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This paper seeks to focus on a combined waste (or: wastewater)/energy system in the deep green housing district named “EVA Lanxmeer” in Culemborg (The Netherlands). An innovative mixture of “red and green” development is presented, together with a concept of building integrated decentralized technologies for wastewater and organic waste treatment with energy and nutrients recovery. The concept is called sustainable implant.

The methodology of the research is based on Van Strien's “regulative cycle” in which theoretic parts, on the one hand, and practice‐related parts, on the other hand, are distinguished. The theoretical part concerns a flow analysis of existing and new sustainable technologies for preserving the (energy, water and waste) flows, an analysis of the different options for transportation, the accompanying technical infrastructure, and an analysis of possible levels or scales of implementation. The practice‐related part of the research consists of case studies and the final design of the sustainable implant for the district EVA Lanxmeer.

It is important to change the general attitude towards the different components of design, development, use and management of urban areas. A way to do so is the “interconnection” of different themes and cycles within cities. An example is the linking of sanitation to energy and food production. The paper shows the potentials of integrating solutions concerning energy and sanitation flows as near as possible to its origin of use and/or production. Introducing the analogy of the functioning of buildings (with respect to energy and sanitation flows) with that of a parasite.

The system layout and the dimensioning backgrounds are explained in this paper. Additional emphasis is put on maintenance, conservation and administration of the integrated whole, and the possible consequences for the district and its inhabitants. There are scale limitations concerning the proposed (and realized) systems. Besides that there is a matter of a unique situation with an “intentional community”.

Although two similar systems, however small, have been realized, no other project (in process of realization) can be found worldwide in which there is a linking of urban agriculture, waste(water) treatment and energy production at the scale of an urban district.

The purpose of this study is to assess the potential benefits of digital technologies (DTs) in bolstering the circular economy (CE) transition in the construction industry, to speed up the attainment of sustainable development objectives.

A detailed literature review was undertaken to identify DTs that could influence CE transition and the benefits of these DTs in the CE transitioning efforts of the construction industry. Based on these, a survey questionnaire was formulated and administered to construction professionals using convenient sampling techniques. With a response rate of 49.42% and data reliability of over 0.800, the gathered data were analysed using frequency and percentage, mean item score, normalisation value, coefficient of variation, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, analysis of variance and factor analysis.

This study found that the construction experts agreed that building information modelling, blockchain technology, RFID, drone technology and cloud computing are the leading DTs that have the potential to influence and speed up CE transition in construction. Also, six clusters of benefits of DTs in bolstering EC are quicken CE transition, proactive waste management, recycling and zero waste, data management and decision-making, enhance productivity and performance and resource optimisation.

Studies on the integration of DTs in CE transition are scarce and it is even lacking in the Nigerian context. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to assess the role of DTs in CE transitioning in the Nigerian construction industry.

This study aims to investigate the literature related to the use of digital technologies for promoting circular economy (CE) in the construction industry.

A comprehensive approach was adopted, involving bibliometric analysis, text-mining analysis and content analysis to meet three objectives (1) to unveil the evolutionary progress of the field, (2) to identify the key research themes in the field and (3) to identify challenges hindering the implementation of digital technologies for CE.

A total of 365 publications was analysed. The results revealed eight key digital technologies categorised into two main clusters including “digitalisation and advanced technologies” and “sustainable construction technologies”. The former involved technologies, namely machine learning, artificial intelligence, deep learning, big data analytics and object detection and computer vision that were used for (1) forecasting construction and demolition (C&D) waste generation, (2) waste identification and classification and (3) computer vision for waste management. The latter included technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain and building information modelling (BIM) that help optimise resource use, enhance transparency and sustainability practices in the industry. Overall, these technologies show great potential for improving waste management and enabling CE in construction.

This research employs a holistic approach to provide a status-quo understanding of the digital technologies that can be utilised to support the implementation of CE in construction. Further, this study underlines the key challenges associated with adopting digital technologies, whilst also offering opportunities for future improvement of the field.

The present study aims to formulate a framework acting as a design methodology for non-expert architects in circular economy (CE). This design methodology strives to define the circular architectural design process by identifying architectural circular design strategies, supporting tools, knowledgebases required and changing roles of architects. Such a framework may facilitate wider dissemination of circular design practices in architecture.

The design of the research methodology employs a three-phase strategy combining qualitative and quantitative methods. It captures knowledge from both literature and expert architects in CE. The first phase follows a qualitative strategy to capture explicit knowledge from literature. The second one follows an inductive approach through a survey to capture tacit knowledge of circular design from experts. The third one uses gamification, creating user-friendly, haptic and playful tools, namely, game board, wheel, cards, calculator and dynamic sunburst, to stimulate design thinking.

The study reveals 20 circular design strategies, translating them into 92 design actions that are applicable at early architecture design phases. It highlights artificial intelligence and digital market platforms as the easiest applicable tools in architecture circular design. This study reveals design for multiple use cycles as the most important required skill in circular design, while circularity consultation is the most vital new role for architects. The results confirm the reciprocating characteristic of the circular design process. According to circularity assessment, the “design with right resources” strategy has the highest circular impact, emphasizing using existing assets as the most impactful design action.

