LM
Luigi Mollo
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6 records found
1
Circling Towards Profit
A Circular Life Cycle Approach to Evaluate the Economic and Environmental Feasibility of Buildings and Construction
Conference paper
(2025)
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Nouman Khadim, Rosa Agliata, Luigi Mollo
The concept of Circular Economy (CE) has undergone a significant evolution, extending beyond the traditional 3R paradigm (reduce, reuse, recycle) to embrace a more holistic perspective that incorporates additional aspects. Previous research indicates the profound impact of circularity on the economic as well as the environmental domains of sustainability. Despite numerous efforts to integrate circularity metrics with established environmental and economic evaluation methods, a comprehensive framework that cohesively synthesizes circularity with both economic and environmental in a single unified framework is notably missing. To address this gap, this paper introduces the Cost of Circularity Assessment Tool (CoCAT), an innovative and integrated framework. CoCAT incorporates the Whole Building Circularity Indicator (WBCI) along with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) to simultaneously evaluate the economic as well as the environmental feasibility of various circular solutions. WBCI serves as the key metric on which the rest of the analysis is developed. The effective integration of WBCI with LCA has previously been demonstrated, and this study extends the methodology to encompass LCC through a rigorous literature review and critical analysis. The paper methodically explains this unified framework, aligning CE-based methodologies for all three assessments within the CoCAT in line with the existing standards. Additionally, it provides guidance on conducting integrated inventory analysis, combined interpretation, and visual representation of results, with a focus on whole-building level assessment. The research reveals that such integration streamlines the assessment process, saving time and effort. CoCAT can be used by stakeholders, companies and LCA practitioners to identify trade-offs between increased circularity and its impacts on sustainability performance (environmental and economic) for informed decision-making.
...
The concept of Circular Economy (CE) has undergone a significant evolution, extending beyond the traditional 3R paradigm (reduce, reuse, recycle) to embrace a more holistic perspective that incorporates additional aspects. Previous research indicates the profound impact of circularity on the economic as well as the environmental domains of sustainability. Despite numerous efforts to integrate circularity metrics with established environmental and economic evaluation methods, a comprehensive framework that cohesively synthesizes circularity with both economic and environmental in a single unified framework is notably missing. To address this gap, this paper introduces the Cost of Circularity Assessment Tool (CoCAT), an innovative and integrated framework. CoCAT incorporates the Whole Building Circularity Indicator (WBCI) along with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) to simultaneously evaluate the economic as well as the environmental feasibility of various circular solutions. WBCI serves as the key metric on which the rest of the analysis is developed. The effective integration of WBCI with LCA has previously been demonstrated, and this study extends the methodology to encompass LCC through a rigorous literature review and critical analysis. The paper methodically explains this unified framework, aligning CE-based methodologies for all three assessments within the CoCAT in line with the existing standards. Additionally, it provides guidance on conducting integrated inventory analysis, combined interpretation, and visual representation of results, with a focus on whole-building level assessment. The research reveals that such integration streamlines the assessment process, saving time and effort. CoCAT can be used by stakeholders, companies and LCA practitioners to identify trade-offs between increased circularity and its impacts on sustainability performance (environmental and economic) for informed decision-making.
From circularity to sustainability
Advancing the whole building circularity indicator with Life Cycle Assessment (WBCI-LCA)
Journal article
(2025)
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Nouman Khadim, Rosa Agliata, Qi Han, Luigi Mollo
Circular construction is an emerging paradigm aimed at minimizing waste and reducing environmental impacts associated with the construction industry. To support this transition, building circularity indicators have been developed to assess the circularity of construction. While these indicators provide valuable insights into circularity, they lack the capacity to evaluate the environmental impacts of circular interventions. Addressing this gap, this paper presents a novel integration of the Whole Building Circularity Indicator (WBCI) with a comprehensive Cradle-to-Cradle Life Cycle Assessment (C2C-LCA), creating a unified WBCI-LCA framework for assessing circularity and Environmental Sustainability (ES) in circular construction. Applying the framework to a typical Dutch residential building and developing four circular scenarios, this study demonstrates how WBCI and C2C-LCA approaches can be effectively combined to examine the complex trade-offs between circularity and ES. The findings reveal that while increased circularity (from 0.309 to 0.488 in developed scenarios) reduces environmental impacts in most categories, it may also shift burdens across categories. For instance, biobased materials like CLT reduce global warming potential but increase eutrophication potential depending on the end-of-life scenario. This integrated approach demonstrates that WBCI and C2C-LCA effectively complement each other: WBCI captures essential circularity aspects like material circulation and component disassembly, while C2C-LCA provides insights into the environmental impacts of manufacturing, recycling, and transportation processes. These findings advance the literature on building circularity indicators by extending their applicability to C2C-LCA and contribute to the broader discourse on sustainability and circularity by providing empirical evidence on their interrelationship.
