Circular Construction Platforms - a systematic literature review

Construction practices are critical for building our societies, but despite increasing focus on sustainability in the industry, the practices are inherently unsustainable – in absolute terms. The circular economy has been identified as a crucial paradigm shift to keep the construction within absolute boundaries of sustainability, covering waste and resources. The needed transformation comes with added complexity, uncertainty, and a requirement to innovate, areas that historically have challenged the industry. This paper outlines preliminary research into the challenges of circular construction and how platform thinking can catalyze the sustainable transformation of construction towards circularity. The paper is based on initial findings from two systematic literature reviews of circularity and platform thinking in construction. The review identifies core circular economy challenges like (1) high variance, low volume, (2) short-term project-based optimization, (3) though price competition, (4) industry fragmentation, and (5) lacking documentation of material flows and performance. Most of these challenges can be addressed by core features of platform thinking like (1) balancing and economy of scale, (2) long-term strategic thinking, (3) value and cost optimization, (4) value chain integration and coordination, and (5) documentation of platform architectures and performance. Thus, the paper finds platform thinking a promising strategy for enabling circular economy in construction, directly addressing SDG 12, and indirectly SDG 8, 9, 11 and 13.