The construction industry is among the sectors that need closer attention due to their environmental impact. The Circular Economy (CE) model promotes the transition to more sustainable production models, which are based on careful management of resources and the reduction of negative externalities generated by such businesses. Its application in this industry can foster significant improvements in sustainability. However, the measurement of the degree of implementation of CE is difficult, owing to an absence of psychometrically sound measures. In this paper, the development of the CE scale for the building industry was described, treated as an instrument that allows for a direct measurement of the importance of CE for companies. The processes used to generate items by applying the e-Delphi research technique were explained in the article, and the developed scale was tested and validated through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The final construction is composed of seven different weighted dimensions: four related to Resource Management: 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle), Efficient Management of Energy, Water, and Materials; two dimensions regarding environmental impact: Emissions and Wastes generated; and, one providing indicators of transition to the CE.

Nowadays, an omnipresent problem of resource scarcity and a need for reduction of waste generation make a discussion about eco-friendly production models more serious than ever before. Actions leading to a long-term sustainability of the Earth should not be treated as fashion but as normal practice no matter what branch they concern. A building sector is one of the world's largest waste generators. Fortunately, the Circular economy (CE) can help to diminish an environmental impact of the construction industry. Remembering the business principle what gets measured gets done, there is a need to create new measures of CE thinking in construction companies. These can be helpful in the assessment of the degree to which CE is implemented in the entities. However, so far there have been no scales of such measurement.The article presents two approaches; deterministic and probabilistic. First approach is responsible for the calculation of total performance of the company in terms of CE on the basis of inputs given by experts. Second method allows calculating the probability of the construction enterprise maturity in terms of CE and thus reliability of the deterministic estimation of this indicator thanks to the Monte Carlo simulations. The scale is based on an analysis of five phases of construction projects: design, production of building materials, construction processes, maintenance and end-of-life. Then, three levels of consideration are proposed in the model: organization, process, and workgroup. Results show that the scale can be useful for measuring the circularity thinking in the construction sector.

No abstract

This paper examines the effect of energy consumption, globalization, and economic growth on the CO2 emission of the BRICS (Brazil, Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa) region. Using annual data from 1989 to 2019, this research applies a panel cointegration approach. In this framework, we use Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) methods to examine the long-run relationship between the selected variables. This empirical investigation reveals that there is a long-run association between these variables, and energy consumption positively and significantly affects the carbon emission in these countries. These results indicate that energy consumption is the primary source of environmental degradation in the region. In contrast, the globalization (KOF Index of Globalization) negatively and significantly affects the carbon emission, implying the improvement of environmental quality. Further, this research could not find the presence of environmental Kuznets curve in the region. Policy guidelines are suggested in the line of findings.

COVID-19 has significantly affected the financial and commodity markets. The purpose of this investigation is to understand the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Dow Jones and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil returns in relation to other crises using the Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (EGARCH) model. The results indicate that COVID-19 and the accompanying lockdown have adversely impacted both yields and that the impact on oil prices is more significant than on the Dow Jones index. The variance and squared residuals of oil prices and the Dow Jones reached their highest historical levels during the COVID-19 outbreak, even higher than during the global financial crisis, and especially the VaR of both markets reached their historical peak points during the COVID-19 era. The variance of WTI during COVID-19 is higher than that of DJI, as was also the case during the financial crisis. These findings confirm that COVID-19 has negatively impacted investors’ ability to determine optimal portfolios and thus the sustainability of financial and energy markets more than the global financial crisis of 2007–2009. We, therefore, suggest that policy changes are needed to maintain financial sustainability and help investors deal with future financial and other crises.

No abstract

Circular economy (CE) is an emerging economic model based on the endless circulation flow of resources creating additional value. In temporary organizations such as construction projects, all administrative decisions are crucial for final success. One of the ideas is to enroll a circular economy manager (CEMR) and put him in an organizational structure. Implementation of the CE concept should be the effort of the entire project team. However, actions specific to the innovative nature of the procedures related to the CE in construction projects require additional support. It can be provided by professionals who can adapt a wide spectrum of knowledge to be used for promoting CE in the execution of construction processes. CEMRs can play the role of patrons of the CE issues because they support project managers in saving material resources in construction projects. The symmetry between visible outcomes of the CE idea and the employment of an extra manager has contributed to the development of the CEMR selection criteria model. However, effective recruitment for such a post may be a bit complicated for decision-makers, especially when CE is still enigmatic, as its procedures are quite undiscovered. All in all, the multi-criteria decision-making problem forces one to prepare the list of selection criteria and to rank them according to status in the hierarchy. This article shows prioritized criteria for selecting the CEMR based on the advanced literature review concluded after several expert-based reviews and calculated after some Monte Carlo simulations. The main purpose of this article is to help decision-makers in construction projects to perform a reliable recruitment process.

More and more construction projects are closed before they ever start. Among the most significant reasons for project failures is cost risk. Construction companies have many problems with reliable cost management. Rising demands of the key market players insist on making construction projects more sustainable according to the simultaneous improvement of the economic, environmental and social responsiveness dimensions. In order to investigate these problems, a four-phase research methodology has been followed consisting of: (1) literature review to identify research trends and gaps, (2) survey to construction experts to detect their subjective perspectives about risk costs and analyse the corresponding costs structure for the investment in sustainable projects, (3) simulations based on Monte Carlo simulation with an author’s methodology for calculating the cost risk with an additional statistical analysis, (4) ending questionnaire to obtain the final feedback from the experts and the validation of obtained results. A contribution to the development of knowledge about cost risk is the observation that the changing probability distributions of individual cost-generating components may include both economic as well as technological and organizational aspects. Thus, with the proposed approach, often complex, global challenges of sustainable construction projects can be tackled in an accessible way.