Embedding Circularity Assessments in Building Projects’ Frontend Decision-Making: Making a Compelling Behaviour Change Case

The circular economy (CE) paradigm has helped the building sector reduce its environmental impacts. However, existing circularity assessment (CA) frameworks have not assisted practitioners making circular decisions to ‘design out waste’ at the project frontend. A pioneering framework for CA in construction, including twelve circularity indicators (CIs), is presented. A state-of-the-art case study is used to validate an AHP decision-making model based on the proposed framework to inform circular design proposal selection. The model allowed circular comparisons, while granularity of decision-making against CIs informed circularity improvements in the selected proposal. However, participants showed patterns of impeding behaviours due to the fragmentation of project roles and confusion with other sustainability metrics. This suggests the transition to CE requires a compelling behaviour change case. The model also helps establish clear conceptual contours between different pathways to sustainability. Future research will integrate CIs within the wider landscape of building sustainability certification systems. © 2024, The Authors. All rights reserved.