A BIM-Enabled Ontological Framework for Multi-Criteria Circularity Assessment in the Built Environment

Circular Economy (CE) principles are widely acknowledged across the built environment to enhance the sustainability of projects across their life cycle. Advanced digital technologies have been integrated into design and construction strategies to accelerate the transition to circular mode. The existing evaluation methods for CE implementation focus critically on environmental and economic criteria for material efficiency and economic impact. The social and socio-economic dimensions are often overlooked. The sole focus on specific sustainable dimensions hinders its applications in real life. The high volume of qualitative data, varied measurement units across each indicator, and lack of data generalisation impede the integration of social factors seamlessly into the CE assessment workflows. An ontology is proposed to integrate environmental, economic, and social sustainability indicators that promote multi-criteria circularity assessments in building projects. The linked data features and application programming interface functionalities supported by Semantic Web Technologies and Building Information Modelling (BIM) facilitated the development of the ontology. The outputs from the ontology promote unification, consistency, and standardisation across the sustainability indicators, thus increasing its scalability across real-life scenarios. Further, this study supports the built environment in broadening the optimal choices of CE strategies and making sustainable decisions from early project stages through the proposed BIM-integrated open data model.