Circular Economy in The Building Sector Toward Climate Change Mitigation And Environmental Sustainability: Players And Effective Measures

This thesis explores the implementation of the circular economy as a climate change mitigation strategy in the building sector, identifying stakeholders as key drivers of change. It argues that fragmented stakeholder engagement, caused by traditional and conservative socio-organisational dynamics, hinders the circular economy transition. Thus, enhanced collaboration and communication throughout the building life cycle are proposed as a pathway toward effective circular economy implementation. This thesis places stakeholder dynamics at the centre of its analysis to address the lack of effectiveness in the circular economy transition. Consequently, it aims to suggest strategies and support informed decision-making that facilitates the effective implementation of the circular economy in the building sector, providing a well-constructed and validated roadmap for stakeholders. This roadmap is intended to guide stakeholders in navigating their path toward practical and effective circular economy implementation across the building life cycle, while also validating widely held but previously unformalised assumptions. The methodological framework of this thesis follows a four-step approach: literature review, recurrence and effectiveness concept, systems thinking concept, and questionnaire. The first three steps supported the development of the roadmap, while the questionnaire served to validate it. Following a comprehensive literature review, a theoretical understanding of stakeholder dynamics was developed using a generic mathematical approach through the recurrence and effectiveness concept. This was followed by the systems thinking concept, implemented via a system dynamics (SD) computer simulation tool. Lastly, the questionnaire assessed whether the theoretical concepts and simulation outcomes aligned with real-world sectoral dynamics. This thesis provides a comprehensive, literature-supported exploration of the circular economy as a climate change mitigation strategy in the building sector, offering an in-depth understanding, evaluation, and representation of stakeholder dynamics from theoretical, simulation-based, and real-world perspectives. It presents a well-developed and validated roadmap to guide stakeholders in implementing the circular economy effectively across the building life cycle, with a particular focus on the design phase. Additionally, a hypothetical case study illustrates ideal stakeholder relationships within a collaborative network committed to the roadmap, highlighting key interactions essential for enabling the circular transition during the design phase and throughout the entire life cycle. The innovation of this thesis lies in its focus on stakeholder dynamics as a solution to the challenges of circular economy implementation in the building sector, employing a methodological framework that integrates both quantitative and qualitative approaches. While limitations arise from the complexity of the research problem and specific methodological constraints, the thesis contributes to the literature by mapping intricate stakeholder dynamics and identifying connections that inform strategies for effective circular economy implementation, ultimately supporting climate change mitigation and environmental sustainability.