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REVIEW article
Front. Built Environ.
Sec. Sustainable Design and Construction
Volume 11 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2025.1519219
This article is part of the Research Topic Integrated Infrastructure Sustainability Assessment and Reporting View all articles
Adopting circular economy in construction: A review
Provisionally accepted- Universiti Teknologi Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
Global development is integral to construction activities that consume enormous amounts of natural resources, of which a considerable part is wasted during the construction and demolition phases. Only a small part of such construction and demolition waste is recovered and recycled, and the rest goes to landfills and dumpsites, containing a high volume of recoverable and reusable materials and components, causing environmental hazards and depleting natural resources. This occurs due to the practice of linear economic model in construction. By contrast, the circular economy (CE) approach can potentially offer an effective solution for this issue, through its long-lasting and standardized design with reduced resource input; and extensive reuse and recycling of resources, products and components. However, CE is not being widely practiced. As such, this study was designed to investigate why CE is not being widely practiced, and what needs to be done for its wider adoption. As the beginning, a systematic literature review extracted 32 motivators, 35 challenges and 31 strategies. Further analysis clustered these three groups of factors into eight focus areas of: legal and regulatory framework; knowledge, education and training; infrastructure, technology and innovation; awareness promotion and support; collaboration and information sharing; standardization; circular business model and positive finance and economics. Finally, a conceptual framework is presented, for wider adoption of CE and sustainability assessment and reporting, in construction. The outcomes are expected to provide guidance and indication to policy and decision-makers on what needs to be done for wider adoption of CE in construction.
Keywords: circular economy1, construction2, built environment3, building information modeling4 (BIM), industry development5, sustainable construction6
Received: 29 Oct 2024; Accepted: 06 Jan 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rao, Rahman and Duraman. 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:
Preethi Amrut Rao, Universiti Teknologi Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
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