Filtering by
- All Subjects: management
- Creators: El Asmar, Mounir
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
- Resource Type: Text
The built environment is responsible for a significant portion of global waste generation.
Construction and demolition (C&D) waste requires significant landfill areas and costs
billions of dollars. New business models that reduce this waste may prove to be financially
beneficial and generally more sustainable. One such model is referred to as the “Circular
Economy” (CE), which promotes the efficient use of materials to minimize waste
generation and raw material consumption. CE is achieved by maximizing the life of
materials and components and by reclaiming the typically wasted value at the end of their
life. This thesis identifies the potential opportunities for using CE in the built environment.
It first calculates the magnitude of C&D waste and its main streams, highlights the top
C&D materials based on weight and value using data from various regions, identifies the
top C&D materials’ current recycling and reuse rates, and finally estimates a potential
financial benefit of $3.7 billion from redirecting C&D waste using the CE concept in the
United States.
The author hypothesized that there are specific practices that, if properly implemented, can lead to instantaneous controls of capital projects. It is also hypothesized that instantaneous project controls pose benefits to project performance. This research aims to find practices and identify benefits and barriers to achieving a real-time mode of control. To achieve these objectives, several lines of inquiry had to be pursued. A panel of 13 industry professionals and three academics collaborated on this research project. Two surveys were completed to map the current state of project control practices and to identify state-of-the-art or ideal processes. Ten case studies were conducted within and outside of the capital projects industry to identify practices for achieving real-time project controls. Also, statistical analyses were completed on retrospective data for completed capital projects in order to quantify the benefits of IPC. In conclusion, this research presents a framework for implementing IPC across the capital projects industry. The ultimate output from this research is procedures and recommendations that improve project controls processes.