Interactions between Lean Construction Principles and Circular Economy Practices for the Construction Industry
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 147, Issue 7
Abstract
With the recurrent challenge of scarcity of resources in the world, the construction industry has been giving more attention to sustainability over the last decades, given that this industry is responsible for a big percentage of waste generated daily as well as a large amount of natural resources extraction. This high use of natural resources happens because the construction industry still uses the linear economy of “take-use-dispose,” which disposes a high amount of material in the end-of-life stage of a building. Opposed to that traditional process, the circular economy (CE) looks to better manage the building materials and consider them as valuable resources after the end-of-life of a building, reducing the amount of waste created. Similarly, the concept of lean construction (LC) looks to improve the value of the building, reducing waste, and improving productivity in construction, and has been studied since the nineties. Their synergies make their combination likely to bring benefits for the construction industry; however, this blend of concepts has not been extensively studied in the built environment, making it interesting to investigate it. The objective of this research was to find the interactions, positive or not, between the CE practices and the LC principles, using the method of content analysis to create a matrix of relationships that found a total of 74 interactions, 70 positive and 4 negatives. From these interactions, the LC principle of “reducing the share of non-value-adding activities” had the biggest number of interactions with CE practices, the practice of “off-site construction” had the biggest number of interactions with LC principles, and the construction stage was the life cycle phase that averaged the biggest number of interactions. Finally, it was possible to identify an optimal project sequence that took use of the CE practices that had the most LC principles incorporated into them.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
References
Andrews, D. 2015. “The circular economy, design thinking and education for sustainability.” Local Econ. 30 (3): 305–315. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269094215578226.
Babalola, O., E. O. Ibem, and I. C. Ezema. 2019. “Implementation of lean practices in the construction industry: A systematic review.” Build. Environ. 148 (Jan): 34–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2018.10.051.
BAMB (Building As Material Banks). 2016. “D1 synthesis of the state-of-art.” Accessed May 25, 2019. http://www.bamb2020.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/D1_Synthesis-report-on-State-of-the-art_20161129_FINAL.pdf/.
BAMB (Building As Material Banks). 2018. “Reversible building design guidelines.” Accessed January 8, 2020. http://www.bamb2020.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Reversible-Building-Design-guidelines-and-protocol.pdf.
Bardin, L. 1977. L’Analyse de Contenu. [In French.] Paris: Presses Universistaires de France.
Benachio, G. L. F., M. C. D. Freitas, and S. F. Tavares. 2020. “Circular economy in the Construction industry: A systematic literature review.” J. Cleaner Prod. 260 (Jul): 121046. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121046.
Bertino, G., F. Menconi, A. Zraunig, E. Terzidis, and J. Kisser. 2019. “Innovative circular solutions and services for new buildings and refurbishments.” WIT Trans. Built Environ. 183: 83–91. https://doi:10.2495/ARC180081.
Carvajal-Arango, D., S. Bahamón-Jaramillo, P. Aristizábal-Monsalve, A. Vásquez-Hernández, and L. F. B. Botero. 2019. “Relationships between lean and sustainable construction: Positive impacts of lean practices over sustainability during construction phase.” J. Cleaner Prod. 234 (Oct): 1322–1337. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.05.216.
EMF (Ellen MacArthur Foundation). 2012. “Towards the circular economy Vol. 1: An economic and business rationale for an accelerated transition.” Accessed May 24, 2019. https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/publications/towards-the-circular-economy-vol-1-an-economic-and-business-rationale-for-an-accelerated-transition.
EMF (Ellen MacArthur Foundation). 2013. “Towards the circular economy Vol. 2: Opportunities for the consumer goods sector.” Accessed May 24, 2019. https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/publications/towards-the-circular-economy-vol-2-opportunities-for-the-consumer-goods-sector.
EMF (Ellen MacArthur Foundation). 2014. “Towards the circular economy Vol. 3: Accelerating the scale-up across global supply chains.” Accessed May 24, 2019. https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/publications/towards-the-circular-economy-vol-3-accelerating-the-scale-up-across-global-supply-chains.
EMF (Ellen MacArthur Foundation). 2015. “Towards a circular economy: Business rationale for an accelerated transition.” Accessed May 24, 2019. https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/publications/towards-a-circular-economy-business-rationale-for-an-accelerated-transition.
European Commission. 2016. “Construction and demolition waste (CDW).” Accessed May 2, 2018. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/construction_demolition.htm.
Francis, A., and A. Thomas. 2020. “Exploring the relationship between lean construction and environmental sustainability: A review of existing literature to decipher broader dimensions.” J. Cleaner Prod. 252 (Apr): 119913. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119913.
