Combination of sustainability and circular economy to develop a cleaner building industry

Abstract

The building construction industry is responsible for utilizing plenty of natural resources, water, and energy in the entire product life-cycle on one hand and producing air, water, and soil pollutions particularly in the operation phase on the other hand. Thus, regarding the high frequency of these projects, it is important to develop an integrated assessment framework to consider both sustainability in the development and circuity in the economy to ensure a cleaner building industry. This study aims to combine Sustainability and Circular Economy as two critical performance criteria in the context of building industry projects in order to move toward the integrated assessment model. Since the Circular Economy (CE) is related to a cradle-to-cradle life-cycle approach, the Prospective Multiple Attribute Decision Making (PMADM) utilities are utilized in this study. Afterward, an empirical study is used to weigh up the framework and assess different locations as an application of the proposed model. In this regard, two different mathematical approaches are used to ensure the reliability of the weigh-up results (Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Indifference Threshold-based Attribute Ratio Analysis (ITARA)). Finally, the case study alternatives are evaluated based on the weighted integrated framework by using Combined Compromise Solution (CoCoSo). As a result, these two different mathematical approaches successfully converged and confirmed the results and ratings. Also, the integrated framework ensures both sustainability and local environmental resiliency in developing the building industry projects simultaneously.