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Reuse and recycling building materials depend on an efficient set of information and tracking, which can be obtained by the materials passport (MP) tool. Although MP introduces principles of circular economy (CE) and brings environmental, social and economic benefits, it is little-explored in the construction sector. The purpose of this study is to explore the adoption of the MP in the sector to raise awareness about this tool. This analysis leads to the conception of a model and identifies the main challenges and opportunities to increase MP implementation in the sector.

Through a systematic literature review, based on the descriptive and thematic analysis, articles were selected, and analyzed to (1) review the MP state-of-the-art in the construction sector; (2) propose a materials passport model and (3) list the main challenges and opportunities to MP adoption.

The studies about MP were concentrated on strategies to implement general concepts and business opportunities. The MP model was proposed to overcome the lack of studies and understanding showed in the review. The model aimed to improve the recovery and reuse of materials across a building's life cycle. Challenges and opportunities were raised to direct decision-makers and support the development of this tool. A systematic regulation in the construction value chain and policy systems is crucial for creating digital platforms for data management of buildings' material.

This study developed an MP model to enable the management of building materials at different stages of the building's life cycle and contributes to future developments of the studies on this knowledge domain.

This paper aims to conduct a qualitative assessment of synergies between information flows of a multifamily product platform used for industrialized housing and materials passports that can promote a circular economy in the construction industry.

Using a single case study method, the research assesses the availability and accessibility of materials passport-relevant information generated by a leading Swedish industrialized housing construction firm. Data is collected using semistructured interviews, document analysis and an extended research visit.

The research findings identify the functional layers of the product platform, map the information flow using a process diagram, assess the availability and accessibility of material passport relevant information by lifecycle stage and actor, and summarize the key points using a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis.

The three main implications are: the technical and process platforms used in industrialized construction allow for generating standardized, digital and reusable information; the vertical integration of trades and long-term relationships with suppliers improve transparency and reduce fragmentation in information flows; and the design-build-operate business model strategy incentivizes actors to manage information flows in the use phase.

Industrialized construction firms can use this paper as an approach to understand and map their information flows to identify suitable approaches to generate and manage materials passports.

The specific characteristics of product platforms and industrialized construction provide a unique opportunity for circular information flow across the building lifecycle, which can support material passport adoption to a degree not often found in the traditional construction industry.

The basic purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the sustainability of construction on the one hand and market value, worth and property investment performance on the other hand. This paper aims to analyse price movements and price differences caused by different property characteristics.

Based on the estimated log‐linear hedonic regression model, a hedonic price index is calculated. Price movements subject to different property characteristics are examined by constructing various conditional hedonic price indexes.

The results reveal that, high‐quality flats or flats within preferred locations clearly outperform their competitors in terms of price stability during an overall market downturn. However, it is also shown that contemporary building descriptions or specifications of transactions within property databases are not yet sufficient and need to be widened to meet forthcoming challenges. Therefore, an “integrated building performance approach” is introduced and a proposal for the step‐wise improvement of building descriptions is made.

The paper shows that efforts need to be undertaken by the property profession in combining and transferring financial performance data along with information that is indicative of a building's contribution to sustainable development.

The paper offers insights into the relationship between the sustainability of construction and market value.

A paradigm in circular economy (CE) is that suppliers retain ownership of their products and materials, and that the users “only” pay for services. In many legal systems, however, elements incorporated in a building are considered to be fixtures, and therefore legally part of the building. This means that ensuring multi-cyclic behaviour of individual building elements (e.g. the facade or a window) is not so evident. This paper explores, from the perspective of Dutch law, how to secure the ownership of the supplier or to find alternatives within the existing system of property law.

The authors performed a literature review of both CE and (Dutch) property law. The results of these reviews are discussed and illustrated by legal case studies.

The options principally advocated within CE to retain ownership of building parts leave legal uncertainties and do not offer a solid basis for the development of circular business models, especially considering immovables and fixtures. For these categories, buy-back and take-back contracts, and models for reuse and recycling seem more promising.

The research is limited to a literature review. Although the legal principles discussed in this paper are valid for both civil and common law systems, and similar findings might, therefore, be expected internationally, this study focused on the specific Dutch legal context. Comparative legal research and research of best practices in the building industry is needed to test the applicability of the findings in an international context.

Following the findings, CE initiatives within real estate and the construction industry should focus on alternative implementations of the operational lease concept, taking into account CE’s ambitions to reduce the extraction of raw materials.

