Abstract:
The building construction industry is globally identified as one of the major consumers
of materials. Thus, the material wastage in building construction projects is very
excessive. In the Sri Lankan construction industry, it was identified that the main reason
for generating material wastage is the absence of proper material selection criteria. The
concept of Circular Economy (CE) has been obtained the world attention in reducing
material wastage in the construction industry as it targets zero waste and pollution
throughout the lifecycle of materials. Applying CE principles in the material selection
not only reduces the wastage of materials but also reduces the use of virgin materials.
Hence, this research aimed for developing a CE-based 10R evaluation framework for
materials selection in order to reduce the wastage of materials in building construction
projects in Sri Lanka. A comprehensive literature review was first conducted to review
the concept of CE, CE principles and its importance for reducing material wastage in
the construction industry. Deductive approach was chosen as the suitable research
approach in this study. Survey method was applied as the suitable research strategy
under quantitative phenomenon. A questionnaire survey was conducted with a
conveniently selected sample of 58 industry professionals to collect the data. The
collected data were analysed by using Weighted Mean Average (WMA) technique. As
key findings derived through analysis, the level of importance of each CE principle for
selection of materials was determined. Accordingly, the CE-based 10R evaluation
framework for material selection was developed as the main implication of this research.
Various strategies, such as reusing demolition materials, adopting prefabricated
building components, developing plans to on-site recycle and using alternative materials
were also proposed to implement the all identified CE principles assuring a successful
application of the developed framework.
