A Review of Europe’s Circular Economy in the Building Sector

Cyrine Mrad and Luís Frölén Ribeiro ()
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Cyrine Mrad: Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, 5300-253 Braganza, Portugal
Luís Frölén Ribeiro: Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, 5300-253 Braganza, Portugal

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 21, 1-19

Abstract: This article evaluates Europe’s building sector’s circular economy (CE). This industry is responsible for 42% of energy consumption, more than 50% of extracted materials, 30% of Europe’s water and waste generation, and 35% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study focuses on peer-reviewed articles from Scopus and Web of Science databases. Of the first 1750 publications, 2.9% were eligible for a full-text reading and analysis. Most of the trending studies, 92%, promote the circular economy concept through construction materials rather than analyzing the impact of the construction sector on the environment and finding solutions for better implementation, and 41% promote recycling and reuse as the only options. New Design solutions are in 12% of the studies, six-fold more than Law and Legislation, which is only 2%. Finding an optimal combination of assessing the life cycle of buildings and components and searching for different ways of managing the Construction and Demolition Waste at end-of-life is between 33% and 39%. Ultimately, CE proposed frameworks for the building industry based on 10R principles variations were evaluated. An alternative framework for a circular strategy for the building industry that focuses on Upcycling, replacing the Recover principle is presented.

Keywords: circular economy; building sector; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:21:p:14211-:d:958902

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