Transitioning to a circular built environment through project ecosystems

ABSTRACT The economy is locked into a 'take-make-waste' logic, in which materials are extracted, processed, and often quickly discarded. This orientation to production and consumption is adding to the toll of an already stressed natural environment. Despite the growing recognition of the need to shift this linear logic to a more circular one, successful circular projects have consistently failed to catalyze broader systems-wide transformation. Drawing insights from 25 interviews with 30 actors and 4 workshops with 38 participants from Canada's construction industry, I examine how actors can strategically coordinate project ecosystems to enable the transition towards a systems-wide circular economy. I find that the key to understanding these challenges lies in strategically designing project ecosystems, not isolated projects, and recognizing the different roles of direct actors, who physically handle materials, and enabling actors, who shape institutional frameworks. I propose a process with three stages that build on each other: enabling actors reduce systemic frictions, direct actors then implement pilots under more favorable conditions, and share the resulting learnings with enabling actors to reduce frictions further. Each turn of the spiral lowers the cost of the next, allowing what would otherwise be isolated experiments to compound into systems-wide change. This approach provides a pathway to address the coordination challenges in project ecosystems and support a transition towards a circular built environment.