Dr Omar Amoudi

The construction sector is one of the highest consumers of raw and natural resources around the world, using 3 billion tons per annum (The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2013). In addition to this high consumption level, it is also responsible for the majority of the waste in the majority of countries throughout the world. For instance, in the UK, waste from the construction industry covers 50% of the total percentage of waste
(PricewaterhouseCoopers Network, 2015). In the USA, the Environmental Protection Agency (2009) reported that the construction industry generates approximately 26% of total waste. Therefore, any model that focuses on consumption rather than restoration of resources will have a negative impact on the value chain and will incur critical losses of resources including losses in the production stage, end of product life, disrobing of
ecosystem services, as well as imbalances affecting economic growth (Cheshire, 2016). While linear consumption has numerous effects on areas including economic, social, and environmental aspects, CE plays a critical role in minimizing these losses within the construction sector. The aim of this chapter is to determine the CE principles over the construction project life cycle at the micro, meso, and macro levels. There will be a critical focus on CE principles relating to buildings and materials. A conceptual framework will then be developed to demonstrate the interactions between CE principles and project life cycle stages.
The rest of the chapter briefly presents the methodology adopted, concept and principles of CE in the built environment at various levels, various techniques, tools, and circular models used to enhance circular economy (CE) in the built environment considering various project life cycle phases, and at the end, a conceptual circular model is developed to demonstrate the interactions and linkages between CE principles and project life cycles.

The Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) sector produces a large sum of the global carbon emissions. Emerging systems and technology coupled with a rapid modernisation within the construction industry, have been developed as a response to challenges of maintaining sustainable practices and procedures during the whole project life cycle. The technological advancement of Building Information Modelling (BIM) is the focus of this research, to determine its potential to facilitate the adoption of Circular Economy (CE) principles to empower the path towards net-zero carbon within the built environment. The employed research methods include a systematic literature review, and a questionnaire survey to collect data from construction professionals on the potentials of using BIM to enhance Circularity
in the built environment projects. Existing BIM practices for sustainability within the built environment, could in this paper be identified to align with the concept of the CE, which will yield further strategies aiming to maintain the path towards net-zero carbon construction projects in the future. Following the analysis of the data collected, a conceptual framework is developed to demonstrate how BIM features facilitate CE  principles and empower sustainability and resource efficiency within construction projects. To achieve
the full potential benefits emerging from the BIM utilisation in a CE context, industry professionals and stakeholders should comprehend the acquired BIM knowledge and appliance for sustainable practices. The BIM competencies currently employed by industry professionals could show the current existence of an interconnection between BIM and CE.

Keywords: BIM, Circular Economy, Sustainability, Net Zero Carbon, Built
Environment.

The adoption of Building Sustainability Assessment (BSA) systems is becoming a growing trend, but it has been criticised for being inconsistent and resourceconsuming. Recent development of Building Information Modelling (BIM) could help facilitate the BSA process. There has been useful research conducted in this area but there has been limited focus on the practitioner’s perspective. This paper fills that gap by exploring the practitioners outlook on the subject. The main aim is to develop a conceptual framework that compiles the wisdom of both theory and practice. Twostep method was adopted; a survey targeting different practitioners, followed by semistructured interviews with selected experts. Lack of knowledge and data exchange limitations were ranked highest among the survey respondents, while the level of information (LOI) and BIM libraries attracted more attention by the experts. Additionally, new challenges were introduced and new research areas to promote the development of BIM-based BSA were uncovered.

Building sustainability assessment (BSA) is perceived as one of the major pillars of sustainable development, its adoption is increasing and many governments are embracing them. However, in order to meet the requirements of these processes, complicated tasks which consume considerable amounts of resources are involved. On the other hand, BIM has been acknowledged as a key solution to industry issues and a leading driver for innovation. However, the utilization of BIM to support BSA is still at a premature stage compared to other BIM applications. This paper aims to review relevant literature to determine the research trends within the field and identify the possible reasons behind the slow and reluctant development of this synergy. A three-step systematic literature review approach is adopted. First, literature was surveyed to identify all published Green-BIM studies within the past ten years. Second, identified publications are filtered according to pre-defined criteria to select the most-relevant. The last step involves the analysis of the filtered articles and the categorisation of the findings. The review has indicated a significant research tendency towards the area of Green BIM. However, it was apparent that BIM has yet to be properly aligned with BSA practices. A range of challenges facing the BIM-based BSA process has been identified and classified into three-major classes: BIM-related, BSA-related and Organisation-related.

The quantity surveying profession on the international platform has adopted automated quantities technology through the Building Information Modelling (BIM) to provide up-to date sophisticated cost management services to take care of the implementation of time management and cost display and subsequently share the cost data with various stakeholders. This strategy aims to promote the integrated delivery approach which BIM is providing. It is fundamentally important to have a BIM model incorporated with the method of measurement to enable shifting from the traditional approach to a fully integrated platform whereby sharing and working on the same information is paramount. The difficulties encountered during the process of shifting from the traditional method to an automated system was the lack of standard between BIM and the New rule of Measurement (NRM1). This research is aimed to study the incompatibility between the software application and (NRM1) which was and is still the biggest issue to implement BIM in the construction industry. In order to bring an interface between the software application and the NRM1, the author has investigated a coding system. This coding system is made compatible with the interfaces of the software and the NRM1 so as to enable interoperability of all team parties to understand the entire principles of BIM. A BIM Model designed, incorporated the calculated coding data of elements established from NRM1 was initially tested. The results obtained, showed that the approximate Bill of Quantities derived from the model linked the standard specification of NRM1 with the BIM software interface.

