Transforming Construction Waste Analytics to Support Circular Economy and Carbon Footprint Reduction

Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution transforms the built environment through several highly intelligence systems such as drones, 3D printers, robotics, as well as building information modelling (BIM) and geographic information systems (GIS). This transformation has widely been applied in buildings. However, to establish environmental sustainability in the built environment, this transformation needs to be expanded in other sectors that impact climate change such as construction and demolition waste materials. The aim of this chapter is to introduce a new conceptual model that can measure construction and demolition waste in real time and optimise their carbon footprint spatially. A quantitative methodology that embraces a measuring protocol and geospatial research method is proposed for this purpose. The proposed model is capable of measuring the recycling potential result in construction sites to support the circular economy as well as to mitigate the associated carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) with materials' embodied energy, transportation, and treatment.