Exploratory Data Analysis and Data Envelopment Analysis of Construction and Demolition Waste Management in the European Economic Area

Guillermo L. Taboada, Isabel Seruca, Cristina Sousa and Ángeles Pereira
Additional contact information
Guillermo L. Taboada: Computer Architecture Group, CITIC, Universidade da Coruña, Campus de Elviña, 15071 A Coruña, Spain
Isabel Seruca: Research on Economics, Management and Information Technologies (REMIT), Universidade Portucalense, Rua Dr. António Bernardino Almeida, 541 4200-072 Porto, Portugal
Cristina Sousa: Research on Economics, Management and Information Technologies (REMIT), Universidade Portucalense, Rua Dr. António Bernardino Almeida, 541 4200-072 Porto, Portugal
Ángeles Pereira: Department of Applied Economics, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15705 Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 12, 1-25

Abstract: This paper deals with the efficiency and sustainability of Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) management in 30 Member States of the European Economic Area (EEA) (the 28 European Union countries plus Norway and Iceland) for the period 2010–2016 using Exploratory Data Analytics (EDA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The first stage of the proposed methodology is EDA with already available (the CDW recovery rate) and suggested indicators (e.g., building stock characterization, dwelling occupancy ratio, macroeconomic ratios and CDW breakdown) to characterize the efficiency and sustainability of CDW management. The second stage is to assess the efficiency of countries using DEA through two original CDW production models, one for sustainability, measuring the efficiency of the construction sector for reducing its CDW, and the second a model to score the efficiency of maximizing the CDW recovery rate. The main outcome of the paper is the proposed methodology, which is a candidate for replacing current indicators in order to evaluate the performance of CDW policy, due to is adaptive nature, promoting the continuous improvement and overcoming the limitations of the poor quality of metrics, data and parametric indicators. The methodology has been experimentally validated using Eurostat data for 30 Member States of EEA, ranking them according to the two DEA model scores, to point out the countries considered efficient among those of their scale, as a reference for sustainable and efficient practices.

Keywords: Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW); Exploratory Data Analytics (EDA); Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA); sustainable CDW management; efficient CDW management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:12:p:4995-:d:373335

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