Despite the significant role of the construction industry in nation’s wealth anddevelopment, the construction industry usually suffers from poor performance interms of time and cost overruns. This is due to its characteristics in terms ofcomplexity, fragmented nature, a large number of involved parties and a wide rangeof professions. Quantity surveyors (QSs) profession is one of the key professionswith many essential tasks over project life cycle. BIM has been claimed by variousprofessions in the construction industry to enhance the project performance and tacklemany problems within it. This research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of adoptingBIM on QS profession and its performance in a construction project. The literaturewas intensively reviewed to determine the main responsibilities of QS over projectlife cycle when it works the main project parties (client and consultant). In this partof research, the implication of the use of BIM has been specifically dealt with thework in pre-construction stage. A set of criteria were extracted and identified basedon the main responsibilities of QS profession by conducting structured interviewswith clients and consultants. Many scenarios were produced, after modelling a multi-storey building project utilizing Revit Architecture Software, to reflect theeffectiveness of using BIM with various tasks of QSs. The model facilitatesgeneration of different scenarios based on outcomes. The initial results revealed thatadopting BIM improves the accuracy and reliability of QSs outputs at early stage ofproject and enhances the documentation of project performance over project lifecycle. Also, the results demonstrate that project parties get benefits, from BIMadoption by their QSs, in terms of more reliable budgeting, less errors in quantitiesmeasurement, better documentation considering the limitation of adopting BIM, lackof BIM standard and the compatibility between the BIM software.

The study aims to identify key barriers and drivers associated with the adoption of circular economy(CE) in Kuwait’s construction industry. 36 barriers and 24 drivers were identified upon conducting an intensive literature review. A mixed research methodology was employed to conduct 10 interviews and 39 questionnaire surveys in order to gain insights of these barriers and drivers from the perceptions of the professionals within Kuwait’s construction industry.

The findings demonstrate significant obstacles that impede the adoption of CE which include a lack of awareness and knowledge among stakeholders regarding CE principles and limited technological knowledge on how to design and operate circular projects. Additionally, a lack of client interest, demand and urgency prevents widespread adoption. The results also revealed that the key drivers that can facilitate the shift to a CE include the need for raising awareness and knowledge through education and government intervention, improve educational efforts and training programmes to advance the CE concept. Additionally, government support in the form of policies, regulations, and incentives is essential for promoting circular business practices.

The obtained findings could form the basis for both industry stakeholders and policy makers to inform their policies and investment decisions to support the nation’s overall sustainability goals, by starting to focus on education and training of construction participants on the significance of adopting CE business model in the construction industry.

Keywords: Circular Economy, Barriers, Drivers, Construction, Kuwait

Heating in buildings in the United Kingdom is responsible for nearly 17% of the total emissions generated, and addressing them is integral as we face an unprecedented climate emergency. As the UK aims to achieve a Net Zero Carbon strategy by 2050, there have been several proposals raised to counteract and replace Carbon and Fossil Fuel based heating with cleaner, more efficient systems such as Electric Heat Pumps, Hydrogen Boilers, and Bio-Methane grids. This study aims to analyse the effectiveness of the proposed alternatives to carbon and fossil based heating in buildings, evaluate their respective efficacies and address the scope and challenges to their implementation and impact on the building heating systems in the future. In order to achieve this aim, an in-depth analysis of alternative proposals was carried out, followed by a set of interviews with industrial experts and academics to obtain their view on the validity of these proposals. The findings revealed that Electrical Heat Pumps are the most viable avenue while Hydrogen has the most hurdles to widespread implementation as the research and development around Hydrogen heating has been minimal, and data supporting its feasibility is inconclusive. Bio-methane (produced using Biomass) is an unreliable source due to fluctuation in availability and expense of maintenance.

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As Industries across the world realign their practices with a key focus on sustainability, the
adoption in Construction and Built Environment has been glacial at best despite being one of
the top contributors to carbon emissions and waste generation. The industry must restructure
its practices to comply with net-zero goals set forth by various governments and international
authorities and this study aims to examine how an integrated adoption of Lean construction
and principles of Circular economy could help ease this transition. A survey based strategy
to collect data measured on a Likert Scale was employed for this study, aided by interviews
with professionals in the industry and academia as well as an in-depth analysis of existing
data and literature. The results indicated varied levels of awareness of Lean and Circular
Economy principles, but several principles associated with them have gradually been adopted
in the industry, i.e. greater levels of collaboration, emphasis on cleaner supply chains, waste
reduction and management etc. The awareness was also inversely related to the experience,
indicating the recency of these concepts among industry professionals and how lack of
awareness, reluctance to change and adopting new practices one of the greatest hurdles to
their widespread implementation. This study provides valuable insights for construction
stakeholders on the significance of integrating Lean thinking and circular economy practices
to maximise resource efficiency, waste minimisation, and progressing toward net zero carbon
targets.

Keywords: Lean Construction, Circular Economy, Sustainability