Business Models for Building Sustainability: An Exploratory Integrative Literature Review on Circular Economy, Health and Safety, Digitalization, and Stakeholder Collaboration

Abstract

The sustainability of buildings and the built environment extends beyond energy and environmental performance to circular resource use, health and safety, digital infrastructure, and stakeholder collaboration. This exploratory integrative literature review examines how these established but insufficiently connected domains reshape business models in the built environment. Since the built environment is a major source of global carbon emissions and waste, a primary research stream concerns the transition toward circular economy principles beyond traditional profit-maximization logics. The literature also highlights the potential of health- and safety-oriented innovations to reduce risks and improve indoor environments. Other studies highlight the potential of digital innovations to improve life-cycle management, resource efficiency, and risk mitigation. However, their widespread adoption faces systemic barriers, including data interoperability and cybersecurity issues, implementation costs, skills shortages, organizational resistance, and regulatory and governance challenges. The literature often emphasizes technical potential while paying less attention to value-capture mechanisms and the allocation of costs, risks, benefits, and responsibilities among the actors involved. Integrating sustainable practices, digital infrastructures, circular-economy principles, and collaborative governance is therefore essential to develop economically viable, organizationally feasible, and ethically responsible business models for the built environment, across the building life cycle and among public and private stakeholders.