Applicability of the environmental Kuznets curve to construction waste management: A panel analysis of 27 European economies

Abstract

The environmental Kuznets curve has received widespread attention from researchers and policymakers for its ability to vividly capture the dynamics between economy and environment. While attempts have been made to validate the environmental Kuznets curve and harness its explanatory power in different dilemmatic scenarios (e.g., economic development and greenhouse gas induced climate change), these scenarios do not include construction waste management. Given its impact on economic development and environmental protection, this research investigates whether the environmental Kuznets curve is applicable to construction waste management. We adopt gross domestic product per capita and construction waste generation as economic and environmental indicators, respectively. Considering the stationary and long-term equilibrium effects, a panel dataset derived from 27 European economies is adopted to estimate the inverted-U relationship between gross domestic product per capita and construction waste generation. In the sample economy group, we confirm applicability of the environmental Kuznets curve to construction waste management. This study, therefore, makes a simple but non-trivial theoretical contribution by extending the environmental Kuznets curve to the construction waste management domain. Future studies are recommended to further validate the environmental Kuznets curve using a wider set of economies and longer panel data, and more importantly, to harness its power by implementing it in real-life construction waste management scenarios.