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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Built Environ.
Sec. Sustainable Design and Construction
Volume 11 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2025.1511109
This article is part of the Research Topic Value-Added Circularity: Beyond Construction and Demolition Waste Management View all articles
Analysis and synthesis of existing procedures used to determine the reuse potential of building elements
Provisionally accepted- Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Amid escalating concerns over CO2 emissions, resource depletion, and waste generation in construction, reusing building elements from obsolete structures presents a sustainable solution. This paper critically reviews 21 procedures used in Europe and the USA (2001USA ( -2021) ) for identifying and evaluating reusable elements prior to transformation projects. Developed by various stakeholders with differing goals, these procedures propose diverse approaches. The study provides a comprehensive overview of their purposes, evaluation criteria, data requirements, and timeframes. Comparative analysis reveals subjectivity in data inputs and a lack of consensus on the comprehensiveness required for effective evaluation. To move from recycling to reuse, the criteria must expand to include projective values, deconstruction processes, and second-use planning. These aspects are essential for assessing the availability, deconstruction, and reuse potential of building elements. The findings offer key insights for developing standardized, adaptable, and automatable assessment procedures that can facilitate efficient and effective reuse practices in future projects.
Keywords: reuse, deconstruction, Reverse logistics, Assessments, procedures, USA, Europe
Received: 14 Oct 2024; Accepted: 01 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 LAMBEC, Bastien-Masse and Fivet. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Barbara LAMBEC, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
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