At the moment the challenges that property law poses CE, real estate and operational lease are hardly discussed within the literature. This paper explores this gap.

This research presents the development of a Building Passport for Sustainable Conservation (BPSC) as a questionnaire with a set of 23 core indicators, for a baseline assessment of heritage buildings. The aim of this tool is to identify priorities for future interventions, by recognising the contributions of heritage buildings to sustainability that should be preserved and the fragilities that need to be improved.

The BPSC uses a selection of core indicators for sustainability observable on heritage buildings. It was applied to four different case studies of modern heritage in the Netherlands, to verify its applicability and limitations.

The results suggest that this tool has the potential to contribute to an expedite assessment, reaching consensual evaluations of priorities for sustainable conservation, while reducing the time and cost of the process, contributing to support informed redesign decisions.

Recently, existing building sustainability assessment (BSA) tools have been adapted and new BSA tools developed for heritage buildings. Some tools target existing buildings, but seldom cover cultural significance and heritage values. Others target the after-redesign situations – aiming at assessing how sustainable the redesign is. Often BSA tools are complex and time-consuming, with extensive indicators and data requirements. The BPSC developed in this research covers the main aspects of sustainability and related heritage values, in a simpler tool for a baseline assessment.

This study examines how applying innovative I4.0 technologies at the design stage can help reduce construction waste and improve the recovery, reuse, and recycling of construction materials.

The study adopts a three-stage sequential mixed methods approach, involving a thorough review of current literature, interviews with six experts in digital construction, and a survey of 75 experienced industry practitioners.

The study identifies and discusses how ten specific digital technologies can improve design stage processes leading to improved circularity in construction, namely, (1) additive and robotic manufacturing; (2) artificial intelligence; (3) big data analytics; (4) blockchain technology; (5) building information modelling; (6) digital platforms; (7) digital twins; (8) geographic information systems; (9) material passports and databases; and (10) Internet of things. It demonstrates that by using these technologies to support circular design concepts within the sector, material recycling rates can be improved and unnecessary construction waste reduced.

This research provides researchers and practitioners with improved understanding of the potential of digital technology to recycle construction waste at the design stage, and may be used to create an implementation roadmap to assist designers in finding tools and identifying them.

Little consideration has been given to how digital technology can support design stage measures to reduce construction waste. This study fills a gap in knowledge of a fast-moving topic.

This study presents a structured investigation of the most important causes for delay in commercial real estate transactions. It assesses the potential of digital technologies such as “Blockchain”, “Property Passports” or “Automated Valuation Models” to make transactions faster and cheaper.

The authors conduct a focus group interview to identify the individual steps and the parties involved in real estate transactions. Subsequently, the authors discuss the prospects of digital technologies based on semi-structured interviews with real estate professionals and PropTech executives, and a comprehensive screening of technological solutions offered by PropTech firms.

The lack of an up-to-date, single pool of standardised property information turns out to be the most critical cause for delay in real estate transactions. However, the most promising technologies to mitigate this problem, in particular digital property passports summarising all relevant building information, face substantial barriers to adoption. The real estate industry has so far not been willing to more openly share data, which is a pre-requiste for the successful introduction of property passports. In addition, the principle of caveat emptor makes a lengthy due diligence process essential for buyers.

The authors conclude that industry-wide collaborations are necessary to help major efficiency gaining technologies to break through. Insurance products should accompany property data log books to guarantee the quality of data provided.

This study considers the potential impact of technologies in the wider context of the complete real estate transaction process. It identifies the major phases of that process and the associated bottlenecks. The authors gather evidence both from industry experts and PropTech executives and contrast their views regarding the potential of digital technologies to remove those bottlenecks.

The real estate world finds itself at a tipping point of a transition: a dramatic and irreversible shift in (real estate) systems in society. This paper is a State of the art of Disruption, Blockchain and Real Estate in the Netherlands and international.

The following questions were asked to all those involved: What do you think is the essence of Blockchain for real estate? What is the most current situation with respect to Blockchain and real estate from your perspective? Which publications are important from your perspective? What do you expect with respect to the impact of Blockchain on real estate for (social) real estate? What are questions for the future for real estate and Blockchain? In addition, interviews, exploratory conversations and correspondence took place, and the content was peer reviewed.

Changes in value concepts affect the valuation of real estate and the thinking about it. The orientation of changing users and owners of real estate affects innovativeness, values and flexibility in managing that property. Orientation on disruption must be seen as proof that the real estate world is able to actually innovate the accumulated assets and consolidate this. The financial and real estate markets are markets that exaggerate through irrational behaviour. Fear of “eat or be eaten” determines people’s behaviour. Financial and thus real estate markets are always unstable and must always be regulated by people and organizations.