Ghisellini, P., M. Ripa, and S. Ulgiati. 2018. “Exploring environmental and economic costs and benefits of a circular economy approach to the construction and demolition sector. A literature review.” J. Cleaner Prod. 178 (Mar): 618–643. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.11.207.
Howell, G., and G. Ballard. 1998. “Implementing lean construction: Understanding and action.” In Proc., 6th Annual Conf. of the Int. Group for Lean Construction. Guarujá, Brazil: The International Group for Lean Construction.
Huang, B., X. Wang, H. Kua, Y. Geng, and R. Bleischwitz. 2018. “Construction and demolition waste management in China through the 3R principle.” Resour. Conserv. Recyl. Adv. 129 (Feb): 36–44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.09.029.
Jaillon, L., and C. S. Poon. 2010. “Design issues of using prefabrication in Hong Kong building construction.” Constr. Manage. Econ. 28 (10): 1025–1042. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2010.498481.
Khasreen, M. M., P. F. G. Banfill, and G. F. Menzies. 2009. “Life-cycle assessment and the environmental impact of buildings: A review.” Sustainability 1 (3): 674–701. https://doi.org/10.3390/su1030674.
Koskela, L. 1992. Application of the new production philosophy to construction. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ.
Kyrö, R., T. Jylhä, and A. Peltokorpi. 2019. “Embodying circularity through usable relocatable modular buildings.” Facilities 37 (1): 75–90. https://doi.org/10.1108/F-12-2017-0129.
Mellado, F., and E. C. W. Lou. 2020. “Building information modelling, lean and sustainability: An integration framework to promote performance in the construction industry.” Sustainable Cities Soc. 61 (Oct): 102355. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2020.102355.
Millar, N., E. Mclaughlin, and T. Borger. 2019. “The circular economy: Swings and roundabouts?” Ecol. Econ. 158 (Apr): 11–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.12.012.
Minunno, R., T. O’Grady, G. M. Morrison, R. L. Grunner, and M. Colling. 2018. “Strategies for applying the circular economy to prefabricated buildings.” Buildings 8 (9): 125. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings8090125.
Munaro, M. R., S. F. Tavares, and L. Brangança. 2020. “Towards circular and more sustainable buildings: A systematic literature review on the circular economy in the built environment.” J. Cleaner Prod. 260 (Jul): 121134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121134.
Nadeem, S. P., J. A. Garza-Reyes, A. I. Anosike and V. Kumar. 2019. “Coalescing the lean and circular economy.” In Proc., Int. Conf. on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, 1082–1093. Thailand: Industrial Engineering and Operations Management.
Ohno, T. 1988. The Toyota production system: Beyond large-scale production. Portland, OR: Productivity Press.
Pomponi, F., and A. Moncaster. 2017. “Circular economy for the built environment: A research framework.” J. Cleaner Prod. 143 (Feb): 710–718. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.12.055.
Robson, C. 2006. Real world research: A resource for social scientists and practitioner-researchers. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Sacks, R., L. Koskela, B. A. Dave, and R. Owen. 2010. “Interaction of lean and building information modeling in construction.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage. 136 (9): 968–980. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000203.
Saieg, P., E. D. Sotelino, D. Nascimento, and R. G. G. Caidado. 2018. “Interactions of building information modeling, lean and sustainability on the architectural, engineering and construction industry: A systematic review.” J. Cleaner Prod. 174 (Feb): 788–806. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.11.030.
Sarkis, J. 2019. “Sustainable transitions: Technology, resources and society.” One Earth 1 (1): 48–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2019.08.018.
Shingo, S. 1988. Non-stock production: The Shingo system for continuous improvement. Cambridge, UK: Productivity Press.
Smol, M., J. Kulczycka, A. Henclik, and K. Gorazda. 2015. “The possible use of sewage sludge ash (SSA) in the construction industry as a way towards a circular economy.” J. Cleaner Prod. 95 (May): 45–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.02.051.
van Eck, N. J., and L. Waltman. 2014. “Visualizing bibliometric networks.” In Measuring scholarly impact: Methods and practice, edited by Y. Ding, R. Rousseau, and D. Wolfram. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Womack, J. P., and D. T. Jones. 1996. Lean thinking. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Womack, J. P., D. T. Jones, and D. Roos. 1991. The machine that changed the world: The story of lean production. New York: Harper Perennial.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 147 • Issue 7 • July 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 31, 2020
Accepted: Jan 22, 2021
Published online: May 11, 2021
Published in print: Jul 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Oct 11, 2021
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.