Data requirements and availabilities for material passports: A digitally enabled framework for improving the circularity of existing buildings

Passports for circularity, e.g., digital product passports and material passports (MPs), have gained recognition as essential policy instruments for the Circular Economy goals of the European Union. Despite the growing number of approaches, there is a lack of knowledge about the data requirements and availabilities to create MPs for existing...

How Can Digital Technologies Support the Circular Transition of Social Housing Organizations? Empirical Evidence from Two Cases

The world is facing an alarming housing crisis. The challenge for the construction industry is to find sustainable ways to meet this growing housing demand. The concept of Circular Economy could be an alternative approach as it aims to regenerate, narrow, slow, and close resources loops. Digital technologies are seen as enablers to implementing...

Digitalization for a circular economy in the building industry: Multiple-case study of Dutch social housing organizations

Digital technologies are considered enablers of circular economy implementation in the built environment. Literature mainly focuses on conceptual or review studies examining the role of digital tools (e.g., material passport and building information modelling) to close the material loops. There is a lack of understanding of how digital...

Towards Circular Social Housing: An Exploration of Practices, Barriers, and Enablers

The concept of Circular Economy (CE) and its application in the built environment is an emerging research field. Scholars approach CE from various perspectives covering a wide range of topics from material innovation to city-scale application. However, there is little research on CE implementation in housing stock, particularly that which is...

Circular economy and real estate: the legal (im)possibilities of operational lease

Purpose: A paradigm in circular economy (CE) is that suppliers retain ownership of their products and materials, and that the users “only” pay for services. In many legal systems, however, elements incorporated in a building are considered to be fixtures, and therefore legally part of the building. This means that ensuring multi-cyclic...