article · Ain Shams Engineering Journal
Digital transformation offers a viable solution to the challenges of circular construction, yet limited stakeholder involvement often hinders its adoption. An evaluation of perspectives across contractors, investors, clients, waste managers, and government bodies identifies the major obstacles obstructing this transition. Across these stakeholder groups, the most critical hurdles are organisational and cultural factors, regulatory constraints, and shortages in skill and knowledge. In practice, specific impediments include poor digital literacy, inadequate training capabilities, lack of feasibility information, resistance to organisational change, and insufficient government support. While different stakeholders weigh individual factors differently, understanding these varying viewpoints enables the design of targeted interventions. Addressing these identified challenges helps align stakeholder interests, ultimately improving the likelihood of successfully integrating digital practices into sustainable, circular construction projects.
Moving the construction sector towards sustainable, circular methods relies heavily on digital technologies, but adoption stalls when industry partners face unaddressed hurdles. Highlighting the primary bottlenecks, such as digital skill gaps and weak policy backing, helps policymakers and industry leaders coordinate their efforts. This shared understanding can accelerate the shift towards resource-efficient, low-waste building practices across the sector.
This early-stage research provides strategic insight rather than a ready-to-deploy technology. Technology providers, industry consultants, and policymakers can use these findings to design targeted upskilling programmes, software adoption roadmaps, and support frameworks for contractors and waste managers. Because the work identifies structural and perceptual bottlenecks rather than testing a specific tool, real-world application is limited to informing intervention design and commercial change-management strategies.
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The construction industry faces the rising challenge of circularity, and digital transformation emerges as a pivotal solution. However, limited stakeholder involvement impedes the adoption of digital transformation. The existing literature does not analyze stakeholders' perceptions of digitalization adoption barriers. Therefore, this study investigates the barriers hindering digital transformation in circular construction by examining the varied perceptions of key stakeholders. The study contributes to aligning stakeholders' interests and leads to targeted and effective interventions, enhancing the likelihood of successful adoption. Using the Stakeholder Theory, the study identified contractors, investors, clients, waste managers and government as the most influential stakeholders in circular construction. This study explores skill and knowledge barriers, market barriers, regulatory barriers, organizational and cultural barriers, and financial and resource barriers as key dimensions hindering digital circular practices. The study integrates the fuzzy Delphi method, fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory, and analytical network processing to address uncertainties and interrelationships among barriers. The findings indicate that stakeholders hold differing perceptions regarding the most critical barriers; however, there is a consensus that critical aspects are skill and knowledge, organizational and cultural, and regulatory barriers. Practical barriers include lack of government support, resistance to change, lack of feasibility information, lack of training capabilities, and poor digital literacy. The study provides theoretical and practical implications, informing future research and interventions to develop targeted strategies and initiatives.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.asej.2024.102787
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