Scalable solutions for circularity in the built environment

This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 9 - Industries and Innovation, SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities, SDG 12 - Consumption and Production

Circular design has low whole life carbon emissions and resource efficiency at its heart. Rapidly implementing circular design principles into how we construct and adapt our built environment is critical to a sustainable future.

This collection will explore scalable solutions for implementation of circularity principles in the built environment, including infrastructure (roads and pavements, railways, bridges, tunnels etc) and the building stock (residential and non-residential buildings).

Circular economy principes in this context include making best use of existing resources, e.g. through adaptive reuse or recycling and design to increase future circularity (i.e. design for adaptability, deconstruction and reuse). Principles can be applied to materials, products, assets and complete buildings/infrastructure assets. Papers in this collection must consider implementation, as a minimum, at a regional scale and we encourage analysis of the potential scalability of proposed solutions at national scales.

Areas of interest:

• Scalable waste / sustainable resource recovery and utilization, including reuse / waste valorization for buildings and infrastructure (with waste or reuse volumes available being sufficient to be impactful at a regional level).
• Design of assets, construction materials, buildings and infrastructure for circularity at the regional / national scale, e.g. design for adaptability, deconstruction and reuse, sustainable construction.
• Digital tools and modelling techniques to support circularity (e.g. digital twins, material stock and flow modelling, materials passports).

Papers need to clearly demonstrate applications at a regional scale as a minimum. Papers will be reviewed for both their contribution to a circular economy and for their scalability as well as any more specific technical aspects of peer review (e.g. performance).