes an embodied-carbon cap in kg CO₂e/m² for key material packages, guided by international benchmarks (Gupta et al., 2020; Hoxha et al., 2020).

The soil/runoff PBB requires zero uncontrolled discharge of cement wash water and establishes soil-pH thresholds, whereby a field pH above 9 triggers laboratory tests and a laboratory pH of 10 or above constitutes a violation.

The aerosol PBB establishes a daily PM₁₀ limit at the site boundary, such as 50 µg/m³, with a warning threshold of approximately 40 µg/m³ (Akram and Hammad, 2021).

Layer 2: Operational dashboard. IoT sensors and simple logs feed a live dashboard displaying water consumption against the water PBB, PM₁₀ trends against the aerosol PBB, and the status of wash-out pits, waste segregation, and hazardous-material storage through checklists and photographs. This approach aligns with digital-twin and IoT applications in the built environment (Bilal et al., 2016; Lu et al., 2020; Dave et al., 2018).

Layer 3: Traffic-light enforcement protocol. This layer applies the JASM traffic-light protocol summarized in Table 6.

Table 6. JASM traffic‑light protocol (summary).

Thresholds are conservative for pilot phases and can be reduced as capacity increases. Figure 3 illustrates the proposed interaction between PCEM and JASM at the project and site levels, which could support the translation of PB‑informed governance budgets into monitored construction-management practices, subject to future validation.

5.5.4 Roles and responsibilities

Clients integrate PBCPs and JASM clauses into tenders, verify sensor installation, and enforce payment conditions. Contractors ensure that meters and sensors are installed and maintained and that project performance is monitored and reported against the agreed governance benchmarks. Municipalities and the Ministry of Environment issue alerts, conduct spot checks, including soil sampling, and impose sanctions. Banks and lenders adjust financing terms and use benchmark performance in risk ratings. Professional bodies make performance against PB-informed benchmarks a requirement of professional ethics and licensing.

5.5.5 Feasibility and acceptability

Stakeholders indicated conditional support, provided that benchmark performance is rewarded in tenders and finance and that implementation is phased, with initial pilots and clear guidance.

This aligns with transition literature highlighting the need for supportive yet firm policy mixes (Kivimaa and Kern, 2016).

5.5.6 Implementation challenges and mitigation

Implementing PCEM and JASM in Jordan may be constrained by limited institutional capacity, weak enforcement, additional monitoring costs, contractor resistance, and limited technological readiness. These challenges can be addressed through phased pilot projects, clear contractual and regulatory guidance, targeted training, standardized monitoring protocols, and financial support for smaller contractors. The feasibility of sanctions and payment deductions should first be assessed through legal and institutional review before wider implementation.

6 Discussion

The construction sites are considered as local interfaces, wherein the human activity manifests as pressures on the freshwater, air, soil and land systems. The results indicate that many boundary-relevant consequences are still being generated through routine activities on the site in Jordan's water-stressed context. Water is not often metered or reused. Cement wash‑water is often discharged to bare soil. The dust control is predominantly reactive. The majority of construction and demolition waste is co‑mingled and disposed of.

These patterns extend beyond the project boundary. Uncontrolled and unmanaged water use adds to pressures on already scarce basin-level freshwater resources. Polluted runoff is more likely to occur as a result of regular soil contamination and sealing, which reduces soil function. Dust management is a problem that affects the local aerosol loading, which has implications for human health and climate. Together, these practices increase pressures relevant to the Planetary Boundaries framework.

The three managerial logics provide a bridge between geoscience concerns and everyday decision‑making. Economic Resourceism treats water and fuel as simple cost items rather than scarce environmental assets. Instead of considering how things build up in the ground and soil, spatial externalization looks at what others can see on the street, such as neighbors and inspectors. Temporal Constraint Bias gives schedule and cash‑flow priority over basic controls on dust, water, and waste. These logics explain why technical solutions that would protect water, air, and soil remain underused.

Our proposed PCEM approach offers a distinct shift from existing literature. Unlike assessment-oriented frameworks which prioritize LCA-based design criteria (Andersen et al., 2020; Hoxha et al., 2020) or spatial downscaling (Speri et al., 2022), the PCEM moves the theoretical contribution toward enforcement logic. By integrating PB indicators directly into financial and contractual milestones, we address the implementation barrier that purely assessment-based tools overlook. This suggests that transitioning from relative to absolute sustainability requires shifting from'informative' governance (which relies on voluntary disclosure) to'performative' governance (which links environmental thresholds to project-level economic incentives).

These findings indicate that enhancing construction sustainability requires re-aligning government with Earth-system reality, rather than solely relying on “green” programs. The checklist created by PB highlights boundary-relevant stresses on site. PCEM and JASM suggest linking these pressures to bids, contracts, money, monitoring, and professional accountability, which already influence behavior.

