Climate Neutral Management : Implement Circular Economy in the Construction Industry

Abstract: The construction industry releases a great amount of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, uses loads of resources and generates a lot of waste. These actions are not sustainable, and the industry has therefore created a roadmap of how to become climate neutral until 2045. A few things highlighted in this roadmap is the importance of management and a shift to circular economy, however, previous research has not covered the connection between these in construction projects. This study aims to understand and assess the influence on management when implementing circular economy in construction industry projects. To fulfill this aim, a theoretical framework was constructed consisting of potential applications of circular economy in construction industry projects. The connection between these applications and project management was thereafter investigated in an empirical study which consisted of a qualitative case study with document reviews, project observations and interviews with different project manager roles of a Swedish construction company. The findings indicate that the implementation influences the managers to focus more on the big picture and think through the choice of methods. Advance planning is essential along with discussing solutions to optimize the use of resource, have good and early communication with the right suppliers and other building sites, and conduct an accurate quantification of approved materials and focus on the handling of these. Additionally, it is vital to do a proper enrollment of new employees and to manage them toward high environmental goals. Lastly, it was found that it is difficult to pinpoint only one manager that gets affected by a specific application since all managers are involved in the implementation of circular economy.