The construction industry faces multiple challenges, where transition to circular production is key. Digitalisation is a strategy to increase the sector’s productivity, competitiveness, and efficiency. However, digitalisation also impacts environmental goals, such as those concerning more eco-friendly solutions, energy efficiency, products recycling, and sustainability certifications. These strategies rely on data, understood as digital, interoperable, incremental and traceable. Data related concepts, such as digital data templates (DDT) and digital building logbooks (DBL), contribute to “good data”. Despite some research focused on each one, little importance has yet been given to their combination. Relevant relationships and overlaps exist, as they partially share the exact same data through the built environment life cycle. This research aims to provide improved understanding on the role of these concepts and their contribution to a more circular industry. The review develops conceptualisations where DDT and DBL are complementary and framed within an incremental digital twin construction (DTC). Misconceptions or confrontations between these three solutions can therefore stand down, for the benefit of a data-driven priority. To increase understanding and reduce misconceptions, our study developed the “Digital data-driven concept” (D3c). This concept contribution is the ability to structure, store, and trace data, opening way to streamlined digital transformation impacting circular built environment concerns.

The digitalization of the construction industry (CI) has the aim—among others—to raise the bar of overall productivity. The craft workforce is very relevant on the overall value-chain. Therefore, a boost in this dimension impacts the entire sector. There is a gap in proper methodologies to measure and model productivity. Construction 4.0 novelties provide new approaches for its evaluation and progress. This communication presents a review of workforce productivity assessment and delivers methods focusing primarily on craft workers motion monitoring. Products and services opportunities from Construction 4.0 in the spectrum of craft workforce management include support by embedded sensors for data collection that allow near real-time monitoring. The work developed led to the systematization of a framework to standardize craft workers’ motion productivity. The craft workforce motion productivity framework, Worker 4.0, tenders nine processes integrated on a flowchart to streamline task processes assessment and mechanization level. It also sets up a two-handed/two-legged chart system to model craft workers’ activities and operations. The contributions to the body of knowledge are substantiated on the framework creation with the ability to model and assess craft workforce performance. This approach is meant to serve as base point for different stakeholders focusing on skills, efficiency, mechanization and productivity improvements.

Digitalization and sustainability are twin trends in the construction industry (CI). Mobile devices are becoming more and more powerful, gaining the ability to support tasks that, until recently, were unthinkable. One example is LiDAR. The use of this technology embedded in tablets and smartphones brings new possibilities at a scan-to-BIM level. Given the commitment to circularity, waste audits will become mandatory for renovation projects. This is a heavy task that can benefit from existing processes and from digital technologies. This paper aims to demonstrate how everything is related and can be efficiently combined. The research convenes digital transition, green transition, circular economy, waste audit, LiDAR, and design processes’ improvement. A mixed-methods approach aims to demonstrate how it is possible to establish digital waste audits and how these can become the core of the diagnosis process to be made during strategic definition or as part of the renovation design’s initial actions. LiDAR technology embedded in mobile devices is worthy and can bring major improvements to the diagnosis phase. This will become more compliant with objectives set for digitalization and improved sustainability, contributing to the sector’s twin digital and green transitions.

Lack of data and difficulty in tracking materials and elements are two major obstacles in the construction industry that hinder the realisation of a circular economy. Data templates, material passports (MPs), and digital product passports (DPPs) are passport instruments that provide valuable information about buildings. Data templates deliver digital standardised data structures for MPs (digital data sets describing building characteristics of, e.g. elements) and DPPs (cross-sectoral passports developed by the European Union to collect product data for sustainability).MPs, which are associated with the built environment, help urban miners and building owners assess the value and reuse potential of building materials and elements. Several initiatives, such as Madaster, Concular, and Platform CB’23, have produced data templates and MPs for new and existing buildings. Challenges to their use include the lack of standardisation of data templates and MPs and difficulties in collecting and tracing data needed to create and maintain MPs through a building’s life cycle. Standardisation would foster the implementation of passports, but aligning existing concepts and identifying overlaps remains a present challenge. Future research and practice suggest that using geographic information systems, laser scanning, and computer vision will help deploy MPs more effectively in practice.

Craft workforce is the main productive factor in traditional construction. Construction 4.0 visions are based on automation and digitalisation, meaning that human site activities will require/stipulate changes. The extent to which manual tasks done by humans in construction will be replaced is uncertain. This might vary considering the context or type of work. Construction 4.0 includes craft workforce activities, as these can benefit from technology, fostering digital transformation in the short/medium term. The research scope is workforce–innovation–management using data from job sites. A framework is developed based on data future use involving electronic performance monitoring, building information modelling, smart contracts and artificial intelligence. A systematic scoping review is developed to identify legal/ethical issues in connection to technological aspects. The discussion and findings focus on General Data Protection Regulation compliance to apply the proposed framework. Optimised human–machine-controlled environments must be ethically managed by pre-established collective agreements and must rely on each worker’s awareness and consent. The findings suggest that the human aspects if improperly addressed could result in a bottleneck of digital transformation advances. Along with the framework, the paper provides a step-by-step, streamlined review of the regulations and requirements that need to be considered when implementing electronic monitoring of workers.