At system level, PCEM links project commitments on water, aerosols, soils, and carbon to tender evaluation and financing conditions. This could potentially help move public and private clients from generic environmental clauses toward concrete, boundary‑relevant targets. The goals are then translated into simple, trackable budgets and indicators at the site level by JASM. These include water use in relation to the project budget, dust levels at the boundary, basic soil protection measures, and documented waste treatment. The proposed traffic‑light protocol is intended to provide escalation rules when pressures approach or exceed agreed thresholds; its effectiveness requires empirical testing.

These characteristics suggest that the proposed models could potentially support a shift from relative efficiency toward explicit, measurable governance limits informed by environmental conditions and the PB framework, subject to empirical validation. Clean water, air, and soil should be considered essential for project delivery, not optional. It also entails acknowledging that local construction practices cumulatively contribute to environmental pressures relevant to the global safe operating space described by the PB framework.

The results from a geoscience and societal perspective highlight how a specific economic sector in a lower-middle-income country with a semi‑arid climate generates local pressures relevant to the Planetary Boundaries for freshwater change, atmospheric aerosol loading and soil/land‑system integrity.

Unmetered blue-water use on construction sites is linked to basin-scale water scarcity and thus negatively affects the access to clean water (SDG 6).

Poor dust management leads to reduced local air quality (SDG 11) and increases the aerosol loading, which has climate and health effects (SDG 13).

Regular cement wash water discharge, soil compaction and sealing (SDG 15) decrease soil function and land productivity.

The study explicitly connects these pressures, relevant to the Planetary Boundaries framework, to governance instruments and thus demonstrates the potential of geoscientific knowledge of hydrosphere, atmosphere, and soils to guide concrete policy and management decisions in fast-urbanizing contexts.

The study is exploratory and focuses on a small number of projects, but it suggests that the Planetary Boundaries concept could potentially inform operational governance in a sector that affects Earth-system processes, although the proposed mechanisms require empirical testing. By grounding PB thinking in concrete indicators and governance instruments, the work aims to support policy‑ and decision‑makers who seek practical pathways to protect water, air, and soils while cities continue to grow.

7 Limitations and future research

This study was conducted through purposive selection of the 10 sites and snapshot auditing, not ongoing monitoring and access to internal records (e.g., detailed water and waste logs) was not full for all projects. Some data may thus be subject to the reporting and observation limitations. Moreover, the use of PBs here is not biophysical downscaling allocations, but indicative governance thresholds.

There are five directions in which this research needs to be expanded: (1) evaluate snapshot audit trends over longer project lifecycles and on more sites using longitudinal smart metering and air/soil sensor monitoring; (2) enhance quantitative downscaling approaches for Jordan, with a particular emphasis on enhancing approaches to freshwater change, by integrating the local hydrology, demand predictions, and fair-share allocation criteria into construction budgets; (3) evaluate feasibility, compliance, costs and environmental impacts of PCEM and JASM in the public procurement and contract process, with public owners, municipalities and lenders; (4) increase the scope of PB operationalization to include cement, steel, aggregates and impacts in the supply chain through supplier reporting and through integrating LCA within the supply chain with PB; and (5) measure governance effectiveness, determine if governance incentives/punishments/institutional roles are best suited to deliver construction management from relative efficiency to absolute sustainability.

8 Conclusion

This study applied the Planetary Boundaries framework to construction practice in Jordan and found that current site operations remain far from PB-informed governance benchmarks, particularly for clean water, clean air, and healthy soils. Evidence from ten active projects and interviews with stakeholders indicates that unmetered water use, limited water reuse, routine discharge of cement wash-water onto soil, reactive dust control, and largely linear construction and demolition waste management remain common practices in a context of severe national water scarcity and limited environmental enforcement.

The findings also suggest that these conditions are reinforced by recurring managerial priorities—Economic Resourceism, Spatial Externalization, and Temporal Constraint Bias—that emphasize cost, visible compliance, and schedule delivery rather than environmental performance. In response, the study proposes two conceptual governance mechanisms: the Planetary-Contractual Enforcement Model (PCEM), which links PB-related commitments to tendering, contractual, financial, monitoring, and accountability processes; and the Jordan Absolute Sustainability Management (JASM) system, which translates these commitments into site-based budgets, dashboards, and a traffic-light enforcement protocol. Together, these proposed mechanisms may offer a potential pathway for shifting construction management from relative sustainability toward PB-informed governance. However, their practicality and effectiveness have not yet been tested and require pilot implementation and empirical validation.

The proposed thresholds and budgets are illustrative governance tools rather than biophysical allocations. They could potentially inform similar approaches in other water-stressed and emerging-economy settings, but any adaptation would require careful consideration of local conditions, pilot testing, and empirical validation.

This study contributes to the broader geoscience and society agenda by illustrating how Earth-system concepts such as Planetary Boundaries could potentially inform operational governance mechanisms related to clean water, clean air, healthy soils, and sustainable cities. PCEM and JASM should therefore be understood as exploratory, study-derived frameworks rather than tested or validated systems. Their ability to improve environmental performance remains to be assessed through future research.

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Footnotes

Edited by: Amir Baklouti, Umm al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia

Reviewed by: Wenting Ma, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, China

Christian Kofi Sarpong, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology College of Art and Built Environment, Ghana