Abstract
Sustainable building materials are products with a relatively positive impact on economies,
communities, and the environment. Understanding the key indicators in developing
sustainable building materials is a critical perspective for their development. Research in this
field is a relatively new and ever-evolving field encompassing an interdisciplinary area.
Therefore, the study examined existing literature to identify and cluster key indicators of
sustainable building materials and propose a probable conceptual framework for developing
these materials. Using a mixed bibliographic and bibliometric method, the study employed a
verifiable and reproducible systematic literature review of building materials and scrutinising
203 academic articles for the co-occurrence of keywords. A clustering analysis based on the
bibliometric method identified key indicators of emerging themes and their interconnections.
It emerged from the study that Process, Material, Element and Technology themes seemed
to have significant indicators loading on sustainable building material conceptual framework.
It was found that Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA), embodied energy, and recycling appears to
be the predominant processes in developing and evaluating sustainable building materials.
Concrete bricks, C&D waste and fibres are the foremost materials, while walls and roofs are
the main building components. Composite, 3D printing, nanotechnology, and prefabrication
are leading technology features. The results from the analysis of interconnections of
indicators revealed significant interconnection between embodied energy, LCA, concrete,
composite, and durability to the sustainability of building materials. Based on the taxonomy
of indicators and the analysis of their interconnections, a conceptual framework for
developing sustainable building materials was proposed in the paper.