...
Circular construction is an emerging paradigm aimed at minimizing waste and reducing environmental impacts associated with the construction industry. To support this transition, building circularity indicators have been developed to assess the circularity of construction. While these indicators provide valuable insights into circularity, they lack the capacity to evaluate the environmental impacts of circular interventions. Addressing this gap, this paper presents a novel integration of the Whole Building Circularity Indicator (WBCI) with a comprehensive Cradle-to-Cradle Life Cycle Assessment (C2C-LCA), creating a unified WBCI-LCA framework for assessing circularity and Environmental Sustainability (ES) in circular construction. Applying the framework to a typical Dutch residential building and developing four circular scenarios, this study demonstrates how WBCI and C2C-LCA approaches can be effectively combined to examine the complex trade-offs between circularity and ES. The findings reveal that while increased circularity (from 0.309 to 0.488 in developed scenarios) reduces environmental impacts in most categories, it may also shift burdens across categories. For instance, biobased materials like CLT reduce global warming potential but increase eutrophication potential depending on the end-of-life scenario. This integrated approach demonstrates that WBCI and C2C-LCA effectively complement each other: WBCI captures essential circularity aspects like material circulation and component disassembly, while C2C-LCA provides insights into the environmental impacts of manufacturing, recycling, and transportation processes. These findings advance the literature on building circularity indicators by extending their applicability to C2C-LCA and contribute to the broader discourse on sustainability and circularity by providing empirical evidence on their interrelationship.
Whole building circularity indicator
A circular economy assessment framework for promoting circularity and sustainability in buildings and construction
Journal article
(2023)
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Nouman Khadim, Rosa Agliata, Muhammad Jamaluddin Thaheem, Luigi Mollo
Circularity is finding its feet in construction. Several Building Circularity Indicators (BCIs) have been developed to measure buildings' Circular Economy (CE) potential, but none of them has been standardized. Currently, the BCIs methodologies lack consensus on CE definition and scope, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and various other technical aspects. New research is hardly building upon the existing works and this lack of incrementalism hinders the standardization process. The current research addresses these limitations by developing a comprehensive and innovative Whole-Building Circularity Indicator (WBCI). WBCI consolidates the existing advancements by including the best features of various methodologies (like VBCI, MCI, Flex 4.0, etc.) and covering a wide range of KPIs. It has been developed from a life cycle perspective, taking into account all material flows from the point of origin to disposal or waste treatment. The adopted methodology complements popular sustainability tools like Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The validation is done through a case study of a typical Italian residential building. WBCI along with an existing popular tool is applied to the case study using the actual building data to validate and highlight the improvements made in the developed framework. The building performed poorly in terms of circularity, scoring 0.243 on a scale of 0 (fully linear) to 1 (fully circular). It is found that resource-intensive construction processes and longer service life can substantially affect CE performance. Recommendations for improving the building circularity are given. From the methodological point of view, results emphasize that WBCI is a multilevel framework capable of identifying the best-performing CE solution at the material, element, system, and whole-building levels. Contractors, consultants, and policymakers may leverage WBCI's features to assess the circular performance of buildings at early stages. Researchers can also use the findings to further expand and standardize the BCIs.
...
Circularity is finding its feet in construction. Several Building Circularity Indicators (BCIs) have been developed to measure buildings' Circular Economy (CE) potential, but none of them has been standardized. Currently, the BCIs methodologies lack consensus on CE definition and scope, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and various other technical aspects. New research is hardly building upon the existing works and this lack of incrementalism hinders the standardization process. The current research addresses these limitations by developing a comprehensive and innovative Whole-Building Circularity Indicator (WBCI). WBCI consolidates the existing advancements by including the best features of various methodologies (like VBCI, MCI, Flex 4.0, etc.) and covering a wide range of KPIs. It has been developed from a life cycle perspective, taking into account all material flows from the point of origin to disposal or waste treatment. The adopted methodology complements popular sustainability tools like Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The validation is done through a case study of a typical Italian residential building. WBCI along with an existing popular tool is applied to the case study using the actual building data to validate and highlight the improvements made in the developed framework. The building performed poorly in terms of circularity, scoring 0.243 on a scale of 0 (fully linear) to 1 (fully circular). It is found that resource-intensive construction processes and longer service life can substantially affect CE performance. Recommendations for improving the building circularity are given. From the methodological point of view, results emphasize that WBCI is a multilevel framework capable of identifying the best-performing CE solution at the material, element, system, and whole-building levels. Contractors, consultants, and policymakers may leverage WBCI's features to assess the circular performance of buildings at early stages. Researchers can also use the findings to further expand and standardize the BCIs.
