The transition towards a sustainable circular economy through life cycle assessment in the building and construction sector: a review and bibliometric analysis

Transitioning to a circular economy is indispensable for the construction industry to achieve sustainable development goals. Understanding trends, gaps, and opportunities in life cycle assessment (LCA) for adopting a circular economy is critical. This study investigates the development of publications, identifies the most effective documents, authors, and countries, and highlights critical issues, knowledge axes, active research areas, and knowledge gaps. The study screened 196 out of 280 articles from the Scopus database and conducted a bibliometric analysis using CiteSpace and VOSviewer. Document clustering analysis identified the main research domains, and thematic classifications of knowledge areas and axes were provided. Additionally, development opportunities and knowledge gaps were identified through a full-text analysis of selected articles. The results show an increase in publications post-2017, with key research clusters including “Critical consideration,” “Circular building component,” “Building material,” “Design for disassembly,” “Integrated load match analysis,” “Adaptive reuse project,” “Data bank,” “Prospective life cycle assessment,” “Investment decision,” and “Environmental comparison.” Over 60% of the documents propose circular design solutions, end-of-life strategies, and alternative materials, while more than 80% focus solely on the environmental aspect. Only 4.6% develop integrated indicators, 2.5% automate LCA, 2.1% compile life cycle inventory databases, and 2% consider the social dimension. The findings emphasize the need to develop integrated indicators, methods, life cycle inventory databases, and automation tools based on integrated platforms and emerging technologies like building information modeling. This research identifies current knowledge gaps, suggests future research directions, and enhances understanding of how to make LCA more compatible with the circular economy. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024.