Samenvatting

By 2050, the world population will have increased to 9 billion (Bongaarts, 2009). This increase will lead to significant growth in waste. Construction is one of the largest raw material users (Bribian et al., 2011), and this sector consumes about 40% of the energy-related CO2 emissions (Dean et al., 2016). The Dutch economy focuses on the development of a circular economy to be realised before 2050. In concrete terms, this means that by 2050 raw material will be used and reused efficiently, with no harmful emissions to the environment. The challenge here is to be much more efficient with raw material.
Furthermore, in doing so, to be able to provide humanity with sustainable supply. The economy meets needs but without insurmountable environmental pressure (Dijksma & Kamp, 2016). One part of the circular economy is construction, which is also the focus of this study. The Rijksoverheid vision is focused on the year 2050: “In 2050, construction in design, development, use, management and disassembly of buildings in such a way that these objects be sustainably built, (re)used, maintained and dismantled. Construction uses sustainable material and meets the dynamic requirements of the users. The aim is to achieve an energy-neutral building—the environment in 2050 by European agreements. Construction works make maximum use of ecosystem services” (Dijksma & Kamp, 2016).
The goal still seems a long way off; the sustainability of office buildings is not yet sufficiently achieved. One of the reasons for this is the costs involved (Manders, 2020). According to Dijksma and  Kamp (2016), several things are essential to meet the targets by the deadline. These are more innovative and circular projects in construction, carbon reduction, reuse of material, innovations, and the life-cycle cost approach. Innovation may help to improve these characteristics. According to Elmualim (2010), building information model (BIM) can be an innovation for the set purpose. BIM can translate the building life-cycle into processes, material and facility operations. BIM has the potential to facilitate energy performance analysis and has already introduced solutions to overcome the various barriers (Mahdjoubi et al., 2015; Motawa & Carter, 2013). These characteristics fit in well with the critical points of Dijksma and Kamp (2016). The statutory challenge for a circular economy for 2050 in combination with the innovative possibilities available with BIM is the focus of this research. The research question for this research is: