Enhancing circular economy practices in construction through maturity models

Assessment of Circular Economy (CE) facilitates implementation, improvement, and monitoring. Considering the construction context, the main contractor organisations play a pivotal role in implementing CE, which creates a significant impact on the CE transformation of the whole industry. Even though a few CE assessment frameworks have been developed in the construction organisational context, a lack of a comprehensive framework for CE transformation beyond assessment. As a solution, a maturity model has been identified, which provides systematic guidance on the assessment and improvement of CE-related processes in the organisation that transform organisations from linear processes to more systemised, consolidated, and integrated CE processes. As the first step in developing a Circular Economy Maturity Model (CEMM), this study aims to identify the requirements of CEMM against requirements deduced from multiple pieces of research studies emphasised as requirements of maturity models in order to define maturity model as a suitable approach for organizational CE transformation. To achieve this aim, this study adopted the adaptive research methodology. Through a critical literature review, the study identified seven requirements for developing a maturity model, including applicable domain, purpose, design approach, key process areas, process categories, maturity levels, and maturity characteristics with assessment criteria. Finally, a comprehensive analysis was conducted to justify how these requirements need to be met in the CEMM.