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A Comparative Analysis of Legal Frameworks for Circularity in the Built Environment: A Large Language Model-Assisted Study of Nine Jurisdictions Supporting the Sustainable Development Goals
Corresponding Author(s) : Jan K. Kazak
Geomatics and Environmental Engineering,
Vol. 20 No. 4 (2026): Geomatics and Environmental Engineering
Abstract
The high consumption of raw materials and the generation of construction and demolition waste (CDW) represent significant sustainability challenges. The circular economy (CE) offers a promising pathway but requires effective legislation. Although considerable attention has been devoted to the technical and economic aspects of CE, comparative analyses of national regulatory frameworks remain scarce. This study addresses this gap by conducting a comparative analysis of the regulatory environments of nine countries: Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Switzerland, and Türkiye. With a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architecture based on a large language model (LLM), national and regional legal texts were analysed and fact-checked by experts. The results reveal substantial differences in regulatory maturity, enforcement mechanisms, and data platforms, resulting in the identification of three country clusters. The findings indicate that effective CDW management depends on legislative harmonisation, institutional capacity, data openness, and economic incentives. In addition, the study suggests that LLMs can serve as powerful instruments for comparative legal analysis in multilingual sustainability research.
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- Pierson P.: Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics. American Political Science Review, vol. 94(2), 2000, pp. 251–267. https://doi.org/10.2307/2586011.
References
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Antunes A., Silvestre J., Costa H., do Carmo R., Júlio E.: Reducing the environmental impact of the end-of-life of buildings depending on interrelated demolition strategies, transport distances and disposal scenarios. Journal of Building Engineering, vol. 82, 2024, 108197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2023.108197.
Zięba Z., Sekula K., Tomiczek M., Fedorowicz J.: Built environment challenges due to climate change. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, vol. 609(1), 2020, 012061. https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/609/1/012061.
Mhatre P., Gedam V., Unnikrishnan S., Verma S.: Circular economy in built environment – literature review and theory development. Journal of Building Engineering, vol. 35, 2021, 101995. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2020.101995.
De Wolf C., Çetin S., Heisel F., Flager F., Rosenberg J.: Ten questions concerning digital transformation for a circular built environment. Building and Environment, vol. 297, 2026, 114361. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.114361.
Kayaçetin C.N., Çetin S., De Wolf C., Heisel F.: Ten questions concerning circularity in the built environment. Building and Environment, vol. 292, 2026, 114291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.114291.
Outcault S., Granderson J., Pritoni M., Lin G.: Ten questions concerning participant engagement in building energy research. Building and Environment, vol. 295, 2026, 114452. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.114452.
Aslanoğlu R., Ivan L., Kayaçetin C., Li Q., Van Hoof J., Dikken J.: Co-creating an urban circularity questionnaire: A workshop approach with experts. Growth and Change, vol. 57(1), 2026, e70106. https://doi.org/10.1111/grow.70106.
Ma N., Zheng O., Li S., Braham W.: Ten questions concerning Large Language Models (LLMs) for building applications. Building and Environment, vol. 291, 2026, 114260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.114260.
Lang W., Theilig K.: Cities as central stakeholders for a fundamentally sustainable built environment. Perspectives in Architecture and Urbanism, vol. 2(1), 2025, 100038. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pau.2025.100038.
Shahzad A.A., Cucchiella F., Iqbal M., Oláh J.: Circular resource efficiency through climatic governance and sustainable competitiveness interaction: Global policy insights for SDG 12. Sustainable Futures, vol. 10, 2025, 101548. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sftr.2025.101548.
Formentini G., Ramanujan D.: Design for circular disassembly: Evaluating the impacts of product end-of-life status on circularity through the parent-action-child model. Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 405, 2023, 137009. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.137009.
Mądzik M., Świąder M.: Carbon footprint assessment for sustainable spatial management in urban settlements: Study of Polish cities. Geomatics and Environmental Engineering, vol. 19(1), 2025, pp. 25–66. https://doi.org/10.7494/geom.2025.19.1.25.
Świąder M., Schafer L.J., Lysák M., Henriksen C.B.: How data collection may affect the carbon footprint – the case of carbon foodprint accounting for cities. Ecological Indicators, vol. 172, 2025, 113256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113256.
Jensen S.F., Kristensen J.H., Adamsen S., Christensen A., Waehrens B.V.: Digital product passports for a circular economy: Data needs for product life cycle decision-making. Sustainable Production and Consumption, vol. 37, 2023, pp. 242–255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2023.02.021.
Jensen S.F., Kristensen J.H., Christensen A., Waehrens B.V.: An ecosystem orchestration framework for the design of digital product passports in a circular economy. Business Strategy and the Environment, vol. 33(7), 2024, pp. 7100–7117. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.3868.
Mêda P., Calvetti D., Hjelseth E., Sousa H.: Digital Product Passports in construction – barriers and opportunities at people, process and technology dimensions, [in:] Proceedings of the European Conference on Computing in Construction (EC3): 14–17 July 2024, Chania, Crete, Greece, European Council on Computing in Construction, 2024, pp. 626–633. https://doi.org/10.35490/EC3.2024.233.
Ghisellini P., Ripa M., Ulgiati S.: Exploring environmental and economic costs and benefits of a circular economy approach to the construction and demolition sector. A literature review. Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 178, 2018, pp. 618–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.11.207.
Hartwell R., Macmillan S., Overend M.: Circular economy of façades: Real-world challenges and opportunities. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, vol. 175, 2021, 105827. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105827.
Heijungs R., Huppes G., Guinée J.B.: Life cycle assessment and sustainability analysis of products, materials and technologies. Toward a scientific framework for sustainability life cycle analysis. Polymer Degradation and Stability, vol. 95(3), 2010, pp. 422–428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2009.11.010.
Diemer A., Nedelciu C.E., Morales M.E., Batisse C., Cantuarias-Villessuzanne C.: Waste management and circular economy in the French building and construction sector. Frontiers in Sustainability, vol. 3, 2022, 840091. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2022.840091.
Nie P., Dahanayake K.C., Sumanarathna N.: Exploring UAE’s transition towards circular economy through construction and demolition waste management in the pre-construction stage – a case study approach. Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, vol. 13(2), 2023, pp. 246–266. https://doi.org/10.1108/SASBE-06-2022-0115.
Chakraborty S., Chowdhury R., Shuvo S.R., Chatterjee R., Roy S.: A scalable framework for evaluating multiple language models through cross-domain generation and hallucination detection. Scientific Reports, vol. 15(1), 2025, 29981. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-15203-5.
Chua L., Lin Z., Zhang J., Wang S., Liu Y.: Crosslingual capabilities and knowledge barriers in multilingual large language models. arXiv preprint, arXiv:2406.16135, 2024. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2406.16135.
Perron B.E., Luan H., Victor B.G., Hiltz-Perron O., Ryan J.: Moving beyond ChatGPT: Local large language models (LLMs) and the secure analysis of confidential unstructured text data in social work research. Research on Social Work Practice, vol. 35(6), 2025, pp. 695–710. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497315241280686.
Sengupta S., Yin W., Nakov P., Ghosh S., Wang S.: Exploring language model generalization in low-resource extractive QA. arXiv preprint, arXiv:2409.18446, 2024. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2409.18446.
Mazmanian D.A., Sabatier P.A.: Implementation and Public Policy. Scott, Foresman, Glenview 1983.
Knill C., Tosun J.: Public Policy: A New Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2012.
North D.C.: Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1990. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511808678.
Pierson P.: Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics. American Political Science Review, vol. 94(2), 2000, pp. 251–267. https://doi.org/10.2307/2586011.