The construction industry is responsible for 32% of the world’s consumption of natural resources, causing 850 million tons of construction waste in the European Union alone. The construction and manufacturing industries mostly apply a linear economy model, where resources are used once and then disposed of. As a response, the concept of a circular economy (CE) was introduced with the aim of keeping materials within a closed loop and regaining their value in the end-of-life phase. This paper aims to investigate the different CE strategies in the construction industry and the related manufacturing industry and how these strategies can be supported by digital technology. The 11Rs framework has been used as a reference within the concept of CE through a scoping literature review, in which 117 articles were reviewed. The analysis focused on the frequency of the various Rs in papers, as well as their applications and possible implementation. Seven interviews were conducted with Swedish experts to obtain industry perspectives and thereby specify a potential research gap related to CE. According to the study, existing research for the application of CE by construction companies has not been fully explored. There is also a lack of knowledge about CE and its benefits, as well as poor collaboration between different stakeholders, both in information sharing and processes. Findings suggest that all stakeholders in the industries need to make efforts to change their strategies if the transition to CE is to occur.

While the populations of cities continue to grow, institutions are demanding more sustainability in urban development, leading to a great increase in the complexity of urban planning. The need to consider social, legal, environmental, and economic parameters challenges the traditional urban planning processing in favor of an optimized and automated process. Generative design has the potential to optimize the design phase by automatically generating spatial design solutions and analyzing them in the design phase. The objective of the present study is to analyze the traditional urban planning process and to compare it with a digitalized driven process by using generative design. This study uses a mixed approach with four research methods: document analysis, survey, interviews, and a case study based in Sweden. The critical analysis of the Swedish urban planning process makes it possible to define the main barriers to a digitalized process. Results also show the benefits of using generative design for a more sustainable and faster design process. Two main conclusions can be made from this study: institutional and organizational changes are necessary to achieve digitalization, and generative design proves to be a useful tool that should be considered to support the digitalization of urban planning.

As the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) sector progressively embraces digital technologies, there is an emergent necessity to explore the capabilities of these tools in enhancing quality assurance and review processes during the design phase. Therefore, this study seeks to answer the following two research questions: RQ1: What types of errors can be effectively addressed using a parametric tool? RQ2: How can parametric tools be employed to ensure quality in architectural drawing and what are the potential benefits and limitations of this approach? The research employs the Design Science Research Methodology, which includes identifying issues related to drawing reviews through interviews with five industry professionals and the development of a parametric design script for drawing checking. The findings of this research have led to the development of two scripts that serve as model artifacts at a proof-of-concept level demonstrating the possibility to employ parametric design for drawing reviews. Further research could be conducted to investigate other possible applications of parametric design and automatized procedures in the AEC sector.

Environmental permitting is a critical regulatory mechanism for ensuring that industrial and infrastructure projects comply with environmental protection requirements and broader sustainability goals. In Sweden, however, the permitting process remains slow, fragmented, and heavily dependent on document-based workflows, despite the fact that many permitting decisions rely on inherently spatial information such as protected areas, hydrology, biodiversity, land-use constraints, and environmental monitoring data. At the same time, recent national reform proposals (SOU 2024:98) emphasise the need for improved digitalisation, interoperability, and more structured use of environmental information in permitting procedures. This paper presents a conceptual GIS-integrated framework for environmental permitting, using the Swedish system as a case study. The study combines a structured literature review, document analysis, workflow analysis, and geodata inventory to identify spatial data requirements across different stages of the permitting process and to analyse fragmentation within the current geodata ecosystem. Based on this analysis, the paper proposes a GIS-enabled permitting architecture linking spatial datasets, geospatial analysis functions, and regulatory decision points throughout the permitting workflow. The framework is further supported through expert-based plausibility validation involving GIS and spatial-data specialists representing applicant-side, municipal, and international geospatial perspectives. The analysis and expert interviews suggest that GIS already plays an important role in environmental assessment and planning processes but remains insufficiently integrated into formal permitting workflows, where spatial information is often reduced to static map attachments and PDF documents. The analysis also highlights key implementation challenges related to fragmented data governance, interoperability, metadata quality, and access to authoritative spatial services. Rather than proposing a fully implemented system, the paper contributes a conceptual and methodological foundation for future digital permitting architectures. The study proposes that GIS could function as a foundational integration layer with the potential to support more transparent, efficient, and interoperable permitting workflows, while also supporting future extensions involving AI-based decision support, knowledge graphs, and spatially enabled environmental compliance monitoring.