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Circular economy in construction: current awareness, challenges and enablers
journal contribution
posted on 2017-02-16, 11:03 authored by Katherine Adams, Mohamed OsmaniMohamed Osmani, Tony ThorpeTony Thorpe, Jane ThornbackThe application of circular economy thinking in construction, which is in its infancy, has been largely limited to construction waste minimisation and recycling. Little research on circular
economy from a systems perspective including how new business models might enable materials to retain high residual values has been undertaken. Utilising the results from a survey and a follow up workshop, this paper provides an analysis of an industry-wide perspective of circular economy awareness, challenges and enablers. The survey results indicate that whilst there is industry-wide awareness of the concept, clients, designers and
subcontractors are the least informed and this is a key challenge for greater adoption. The absence of incentives to design products and buildings for disassembly and reuse at end of life is a significant challenge. To encourage greater implementation of circular economy
principles throughout the supply chain, a clear economic case is paramount, supported by metrics, tools and guidance.
Funding
This paper was based upon research conducted within a research project ‘Embedding Circular Economy in the Built Environment’ funded by the BRE Trust.
History
School
- Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Published in
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Waste and Resource ManagementVolume
170Issue
1Citation
ADAMS, K. ... et al, 2017. Circular economy in construction: current awareness, challenges and enablers. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Waste and Resource Management, 170 (1), pp. 15-24.Publisher
© ICE PublishingVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Acceptance date
2017-01-09Publication date
2017-04-24Notes
This is an Open Access Article. Is is published by ICE under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ISSN
1747-6526eISSN
1747-6534Publisher version
Language
- en