Abstract

Construction and demolition waste (CDW) represents one of the major challenges in the construction sector, together with the significant impact associated with the extraction of virgin resources for the production of construction materials. For these reasons, it is essential to develop circular economy practices capable of mitigating these issues. Industrial Symbiosis (IS) offers substantial opportunities, as it simultaneously contributes to reducing both resource consumption and waste generation. Its development requires the coexistence of multiple enabling factors, which are sector-specific. While IS is increasingly recognized as a key strategy to decouple resource use from waste generation, its uptake in the CDW and recycled aggregates sector remains fragmented and limited. This is largely due to the absence of a robust, sector-specific understanding of the conditions that enable its effective implementation.

This paper addresses this critical gap by developing a structured and empirically grounded framework of enabling factors for IS in the CDW and recycled aggregates sector. The results show that IS implementation is shaped by a set of tightly interrelated enabling factors that operate as a systemic configuration rather than as isolated drivers. Furthermore, the study identifies three factors previously overlooked in the literature that significantly influence the dynamics of IS, highlighting the implications and limitations of the current literature and promoting the conceptualization of information systems in this area.

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