Between Green Goals and Grim Realities: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Net-Zero Targets for Construction SMEs in Vietnam

This study investigates the “good,” “bad,” and “ugly” aspects of net-zero targets for small and medium-sized construction enterprises, offering new insights into how sustainability transitions create both opportunities and systemic risks. Based on semi-structured interviews with seventeen construction experts in Vietnam, we evaluate these factors across two dimensions, importance/severity and likelihood, and introduce an integrated priority index as an auxiliary scoring protocol to conventional methods by incorporating expert consensus and variability. The results reveal that the good aspects include access to green finance, cost savings through waste reduction and material recycling, and workforce upskilling; the bad aspects involve cash-flow constraints, costly green materials, and high upfront investments; while the ugly dimension highlights systemic challenges such as regulatory burdens, market exclusion, and greenwashing. This study contributes to existing knowledge by systematically conceptualizing and classifying these dimensions for construction SMEs, thereby offering a multidimensional framework for assessing sustainability transitions. In practice, it offers actionable recommendations to help SMEs overcome key barriers, mitigate risks, and advance toward more inclusive and adaptive net-zero construction pathways. The key takeaway is that while net-zero targets create significant opportunities, without targeted support mechanisms, they may also exacerbate inequalities and systemic risks for construction SMEs.