From research to practice: A review on technologies for addressing the information gap for building material reuse in circular construction

Abstract

Reusing high-value construction materials from existing buildings that otherwise would be discarded as waste is a key strategy for achieving a circular economy. However, this potential for reuse is often hindered by a critical information gap between material life cycles. Reliable, accurate, and sufficient information in digital form for the characterization and assessment of recovered materials for reuse is typically not available, nor are there well-established processes for generating such information. This review aims to understand how to address this broad knowledge gap to help scale up material reuse in the built environment. A flexible pattern-matching methodology is used to illuminate the research-industry gap by synthesizing insights from state-of-the-art literature on material reuse strategies as well as empirical data from various real-world cases. Results indicate that the organization of construction material information for reuse can be categorized into three main categories: information property attributes, information source, and reuse actions. This research contributes to the existing body of literature on building material reuse by a) synthesizing the current state-of-the-art in building material reuse research, b) identifying gaps and recurring themes across research and industrial practices, and c) contrasting theoretical approaches with real-world applications, highlighting areas of convergence and divergence. This study provides a taxonomy that can be useful for industry practitioners and academics, offering actionable insights to accelerate the transition to a more circular construction paradigm.