Review
(2022)
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Nouman Khadim, Rosa Agliata, Alfonso Marino, Muhammad Jamaluddin Thaheem, Luigi Mollo
The circular economy (CE) paradigm can eradicate the problems caused by the traditional linear economic approach adopted by the building industry. But the efforts to implement CE in the building and construction industry are fragmented and lack consensus. If improved, the ability to measure and report on progress can help in effectively transiting to CE. In this regard, wide-ranging building circularity indicators (C-indicators) have been proposed. However, the extant literature highlights that the comprehensive research on existing CE assessment tools in the building industry is still lacking, while policymakers (e.g., European Commission) and standards (e.g., ISO) have emphasized the need for a universally recognized circularity framework for buildings. To help this cause, this review inventories and critically analyzes 35 existing tools through an extended systematic literature review of 51 carefully selected documents from both academic and grey literature. It is found that there is a sharp increase in publications in recent years, with Europe leading the way. Along with the academic community, government agencies and consulting companies have also developed several C-indicators. The content analysis suggests that most indicators are quantitative and can vary in terms of the scale of application, the adopted CE scope and definition, and the underlying key performance indicators (KPIs). The descriptive analysis reveals that most indicators are in the developing stage and substantially stress recycling and reuse, overlooking some important aspects like energy, emission, and water. Innovative technical solutions like the design for adaptability and disassembly are excessively used to measure the circular potential of structures. The existing sustainability and circularity tools are seen as a good starting point for developing new frameworks. This extensive review and critical analysis provide a synthesis and explanation of the developing research theme of building C-indicators and highlight the remaining key challenges. The findings can drive the standardization of a universally accepted framework.
...
The circular economy (CE) paradigm can eradicate the problems caused by the traditional linear economic approach adopted by the building industry. But the efforts to implement CE in the building and construction industry are fragmented and lack consensus. If improved, the ability to measure and report on progress can help in effectively transiting to CE. In this regard, wide-ranging building circularity indicators (C-indicators) have been proposed. However, the extant literature highlights that the comprehensive research on existing CE assessment tools in the building industry is still lacking, while policymakers (e.g., European Commission) and standards (e.g., ISO) have emphasized the need for a universally recognized circularity framework for buildings. To help this cause, this review inventories and critically analyzes 35 existing tools through an extended systematic literature review of 51 carefully selected documents from both academic and grey literature. It is found that there is a sharp increase in publications in recent years, with Europe leading the way. Along with the academic community, government agencies and consulting companies have also developed several C-indicators. The content analysis suggests that most indicators are quantitative and can vary in terms of the scale of application, the adopted CE scope and definition, and the underlying key performance indicators (KPIs). The descriptive analysis reveals that most indicators are in the developing stage and substantially stress recycling and reuse, overlooking some important aspects like energy, emission, and water. Innovative technical solutions like the design for adaptability and disassembly are excessively used to measure the circular potential of structures. The existing sustainability and circularity tools are seen as a good starting point for developing new frameworks. This extensive review and critical analysis provide a synthesis and explanation of the developing research theme of building C-indicators and highlight the remaining key challenges. The findings can drive the standardization of a universally accepted framework.
Journal article
(2019)
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Rosa Agliata, Thom A. Bogaard, Roberto Greco, Aldo Minardo, Luigi Mollo, Susan C. Steele-Dunne
Undesired presence of water in historical masonries has a negative effect on the walls and causes deterioration of decorative works covering the walls, such as frescoes and valuable plasters. To prevent this, non-invasive moisture measurements are needed that avoid damage during masonry inspection caused by sample taking or probe insertion. Active heated distributed temperature sensing (DTS) with optical fibres is widely used in hydrology to assess soil moisture content. The aim of this study is to examine the potential of this technique for non-invasive water content measurements in a real scale wall. The tested masonry is made of yellow Neapolitan tuff bricks, a material widely used in historical buildings of Campania (Southern Italy). Distributed temperature measurements are carried out with three different heating strategies (different power and duration) during the drying process following the complete saturation of the wall. The acquired temperature data are then processed with three different methods (estimators), so to identify the best combination of heating strategy and data processing approach. Despite the presence of a significant bias, it is possible to identify relationships between the gravimetric moisture content and the different estimators. Those relationships are influenced to a large degree by the thermal contact between the DTS cable and the masonry. This research shows it is possible to measure water content in tuff masonry using non-invasive active heated fibre optic cable when establishing good thermal contact between the cable and the masonry.
