Leveraging circular economy applications in the offsite construction sector through artificial intelligence: A scientometric review

Offsite construction (OSC) offers a sustainable approach to building, employing innovative methods to reduce waste and enhance delivery efficiency. Integrating circular economy (CE) principles into OSC can further improve its circularity performance, fostering a more sustainable environment. More so, artificial intelligence (AI) can accelerate this integration, augmenting CE application capabilities in OSC. Despite the extensive literature on OSC and CE, implementing AI to enable the integration of CE and OSC, or CE in OSC, remains underexplored. The review aims to analyse the convergence of these domains, uncovering insights for advancing sustainable OSC practices. This research employed scientometric and qualitative analysis to assess 619 journal articles on AI, CE, and OSC literature. Science mapping quantitative literature review and visualisation techniques were used to investigate the data, determining frequently discussed concepts. The evaluation details AI’s integration of CE and OSC, summarising primary applications and limitations. A framework highlighting AI’s potential for promoting CE practices in OSC was developed. The findings highlight AI-machine learning models that overcome the synergy barriers of CE and OSC and serve as a benchmark for future studies.