Barriers to Implementing the Circular Economy in the Construction Industry: A Critical Review

Abstract

To facilitate the adoption of the circular economy (CE) in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector, some authors have demonstrated the potential of recent designs that take into account the sustainable management of an asset’s end-of-life (EOL), providing an alternative to the dominant designs that end with demolition. However, there is no review of the literature that encompasses a large range of sustainable designs in the current CE context. This paper provides a critical review of journal papers that deal with the barriers to implementing sustainable designs and approaches to the EOL management of assets that have the potential to fulfil the principles of the CE. Eighteen approaches related to prefabrication, design for change, design for deconstruction, reverse logistics, waste management and closed-loop systems were found. Through an analysis of the barriers that are common among these 18 approaches, we classified them into six different categories (organisational, economical, technical, social, political and environmental). Two Sankey diagrams illustrate the interrelation between the barriers, their categories and the 18 approaches. The diagrams clearly show that most of the barriers are common to multiple approaches and that most of the barriers relate to organisational concerns. The study gives a detailed map of the barriers that would help stakeholders from the AEC sector develop strategies to overcome the current obstacles in the shift to a CE.

Forward and reverse logistics for circular economy in construction: A systematic literature review

“…Despite many pilot cases, the lack of incentives transiting current linear supply chains into circular ones is still hindering the achievement of CE resource loops. Several studies have identified logistics as a key barrier to CE in the construction industry (Charef et al, 2021;Mojumder and Singh, 2021). Especially, there is a lack of holistic approaches in the construction supply chain to coordinate logistics operations by different actors (Adams et al, 2017).…”

“…Thus, CE and logistics management are closely interrelated, as argued by several authors (e.g. Charef et al, 2021;Mojumder and Singh, 2021), since logistics is often a key barrier and bottleneck in transforming the traditional construction industry towards CE. Seroka-Stolka and Ociepa-Kubicka (2019) also argued that developing greener logistics systems is an inherent requisite and valuable tool to realize CE.…”

“…First, both FL and RL have been given much higher priority in CE compared to the linear economy as CE business models are more sensitive to financial and environmental costs. Therefore, logistics processes such as transport and delivery matter more in the calculation of life cycle cost and waste in CE compared to traditional construction projects (Charef et al, 2021;Ghisellini et al, 2018). Second, CE has also driven the construction industry to adopt new business model innovations from other industries.…”

Sustainability in the civil engineering and construction industry: A review

“…Developing simple but versatile instru-ments and methodologies for evaluating sustainability is required. A considerable and ongoing investment in education and training, together with enhanced publicity, will be required to address these issues [49].…”

Circular Economy in the Construction Sector: A Case Study of Santiago de Cali (Colombia)

“…(a) Most of the barriers to implementation are related to organisational concerns [5]; (b) There still exists ambiguity and inconsistency in the assessment methods to measure circularity in building projects [6]; (c) Digitalization could be a great help in developing sustainable circular products [7]; (d) The customers' involvement is necessary for creating innovative sustainable circular products using digitalization [7]; (e) The inclusion of people driven factors in the adoption of circular economy practices in the supply chains [8].…”