Building design and construction strategies for a circular economy

The considerable environmental impacts, resource consumption and waste generation emanating from buildings are a cause of great concern and political attention. Interest in the circular economy (CE) concept of slowing, narrowing and closing material loops through CE strategies (reuse, repair, refurbish, recycle and recover) has grown in recent years to facilitate minimising these unresolved issues emanating from the building industry. Although CE initiatives are proliferating within the industry, wide-scale adoption of CE is still lacking, and the current development and implementation of CE building design and construction strategies is fragmented. Through a systematic literature review (SLR), this study assesses which design and construction strategies are being linked to the concept of CE for new buildings, and their level of application and readiness in a building context. On this basis, the study offers insight into how this field of research is developing and provides directions for future research. From the SLR, a taxonomy is presented that groups the strategies together into 16 overarching building design and construction strategies. An important gap preventing a greater CE uptake within the industry was found to include the lack of knowledge about the environmental performance and related benefits of the various building design and construction strategies. Thus, it is suggested that conveying more comprehensive and uniform adoption of CE in the building industry requires the development of a new design typology to facilitate CE-oriented decision-making in a building context and that prioritises the strategies according to their potential in terms of minimising building-related environmental impacts.

Automated summary

The environmental impacts, resource consumption and waste generation from buildings have raised concerns in the political and industry sectors. Interest in adopting circular economy strategies to address these issues has grown, but there is still a lack of widespread adoption and fragmented development and implementation of circular economy strategies in the building industry. A systematic literature review was conducted to assess the connection between circular economy and design and construction strategies for new buildings. The study reveals the development of this field and provides directions for future research. The study also highlights the lack of knowledge about the environmental performance and benefits of different building design and construction strategies, which hinders the greater adoption of circular economy in the industry.