Circular economy (CE) is an emergent concept that promotes resource circularity in multiple product systems. Modular construction (MC), an evolving construction technique, which includes an off-site manufacturing environment, increasingly supports CE strategies such as reuse due to the elevated potential for design for disassembly (DfD). Design-stage environmental assessments are paramount in aiding the early decision making of modular construction projects to successfully plan and implement DfD strategies. Research on synergising modular construction, circular economy and environmental sustainability is rare in developing economies. Thus, the current study aims to conduct a design-stage life cycle assessment of a DfD and linear versions of a modular building unit in Sri Lanka to evaluate the potential environmental benefits. The life cycle assessment results highlight that the DfD strategy has the lowest environmental impacts in all categories, with a 63% reduction in global warming potential and an approximately 90% reduction in terms of human toxicity compared to the linear version. Further, it showed the elevated potential of reuse compared to recycling practices in improving the environmental performance. Sensitivity assessment revealed that steel was the most sensitive to the change in reuse percentage among main building materials. The analysis outcomes highlight the importance of long-term thinking, architectural design creativity and industrial and technology development to uptake the CE-driven MC in the Sri Lankan context. Finally, strategies are proposed to support the CE approach in MC in developing regions. Both quantitative and qualitative outcomes provide a basis for construction industry stakeholders, academia, and policy makers to explore further and promote modular construction practices to enhance the circularity of building materials and components in developing regions.

As the world is moving into a sustainable era, achieving zero hunger has become one of the top three Sustainable Development Goals, applying a considerable amount of pressure on the agri-food systems to make decisions contemplating the sustainability dimensions. Accordingly, making effective supply chain decisions holistically while achieving sustainability goals has become a major challenge faced by the present agri-food systems. Thus, to address the challenge, a novel supply chain configuration addressing multiple supply chain decisions to reduce global warming potential (GWP) and post-harvest losses have been presented by taking the banana supply chain in Sri Lanka as a case study. In the proposed approach, farmers have been clustered based on their geo positions using K-Means clustering followed by route planning within clusters using a heuristics approach. Retailer points are catered by assigning to wholesalers optimally modeling as an assignment model and then route planning executed using a heuristic approach. The solution generated from the above approaches has been implemented on a simulation platform to calculate the overall supply chain performance including the transportation component, in terms of the net GWP, post-harvest losses, and lead time including routing operations. Simulated supply chain performance has been compared with the existing system and verified the performance of the proposed supply chain configuration. The suggested configuration has reduced the net GWP by 15.3%, post-harvest loss by 2.1%, lead time by 28.2%, and travel distance by 20.47%. The proposed configuration can be further improved by adding dynamic characteristics to the model.

Prefabricated construction (PFC) has increasingly been recognised as a viable construction solution that has the potential to address the typical issues of conventional construction. Portability, quick fixing ability, less labour intensity, a massive potential for quality, productivity enhancements, and environmental savings are some of the most highlighted benefits of PFC. Developed nations and other industrialised regions have been applying these construction methods more successfully compared to developing economies such as Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is slow in adopting PFC because of some inherent barriers. Thus, this study aims to strengthen the case for shifting to PFC in Sri Lanka. Firstly, the current status of the PFC in the Sri Lankan context is described, including the barriers to adoption. Subsequently, an adoption strategy is proposed using the learnings from successful countries. This adoption framework discusses in-depth strategies/ initiatives to overcome current barriers to adopt prefabrication in construction projects. Finally, a pilot case study is carried out to assess the potential of PFC from a sustainability perspective. The results show that PFC has potential time savings and slight improvements in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than traditional construction in the selected case studies. Reduced times have a huge positive impact on sustainability by cost savings and environmental benefits from less on-site waste and emissions from fuel and electricity usage of construction machines. The outcomes of this study can influence construction industry stakeholders, including government and academia, towards escalating the use of prefabricated technologies to maximise sustainability and project-specific benefits.

Understanding the complex interaction between sustainability drivers (SDs) and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) within construction practices is essential to accelerating the global construction industry’s transition towards sustainable development. The current study aims to establish a universal measurable indicator system that establishes relationships between SDs that are relevant to prefabricated construction (PFC) and specific SDGs. The developed indicators measure how effectively PFC aligns with and contributes to achieving the targeted SDGs. A case study in Sri Lanka is used to identify and validate the usefulness of key SDs in advancing PFC in developing economies. The research methodology comprised a literature search, a pilot study, a questionnaire survey targeting PFC stakeholders, statistical analysis, an SDG mapping process, and a case study-based demonstration. The statistical analysis highlighted a reduced overall project time, the efficient consumption of materials, and overall project cost savings as the most significant SDs. The factor analysis grouped these SDs into four categories, explaining 71.48% of the cumulative variance. A fuzzy evaluation confirmed the critical role of all driver categories in the effective diffusion of prefabrication. The developed indicator system establishes a structured connection between SDs, SDGs, impacts, stakeholders, and indicator types. The case study analysis highlighted the potential of precast construction and the use of modular design in disassembly approaches to improve sustainability outcomes, which would directly support SDG targets such as resource efficiency (SDG 8.4) and health and pollution management goals (SDG 3.9). The outcomes provide valuable insights for construction industry stakeholders in developing economies committed to improving construction efficiencies. The proposed indicator system also contributes to the global construction sector’s efforts toward achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.