NLP-based Social Network Analysis of the Construction Stakeholders Through Shared Circular Economy Strategies

The construction industry involves various activities due to its own regulations, policies, and operations. Therefore, many stakeholders with various backgrounds act as key actors in this industry. It has a complex system based on the mutual relationship of different actors along supply and value chains. As such, it provides many job opportunities and thus, has an encouraging impact on the economy and society. On the other hand, intensive construction activities have led to a critical acceleration in the negative environmental impacts of the construction industry, and researchers, industrial stakeholders, and governmental institutions have focused on decreasing these negative impacts as it has the highest share with a 40%. In 2015, the circular economy concept gained a reputation thanks to the stimulation of the European Commission (EC), and questions about how to adapt this concept in various life cycles began. Hence, the approach to stakeholder collaboration to promote a circular construction has gained importance. In the last decade, the increasing activities toward circular economy have given rise to various circularity strategies at material, building, and city scales. Since mutual stakeholder collaboration is essential for a successful circular transition at multiscale, how these strategies are shared is prominent for a collaborative circular construction supply chain. Therefore, this study aims to illustrate how the construction stakeholders have a network through circular economy strategies. The circular economy strategies obtained through a systematic literature review for the seven target groups introduced by the EC were listed with a rigorous mapping process at the material, building, and city scales. The results were analysed by natural language processing (NLP) and then NLP-based social network analysis (SNA) was performed. Eventually, the network between different groups at three scales separately and multiscale in promoting the circular construction industry was illustrated through shared circular economy strategies.