How Different Tools Contribute to Climate Change Mitigation in a Circular Building Environment?—A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

The circular economy (CE) has become a trend because concern has arisen regarding the end of life of several products and the reduction of CO2 emissions in many processes. Since the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is one of the biggest generators of environmental impacts, there is a need to apply the CE concept to the industry in order to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, the role of different tools that are used to integrate CE strategies to reduce GHG emissions by the AEC industry is still unknown in the scientific literature. The purpose of this paper is to carry out a systematic literature review on the theme and analyze the following seven tools: (1) life cycle assessment—LCA; (2) building information modeling—BIM; (3) building environmental certifications—BEC; (4) building materials passports—BMP; (5) waste management plan—WMP; (6) augmented reality—AR; and (7) virtual reality—VR. A total of 30 papers were reviewed, and it was observed that, in terms of CE strategies and climate change mitigation, the vast majority can be classified as closing loops and are mainly related to recycling and reuse at the end of life and the use of recycled materials. Considering the building’s stakeholders, constructors, researchers, and designers can be the main users and, consequently, those that most benefit from the use of the evaluated tools. The integration between LCA, BIM, and BMP was also observed. Finally, as one of the main contributions of this research, other types of integration among the analyzed tools are proposed. These proposals seek to improve and update the tools and also address the need to reduce GHG emissions.