Information Requirements for Digital Marketplaces Supporting Circular Construction Logistics : A case study on Reused Prefabricated Concrete Elements

Sammanfattning

The construction industry encounters increasing demands to reduce resource consumption, waste generation, and greenhouse gas emissions. Rapid urban development, characterised by limited space and complex logistics, complicates the implementation of circular economy strategies and produces substantial quantities of reusable construction materials from demolition. Although reuse has considerable potential to reduce environmental impacts, reuse processes remain difficult to coordinate due to fragmented material flows, uncertain timing between supply and demand, incomplete documentation, and unclear actor responsibilities. While digital marketplaces are promoted as enablers of reuse, there is limited empirical evidence for the information and functional requirements needed to support circular construction logistics and coordinate supply and demand. This study explores information and functional requirements for digital marketplaces support circular construction logistics, focusing on reused prefabricated concrete elements. A qualitative, exploratory case study was conducted, combining a scoping literature review, semi-structured interviews with industry actors, and documentary research on Swedish reuse projects. The findings demonstrate that a functioning reuse market requires four main categories of information, technical and structural information, documentation and verification information, logistical and availability information, and market related information. Based on these findings, the study develops a requirement framework consisting of five intersecting dimensions, product and technical information, documentation and verification, logistics and availability, market and matching functions, and governance, responsibility, and trust. The study therefore illustrate how digital marketplaces should function as structured coordination tools that facilitates early supply visibility, project specific matching, transparent verification, and logistics coordination, to not function only as listing platforms.