25/2/25, 0:16 Circular economy for the built environment: A research framework - ScienceDirect

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 143, 1 February 2017, Pages 710-718

Circular economy for the built environment: A

research framework
Francesco Pomponi , Alice Moncaster

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Highlights

• Evaluation of the challenges of circular economy studies in the built

environment.

• The current framing of circular economy research is reviewed.

• Six fundamental dimensions to define circular economy studies are

identified and included in a frame of reference.

• The frame of reference is tested against current initiatives for

sustainability in the built environment.

• Interdisciplinary research is strongly encouraged to exploit the

potential of the circular economy concept.

Abstract

The built environment puts major pressure on the natural environment; its role in transitioning to a
circular economy (CE) is therefore fundamental. However, current CE research tends to focus either on the
macro-scale, such as eco-parks, or the micro-scale, such as manufactured products, with the risk of
ignoring the additional impacts and potentials at the meso-scale of individual buildings. This article sets
out to unpack the fundamental defining dimensions of a CE and frame them for CE studies for the built
environment. A critical literature review forms the basis for identifying and framing such fundamental
dimensions. Our contribution highlights the key roles of interdisciplinary research and of both bottom-up
and top-down initiatives in facilitating the transition to ‘circular buildings’. The frame for reference has

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25/2/25, 0:16 Circular economy for the built environment: A research framework - ScienceDirect

been used to capture current discourse on the sustainability of the built environment and has proved to be
a valuable tool to cluster existing initiatives and highlight missing links for interdisciplinary endeavours.
The article represents a contribution to the theoretical foundations of CE research in the built
environment and a stepping stone to shape future research initiatives.

Introduction

In the 1990s buildings were responsible for 40% of the material and a third of the energy consumed
globally (Rees, 1999). Two decades later, the construction sector is still the world's largest consumer of
raw materials, and accounts for 25–40% of global carbon dioxide emissions (WEF, 2016). In the interim
period there have been numerous attempts to improve from this position, carried out with genuine
fervour and heartfelt good intentions. ‘Green buildings’ were believed to be a panacea but it was later
found that the sole focus on the operational stage of a building would not suffice to reduce its
environmental impact. Whole life approaches were then put forward as the right pathway to
sustainability,1 but despite the admirable intention to look at ecological threats and environmental
impacts (ISO, 2006), the focus in the day-to-day practice within the construction sector has been rather
circumscribed and most often limited to energy consumption and carbon emissions (Pomponi and
Moncaster, 2016) without considering the risk of just shifting environmental impacts from one category to
another (Pomponi et al., 2016). In spite of these efforts building-related CO2 emissions are continuing to
rise, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggesting that emissions are on track to double by 2050
(IEA, 2014).

A new paradigm, circular economy (CE), is now gaining momentum, and it promises to overcome the
contradiction between economic and environmental prosperity. There are many different schools of
thought on the CE (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2016); however the shared founding principles lie in the
better management of resources. The role of the built environment is therefore crucial, due to its high
environmental impacts, which also conversely offer significant opportunities for reductions in energy use,
greenhouse gas emissions and waste production.

Buildings are unique entities, as they are often the results of one-off projects. This feature adds to their
inherent complexity, where each of the materials used has its own specific life cycle and all interact
dynamically in space and time. Furthermore, their long lifespan, and changes of use during their service
life, lead to increased uncertainty about future scenarios. Therefore, although buildings are made up of
components which are manufactured products, when assembled together those products create an entity
which no longer fits into the logic of manufacturing. From a CE perspective, current research tends to
focus mainly on short-lived manufactured products (e.g. Singh and Ordoñez, 2016), and therefore the
complexities that are inherent within buildings are often neglected.

This article aims to address such a gap, by providing a frame of reference for built environment research
that is in harmony with the theoretical underpinning of a CE in order to achieve ‘circular buildings’. This
term is used to define a building that is designed, planned, built, operated, maintained, and deconstructed
in a manner consistent with CE principles. A schematic view of the methodological approach used for this
research is shown in Fig. 1.

The article is organised as follows. Section 2 frames the problem of assessing ‘circularity’ in buildings. We
then move on to investigating the available tools and techniques to assess circularity (Section 3) and
reviewing seminal literature to unravel fundamental dimensions of circular economies (Section 4). This

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25/2/25, 0:16 Circular economy for the built environment: A research framework - ScienceDirect

represents the underlying basis we use to propose and discuss our frame of reference for CE studies for the
built environment (Section 5). Section 6 concludes the article.

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Section snippets

Building research and circular economies

Although literature on CE in the built environment is still in its infancy, the concept is gaining momentum
in the construction sector. Some examples are the EU action plan on closing the loops (EC, 2015) which
focuses on construction and demolition, and the UK Green Building Council work on materials, waste, and
water (UKGBC, 2016). If on the one hand such initiatives promote the idea of a CE and spread the message
to as wide an audience as possible, on the other they do not seem to represent …

Tools and techniques for building research in a circular economy

Life cycle assessment (LCA) and material flow analysis (MFA) are well established techniques for
sustainability studies in the built environment which could both be extended to CE research. Genovese
et al. (2015) adopted a hybrid LCA methodology in a study on sustainable SCM and CE whereas Chen
(2009) promoted the key role of MFA to enhance the understanding of the economic dimension of a CE.
Allwood and Cullen (2012) used MFA to map global flows of key materials, energy, and emissions, which
…

Available framings of circular economy research

During the 70s and 80s—when most of the world was waking up to an awareness of the environmental
limits of our planet (Brundtland et al., 1987)—few academics and thought-leaders were extending their
thinking beyond what is still the current economic paradigm. The main innovation within the idea of a CE
consists in decoupling resource depletion and growth, allowing that an ever-growing economic
development and profitability can happen without an ever-growing pressure on the environment. …

Circular economy and the built environment

The previous section has shown how authors from different disciplines view CE. In this section we
propose a framework for CE research for the built environment which builds on the outcome of the critical
literature review of the previous section. Additionally, we tie it up to the current discourse in construction
sector practice to evaluate whether the framework can be a support for researching the benefits and
challenges of a CE. …

Conclusions

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25/2/25, 0:16 Circular economy for the built environment: A research framework - ScienceDirect

The built environment is the sector which puts the most pressure on the natural environment and its role
in transitioning to a CE is pivotal. In framing building research from a CE perspective there is a lack of
focus on buildings, with most research designed either around cities and neighbourhoods or construction
materials. There is also a reduction in interdisciplinary research related to the scale of analysis. We have
therefore framed the problem on a three-tier level: macro (cities and …

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank and acknowledge the Isaac Newton Trust (Research Grant RG74916) for
funding this research as well as the valuable inputs received by the anonymous reviewers. …

Recommended articles

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