This paper presents a multi-dimensional methodological framework, depicting the relation between circular design strategies, supporting tools and required competencies for architects to be circular designers. This is coupled with a holistic circularity assessment from early stages, unlike existing stand-alone indicators, through the developed circularity calculator. The proposed design methodology acts as an accelerator model through gamification that features a step-by-step design process board, design strategies wheel, design actions cards, circularity calculator and dynamic class sunburst. This paper fulfills a geographical gap in circular built environment research by including experts from Africa with specific emphasis on Egypt.

Despite the potential of open innovation (OI) to reduce barriers to the adoption of the circular economy (CE), little is known about the integration of the two themes and how OI could contribute to a more sustainable economy. The objective of this study is to investigate how OI can contribute to the adoption of the CE.

This study adopts a systematic review of the literature sampled from the Scopus and Web of Science scientific databases.

The main findings of the study are (1) the utilization of OI within CE is still a recent phenomenon, one which emphasizes the collaboration between stakeholders and the co-creation approach; (2) the collaboration of stakeholders can be applied to align the objectives of interested parties, in a joint effort to resolve the environmental problems of the three levels of CE and (3) an action-creation approach can be adopted as a strategy to encourage the participation of consumers in the development of environmentally sustainable products, which may favor the transition to the CE.

The article presents the state of the art on the CE guided by OI, highlighting the opportunities and challenges of the correlation between the two themes. The article also shows the theoretical and practical implications for an OI-driven circular economy.

Digital technologies (DTs) have the potential to revolutionize various aspects of heavy engineering projects by providing innovative solutions to traditional challenges. Therefore, this study explores and identifies critical areas for implementing DTs in heavy engineering projects in Lagos State, Nigeria, to increase productivity, reduce costs and enhance project delivery.

A quantitative research approach informed the formulation of a structured questionnaire, which was then disseminated to construction professionals. The data obtained were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The relative importance index (RII) was employed to rank the significance of each application area. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) then grouped the various application areas for DTs before fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) was used to evaluate the significance of the identified key categories.

Based on the RII, the top five significant application areas identified were project management, cost estimation and budgeting, quality assurance and control, risk management and mitigation and construction site management. These areas were further grouped into three clusters: pre-construction phase, construction phase and post-construction phase.

A majority of existing studies have been focused on regular construction projects, with limited research addressing the unique challenges and opportunities within heavy engineering projects. This study fills this gap by specifically examining the implementation of DTs in heavy engineering projects, offering sector-specific insights that are distinct from those in regular construction.

The purpose of this study is to investigate barriers to the adoption of digital technologies (DTs) in the circular economy (CE) transition in the construction industry. The aim is to quantitatively investigate what the barriers to DTs-driven CE are in the Nigerian construction industry.

A review of existing literature identified 32 barriers to DTs-led CE. A well-structured quantitative research questionnaire was developed and administered to construction experts using a convenient sampling technique via hand delivery and Google form. The gathered data were analysed using arrays of both descriptive and inferential statistical methods.

The study revealed that the awareness of the digitalisation of CE is high, but the adoption is low. Five themes of the leading 10 factors responsible for the low adoption of DTs in CE transition in the Nigerian construction industry are (1) finance and demand barrier, (2) data management and information vulnerability, (3) skills shortage and infrastructure challenge, (4) poor government and management support and (5) interoperability and resistance problems.

This study could be helpful to decision-makers and policy formulators, which would provide an avenue for higher adoption of DTs in CE transition in the construction industry, better performance and environmental protection. It also provides a foundation for further research efforts in Nigeria and other developing countries of Africa and beyond.

Studies on the barriers to DT adoption in CE transition are still growing, and this is even non-existent in the Nigerian construction context. This offers a unique insight and original findings by pioneering the identification and assessment of barriers to the digitalisation of CE transition in Nigeria’s construction industry.

This study aims to assess the factors influencing the effective implementation of extended producer responsibility (EPR) practices within the context of sustainable accounting goals and circular economy principles. It seeks to provide insights into the significance of EPR policies for manufacturing industries striving to enhance their environmental, social and governance performance while ensuring sustainable accounting of their business operations.

The methodology proposed in this article is based on the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) technique. This approach formulates a structural framework for evaluating influential elements among critical recognized factors. By using DEMATEL, the study examines the interconnectedness between assessed factors through a cause-and-effect diagram, facilitating the integration of EPR into sustainable accounting practices.

The research findings reveal that the most impactful contributors to sustainable accounting practices of EPR within the framework of sustainable development goals and circular economy are producers, consumers, eco-design, public awareness and the support of local authorities. These findings underscore the importance of considering these factors in implementing EPR and advancing sustainable accounting practices.

This paper contributes to the literature by proposing a DEMATEL-based model for evaluating the factors affecting the implementation of EPR within the context of sustainable accounting goals and circular economy principles.