Life cycle insights into construction and demolition waste management: past, present and emerging futures

Construction and demolition waste (C&DW) poses a significant challenge to sustainable development and the circular economy. While research in this domain has expanded, existing reviews often focus on isolated stages or methods, lacking a comprehensive life cycle perspective. This paper presents a novel integration of bibliometric and content analysis, examining 1025 articles (2015–2024) from the Web of Science database. The review encompasses the full life cycle of C&DW management, including waste generation prediction, material identification and classification, transportation, and recycling or disposal. Key trends were identified through co-occurrence, co-citation, and cluster analysis, revealing a shift from traditional qualitative approaches to intelligent and data-driven methods. Four major research gaps were identified: limitations in predictive models, insufficient applications of intelligent technologies, inadequate multi-stakeholder governance, and the lack of standardized evaluation frameworks. Future directions are proposed to guide integrated and scalable solutions. These findings offer a holistic understanding of the field and inform more effective and sustainable C&DW management strategies.