Int. J. Sustainable Real Estate and Construction Economics, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018 109 Copyright © 2018 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Analysis of challenges in sustainable construction industry by using analytic hierarchy process: a case study of Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia M. Essam Shaawat, Rehan Jamil* and Mohammed M. Al-Enezi Department of Building Engineering, College of Architecture and Planning, University of Dammam, Al-Dammam, Saudi Arabia Email: mshaawat@uod.edu.sa Email: cvengr_rehan@hotmail.com Email: enezim@rcjubail.gov.sa *Corresponding author Abstract: Construction procedures in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) consume excessive capital, time and resources, and thus have a direct effect on the national economy and the nation’s socio-economic development. These costly procedures add to the current difficult economic situation in the construction industry. The developed and many underdeveloped countries have implemented sustainable construction practices and are increasing the awareness of the environmental impacts caused by construction processes. The KSA has taken the initiative to support and implement green building principles but still there are various factors due to which the implication of sustainable construction has not been materialised in full swing. This research project studies and evaluates those factors which have become a challenge for the construction industry in the application of sustainable construction. A new settlement in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia has been taken as a case study. This research ranked some of the barriers identified from previous studies, based on their level of importance, using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to investigate the priority ranking of the issues involved in sustainable construction principles. Keywords: sustainable construction; analytic hierarchy process; AHP; barriers; Saudi Arabia; Jubail; new settlement; green building. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Shaawat, M.E., Jamil, R. and Al-Enezi, M.M. (2018) ‘Analysis of challenges in sustainable construction industry by using analytic hierarchy process: a case study of Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia’, Int. J. Sustainable Real Estate and Construction Economics, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp.109–122. Biographical notes: M. Essam Shaawat is working as a Professor in University of Dammam. He holds a BArch and MArch from Alexandria University and PhD from Cairo University, Egypt. His background is architectural engineering and he has extensive research in the areas of construction management, engineering economy, building performance, building information modelling, green materials and sustainable buildings. He has actively participated in various conferences in Saudi Arabia, Gulf countries, the UK, Germany and