The question that remains is whether it is important to look at disruptive innovations in existing markets or newcomers in the real estate market and Blockchain. The question is whether Blockchain is only a technological disruption, or a real game changer, and whether the entire value chain of the real estate market will embrace it. No two disruptions are the same. Trust in Blockchain is a prerequisite for guiding the predictable form of that disruption where start-up companies use new technology to offer cheaper and inferior alternatives to real estate in the market. You could also talk about anti-fragile value: “Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile” (Taleb, 2012), in other words: attention to disruption and Blockchain creates a viable real estate economy.

The true meaning of the Blockchain technology for real estate still needs to be investigated. The author is still curious to understand and clarify the value of Blockchain for real estate processes. Doubt continues to exist and is therefore a feeding ground for further research, because we do not know what we have not seen.

Looking at the impact of Blockchain on real estate, a number of conclusions can be drawn. First of all, the relationship between Blockchain and real estate has not yet been proven in practice. It is expected to develop further in the form of registering transaction processes and the DNA passport of a real estate object. Secondly, completeness and transparency are the basic ingredients for trust in the system. Third, real estate wants to remain viable. For this reason, taking the offense is necessary for real estate and management to connect with social demand. Behaviour also leads to new earnings models of the social and economic spin-off of disruptive real estate. If the Dutch real estate sector embraces Blockchain and is able to realize innovations, there are opportunities for real estate entrepreneurs to exploit the disruptive character to provide those new services.

The way in which disruption, Blockchain and real estate will develop in the coming years are not the only obvious characteristics of a particular era but also its social impact and user behaviour. This also applies to how this real estate transition can best be tracked, guided and utilized in society at the international, national and regional level. Disruptive organizations clearly respond to the viability of the (built) environment and therefore determine competitive strength. This affects the current and future valuation of real estate.

The sustainable transition towards the circular economy requires the effective use of artificial intelligence (AI) and information technology (IT) techniques. As the sustainability targets for 2030–2050 increasingly become a tougher challenge, society, company managers and policymakers require more support from AI and IT in general. How can the AI-based and IT-based smart decision-support tools help implementation of circular economy principles from micro to macro scales?

This chapter provides a conceptual framework about the current status and future development of smart decision-support tools for facilitating the circular transition of smart industry, focussing on the implementation of the industrial symbiosis (IS) practice. IS, which is aimed at replacing production inputs of one company with wastes generated by a different company, is considered as a promising strategy towards closing the material, energy and waste loops. Based on the principles of a circular economy, the utility of such practices to close resource loops is analyzed from a functional and operational perspective. For each life cycle phase of IS businesses – e.g., opportunity identification for symbiotic business, assessment of the symbiotic business and sustainable operations of the business – the role played by decision-support tools is described and embedding smartness in these tools is discussed.

Based on the review of available tools and theoretical contributions in the field of IS, the characteristics, functionalities and utilities of smart decision-support tools are discussed within a circular economy transition framework. Tools based on recommender algorithms, machine learning techniques, multi-agent systems and life cycle analysis are critically assessed. Potential improvements are suggested for the resilience and sustainability of a smart circular transition.

The improper evaluation and information management of circular economy (CE) (i.e. design, planning, supply chain, waste pile and material hazard) is critical for public health and is a major problem in the waste management of precast concrete (PC) building manufacture and construction and demolition wastes industry. The CE model is particularly problematic for PC building construction projects where the standard practices for the total number of waste building materials are not appropriate and do not match the safe disposal design specification, such as the recent number increase in the Malaysian illegal construction waste pile during the Movement Control Order (11 March 2021, about 5 out of 29 landfills related to states enforcing Act 672). The study aims to develop a framework application (i.e. Building Information Modelling [BIM]) that supports intelligent waste recycling management and sophisticated CE model system solutions.

Thus, the development of a new BIM-based programming algorithm approach is proposed for optimising CE in accordance with the needs of the current PC building construction schemes. As a precursor to this study, the concepts of CE practices are reviewed and the main features of BIM tools and techniques currently being employed on such projects are presented.

Sophisticated CE system solutions are described as an essential component of this optimisation to reduce the amount of waste generated at the end of the life cycle of PC building construction projects and to better manage the resources used throughout it.

Finally, the potential for a research framework for developing such a system in the future is presented.