...
Undesired presence of water in historical masonries has a negative effect on the walls and causes deterioration of decorative works covering the walls, such as frescoes and valuable plasters. To prevent this, non-invasive moisture measurements are needed that avoid damage during masonry inspection caused by sample taking or probe insertion. Active heated distributed temperature sensing (DTS) with optical fibres is widely used in hydrology to assess soil moisture content. The aim of this study is to examine the potential of this technique for non-invasive water content measurements in a real scale wall. The tested masonry is made of yellow Neapolitan tuff bricks, a material widely used in historical buildings of Campania (Southern Italy). Distributed temperature measurements are carried out with three different heating strategies (different power and duration) during the drying process following the complete saturation of the wall. The acquired temperature data are then processed with three different methods (estimators), so to identify the best combination of heating strategy and data processing approach. Despite the presence of a significant bias, it is possible to identify relationships between the gravimetric moisture content and the different estimators. Those relationships are influenced to a large degree by the thermal contact between the DTS cable and the masonry. This research shows it is possible to measure water content in tuff masonry using non-invasive active heated fibre optic cable when establishing good thermal contact between the cable and the masonry.
Journal article
(2018)
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Rosa Agliata, Thom A. Bogaard, Roberto Greco, Luigi Mollo, Evert C. Slob, Susan C. Steele-Dunne
Measuring water content in buildings of historical value requires non-invasive techniques to avoid the damage that sample taking or probe insertion may cause to the investigated walls. With this aim, a stepped frequency ground penetrating radar (GPR) system was tested to assess its applicability in moisture measurements of porous masonry elements. The technique was tested on a real scale wall made with yellow Neapolitan tuff bricks, a material commonly found in historical buildings of Campania (Southern Italy). First, the antenna was calibrated to find its characteristic transfer functions. Then 64 GPR acquisitions, coupled with gravimetric measurements of the volumetric water content, were performed on the tuff wall in laboratory controlled conditions. A full inverse modelling of the GPR signal on tuff was used to retrieve dielectric permittivity and electrical conductivity of tuff at various water contents. By linking these characteristic electromagnetic parameters to the water content, the calibration relationships specific for yellow Neapolitan tuff are defined, which can be used for moisture measurements by GPR in real case studies. The experimental results lead to a robust identification of clearly defined monotonic relationships for dielectric permittivity and electrical conductivity. These are characterized by high values of the correlation coefficient, indicating that both parameters are potentially good proxies for water content of tuff. The results indicate that GPR represents a promising indirect technique for reliable measurements of water content in tuff walls and, potentially, in other porous building materials.
...
Measuring water content in buildings of historical value requires non-invasive techniques to avoid the damage that sample taking or probe insertion may cause to the investigated walls. With this aim, a stepped frequency ground penetrating radar (GPR) system was tested to assess its applicability in moisture measurements of porous masonry elements. The technique was tested on a real scale wall made with yellow Neapolitan tuff bricks, a material commonly found in historical buildings of Campania (Southern Italy). First, the antenna was calibrated to find its characteristic transfer functions. Then 64 GPR acquisitions, coupled with gravimetric measurements of the volumetric water content, were performed on the tuff wall in laboratory controlled conditions. A full inverse modelling of the GPR signal on tuff was used to retrieve dielectric permittivity and electrical conductivity of tuff at various water contents. By linking these characteristic electromagnetic parameters to the water content, the calibration relationships specific for yellow Neapolitan tuff are defined, which can be used for moisture measurements by GPR in real case studies. The experimental results lead to a robust identification of clearly defined monotonic relationships for dielectric permittivity and electrical conductivity. These are characterized by high values of the correlation coefficient, indicating that both parameters are potentially good proxies for water content of tuff. The results indicate that GPR represents a promising indirect technique for reliable measurements of water content in tuff walls and, potentially, in other porous building materials.