Managing circular construction projects

The construction sector has been the world’s largest consumer of raw materials since years. Construction and building activities together account for 36% of global energy use and 39% of energy-related carbon dioxide (World Green Building Council, 2017). Considering the built environment puts major pressure on the natural environment, a change in the construction sector is crucial. Circular economy is one of the concepts that can be applied to the built environment. The circular economy is based on three principles: design out waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use and regenerate natural systems. This requires a shift in the way of thinking and in the way of executing and planning a construction process. Where traditional projects are executed according to the ‘take-make-dispose’ plan, circular projects work according to a ‘reduce-reuse-recycle’ plan. Research by Van den Berg explains that the new circular construction method requires a radical new approach (Berg, 2019). The objective of this research is to find out what changes must be made to traditional project management to deliver circular construction projects. This is done by describing the difference in practice in management, between traditional projects and circular projects. Furthermore, the aim of this research is to help project teams to control and implement the circular ambitions in the project. To meet the objective, the following research question is answered: What changes must be made to the management of projects, compared to traditional project management, to deliver circular construction projects? In this research, traditional project management is defined with the help of the Project Management Body of Knowledge+ framework, which is the PMBoK framework including two extensions and therefore called the PMBoK+ framework. The framework discusses 12 project management themes, including the different activities for each theme that ought to be executed. Four circular case studies are performed, they are analyzed by interviewing 13 key stakeholders and by investigating project documents. The interviewees are asked about the 12 PMBoK+ themes, to find out if the same themes have been applied and in what way. The degree of circularity of a project is divided into two categories: circular product and a circular process. The four cases are all circular constructions (products), described with the help of the 10R-model. However, it is unclear if the projects used a circular process. The outcomes of the four case studies are compared, by means of cross-case analysis. The findings and recommendations of the research are validated with the help of an expert panel. Based on the validation and the results of the cross-case analysis, the conclusions, discussions and recommendations are composed. The four projects that are analyzed are (partly) circular construction projects. However, it is unknown whether in the cases circular project management or traditional project management was used. A distribution is made between the four projects, project A to D. For projects B and D, which are projects with public entities as owners, traditional project management is used. This is different for projects A and C. These two projects can be characterized as experimental circular construction projects. The projects were built with the aim to show the sector how circular buildings are delivered, money was not the main criterion and more funds were available due to media attention. For the experimental projects, circular buildings were delivered where circular processes were used. In both projects, alterations were made to the PMBoK+ framework. These alterations were done for the Scope, Cost, Human Resource, Procurement, Integration and Financial Management. For the other themes, traditional project management was applied. The following conclusions explain what changes must be made to traditional project management to deliver experimental circular construction projects. To start, the aim to develop a circular construction should be an aim at the start of the project. For the scope, the client should define ambitions (instead of detailed requirements) and after the project team is selected, the requirements should be defined. For Project Cost Management, the budget should be accessible to the project team in a transparent way. The project team should consist of people with the same circular economy commitment, vision and philosophy, as part of the Human Resource Management. The procurement process should be different from the traditional process: plan the tender process timely in the project and involve suppliers early in the project. Besides, parties such as suppliers and subcontractors should be selected with the entire project team. Finally, new contract forms should be used to ensure that the building does not get demolished after the life cycle of the building. For project teams non-hierarchical and cooperative organizational structure should be used to ensure team work, shared responsibility and a creative process. With this, project knowledge is shared in a transparent way. Lastly, for Project Financial Management, responsibilities and risks should be distributed among the involved parties.