Life Cycle Assessment for Enabling Circular Economy Transition in Buildings and Construction

Dear Colleagues,

Circular Economy (CE) has emerged as a new paradigm in the building and construction industry that can help reduce the demand for new resources and eliminate untreated waste at end of life by promoting the closed-loop philosophy through reuse and recycling, thus reducing the overall environmental footprints of buildings. In order to implement CE in construction, various solutions in the form of reusable/recycled materials, innovative building components, design strategies (deconstruction, disassembly, adaptability, etc.), business models, and assessment tools have been proposed. The implementation of CE-based interventions has shown remarkable improvements in the overall construction process in terms of circularity and, to some extent, sustainability. Circularity is termed as a ‘subset’ or a ‘toolbox’ to implement sustainability by various researchers. However, the extant literature highlights that there is a vague boundary between circularity and sustainability. Further, it has been identified that some circular solutions may produce more environmental impacts when compared with their traditional counterparts. Therefore, it is important to study circularity from an environmental perspective in order to select the best alternatives at the early design stage of building projects. In this regard, life cycle assessment (LCA) can be very helpful in the estimation and comparison of the environmental performance of CE-based solutions to keep this circularity transition on track. However, implementing LCA that incorporates CE can be complex, and requires further attention.

This Special Issue aims to explore the potential of LCA in enabling CE-based operations in the building and construction industry. The topics include, but are not limited to:

• Circular construction;
• Circular materials;
• Construction waste treatment;
• Sustainability and circularity;
• LCA for circular economy;
• Application of LCA concerning circular materials and components;
• Methodologies for CE-based LCA;
• Building information modelling (BIM) for CE;
• LCA and circularity indicators;
• LCA models for CE;
• Multicycle LCA.

Dr. Rosa Agliata
Dr. Muhammad Jamal Thaheem
Dr. Qi Han
Guest Editors

Nouman Khadim
Guest Editor Assistant

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