The construction industry faces increasing pressure to mitigate its global carbon footprint, reduce resource consumption, and minimize landfilled material waste. Offsite construction (OSC) has emerged as an industrialized paradigm capable of restructuring traditional project delivery. This paper presents a critical literature review of 19 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2020 and 2026. The objective is to synthesize the environmental benefits, assess the circular economy potential, and identify the supply chain and digital challenges of offsite building delivery. Results demonstrate that modular and industrialized building systems achieve substantial waste reductions, reaching up to 83.2% in weight and up to 78.8% on average across analyzed building projects. Furthermore, comparative life cycle assessments (LCAs) indicate greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions of approximately 8% under typical logistics configurations, with transport thresholds identified around 120km. Incorporating circular principles, such as Design for Disassembly (DfD), can further reduce global warming potential by up to 63% compared to linear offsite options. However, digital integration remains fragmented, with limited deployment of automated digital twins or artificial intelligence (AI). Moreover, widespread adoption is hindered by high upfront capital costs, design-stage constraints, and logistics complexities. We conclude that offsite construction represents an effective sustainable delivery pathway when combined with circular design frameworks, optimized localized supply chains, and integrated digital workflows.
The urgent need to decarbonize the built environment has accelerated a methodological shift from operational-focused product-level Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to comprehensive Whole-Life Cycle Assessment (WLCA). This paper presents an integrated and critical review synthesizing 20 cutting-edge peer-reviewed studies published between 2021 and 2025. The objective is to map current applications, evaluate embodied carbon hotspots, and examine the integration of circular economy principles and digital technologies in building assessment. Methodology consisted of structure analysis and evidence synthesis across the selected literature. Results show that as electrical grids decarbonize, embodied carbon increasingly dominates the lifecycle footprint, representing up to 80% of total emissions in high-efficiency buildings, with structural materials (modules A1-A3) identified as primary hotspots. While the integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can reduce environmental inventory modeling times by up to 91.5%, severe barriers persist. These include lack of methodological standardization, interoperability bottlenecks, regional disparities in Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), and difficulties in quantifying Module D circular benefits. We conclude that achieving effective decarbonization requires transitioning from static, operational-only models to dynamic, multi-dimensional, and digitally integrated whole-life frameworks.
The construction sector exerts major environmental pressures due to high resource consumption, waste generation, and carbon emissions. Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a critical driver for digital transformation, enabling optimization and predictive analytics. This literature review synthesizes 20 high-impact peer-reviewed studies published between 2021 and 2026 to evaluate the practical applications of AI in improving building sustainability. The methodology classifies the selected literature into four core clusters: energy and carbon management, construction waste and circularity, BIM-Digital Twin integration, and sustainable project planning. Results indicate that machine learning and deep learning can yield building energy savings of 20% to 30% in operational phases, and long-term scenario models suggest up to 19% global building-scale decarbonization by 2050. Computer vision and residual networks achieve over 95% accuracy in sorting and predicting demolition waste. Furthermore, AI integrated with BIM-centric Digital Twins supports real-time anomaly detection and predictive maintenance. However, widespread scalability is hindered by database fragmentation, software interoperability bottlenecks, high upfront costs, and workforce skill gaps. We conclude that transitioning from siloed algorithms to standardized, explainable, and multi-disciplinary digital frameworks is essential to unlock AI's full potential as an enabler of sustainable construction.
The urgent need to decarbonize the built environment has shifted academic and industrial attention toward the mitigation of upfront greenhouse gas emissions. This paper presents a structured literature review of 20 high-impact peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025, evaluating the development, environmental performance, and life cycle assessment (LCA) methodologies of low-carbon building materials. Synthesized findings demonstrate that cement reduction via supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) and alternative binders remains the most practical path for concrete decarbonization, yielding up to 25% global warming potential reductions, while advanced geopolymer systems achieve 69% to 77% embodied carbon savings. Mass timber and cross-laminated timber (CLT) superstructure configurations exhibit the lowest median whole-life embodied carbon (119 kgCO2/m² compared to 185 kgCO2/m² for concrete and 228 kgCO2/m² for steel), although their net benefit is highly sensitive to biogenic carbon timing and end-of-life assumptions. Circular and recycled construction materials, including recycled aggregate concrete and reversible structural assemblies, can reduce life-cycle environmental impacts by up to 65%. However, widespread scalability is hindered by a lack of methodological standardization, supply chain bottlenecks, and database fragmentation. We conclude that transitioning from static, narrow-boundary assessments to dynamic and hybrid LCA frameworks, supported by machine learning material screening, is crucial to achieving verifiable net-zero carbon building delivery.
Nos últimos anos, pesquisas relacionadas ao conforto ambiental e eficiência energética das edificações têm avançado, especialmente após a implementação da NBR 15575. Entretanto, ainda prevalece a percepção de que projetos com foco em conforto térmico apresentam inviabilidade econômica. Nesse contexto, tecnologias construtivas alternativas, como o Light Steel Framing (LSF), exigem avaliação criteriosa de desempenho técnico e financeiro. Este estudo comparou o LSF à alvenaria convencional (tijolos cerâmicos e concreto armado), utilizando simulação computacional pelo software DesignBuilder para análise térmica e o SINAPI para análise de custos. Os resultados apontaram desempenho térmico semelhante entre os sistemas, ambos apresentando temperatura operativa média anual de 29 °C, não atendendo integralmente às exigências da NBR 15575 para a zona bioclimática 7. No aspecto financeiro, o custo direto do LSF mostrou-se 19,52% superior ao da alvenaria convencional, sobretudo pela maior onerosidade dos materiais empregados. Conclui-se que, apesar do maior custo inicial, o LSF apresenta vantagens potenciais relacionadas à rapidez construtiva, redução de resíduos e eficiência logística, aspectos que podem contribuir para sua viabilidade em estudos futuros que considerem o ciclo de vida da edificação.
