Paper: Circular Construction: Opportunities and Threats
Abstract: The construction industry is one of the largest consumers of raw materials. Very little of the wastes generated from its activities are recycled or reused constituting a major concern for the environment. The common construction process in most developing countries follows a linear concept of “take-make-use-dispose”: a process fragmented resulting in inefficient use of resources and wastes. The circular economy (CE) concept of “take-make-use-regenerate” aims at zero waste reduction of materials, efficient use, and reuse of resources. CE principles include reduce, reuse, and recycling and their adoption within the construction sector has been encouraged by researchers, policy makers, government and non-governmental organisations. There are massive opportunities when the CE concept is applied to the construction industry. This paper introduces circular construction (CC) as the integration of CE into the construction industry. It identifies opportunities and threats for CC across the sector. Opportunities were categorised into economic, social, environmental and technological while threats were professionals, clients, government, and industry. The study was subjected to a qualitative exploratory research design where data were derived from an analysis of secondary sources through a review of extant literature. In conclusion, the paper recommends that the construction industry promotes CC especially at the design phase and deconstruction rather than demolition through compulsory pre-demolition audits.
Biography: Olabode is a PhD candidate in the School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Newcastle, Australia. He studied Architectural Technology at the Polytechnic Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria where he graduated in 2005 as the overall best student in Ordinary National Diploma (OND) in Architecture. He obtained both Bachelor and Master of Technology degrees in Architecture from the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA) in 2009 and 2012 respectively. In 2009, he bagged the award for best graduating student in the department of Architecture, FUTA. His research interests include architectural education, sustainable construction, building maintenance, construction waste management and project management. He has several scholarly publications (journal articles and conference papers) covering these areas. Olabode is currently working on construction waste management and he hopes to develop a circular economy-based construction waste management framework for the Nigerian construction industry.
