The relationship between lean construction and sustainability

Abstract Lean thinking and sustainability applied to construction are aimed, respectively, at mitigating waste and reducing the negative impacts of the sector. Recent studies claim that the joint application of the two concepts can generate interactions and synergies. This study aims to identify how lean construction and sustainability relate to each other, as well as to describe this relationship through its synergistic points, negative interactions and other relevant knowledge. For this purpose, the method of systematic literature review was adopted, resulting in the selection of 59 articles for bibliometric and qualitative analysis. The articles were grouped and classified into 6 study foci. The bibliometric results indicate that the theme has gained importance in the last five years, with the United States and Brazil as major contributors. The qualitative analysis indicates that the relationship between the approaches is synergic, mainly from lean construction to sustainability, and that the relationship can be strengthened by the alignment of the concepts of value and waste. The conclusion of the study is that, although there are already cases of integration of practices and tools, there is still need for studies to deepen the knowledge on the subject.