Material-focused circular innovation framework to address the cost and carbon challenge in capital project delivery: A scoping literature review

• The MFCI Framework for Capital Project Delivery: This study introduces the Material-Focused Circular Innovation (MFCI) framework, which integrates sixteen circular economy strategies across six stages of the asset lifecycle. This framework offers a strategic mechanism for embedding circular economy (CE) principles into the capital project delivery process, providing a potential solution to navigate the complex cost-carbon challenge in infrastructure delivery. • The Role of Resources in Cost-Carbon challenge: Resources—comprising both materials and plants—serve as a pivotal connection between the cost of infrastructure projects and their carbon emissions, not only during construction but across the entire asset lifecycle. The findings emphasizing resource productivity throughout the lifecycle as strategic objective can yield dual benefits, reducing both costs and carbon emissions simultaneously. • Operationalizing the MFCI Approach: The study proposes three distinct operationalization models for applying the MFCI approach to capital project delivery. These models are tailored to different asset-material types and offer asset owners a potential opportunity to create greater value by addressing both net-zero emissions targets and cost-efficiency goals, paving the way for a more sustainable and financially viable future for infrastructure projects. Infrastructure capital project delivery faces institutional pressure to meet net-zero (NZ) targets. Achieving NZ often result in conflicting demands between cost and carbon targets, where reducing project costs increases carbon emissions and vice versa. The circular economy (CE) presents a promising alternative to the linear "take-make-use-dispose" model, addressing this challenge by designing waste out of the system and maximising the value retention of materials, components, and products. However, understanding how CE can be applied to complex capital project delivery, both in theory and in practice, remains fragmented. To demonstrate potential strategies and their impact, we conduct a systematic scoping review and mapping of interdisciplinary literature on capital project delivery and the circular economy. Our review proposes a Material-focused Circular Innovation (MFCI) framework, comprising sixteen strategies across six stages of the infrastructure asset lifecycle to address the challenge of cost and carbon. Overall, our study makes two contributions: (1) a template-driven systematic mapping approach as a tool to combine heterogeneous literature, offering a novel approach for developing interdisciplinary frameworks and theories, and (2) the MFCI framework provides a structured foundation for future research in the circular economy and capital project delivery to address NZ targets alongside existing cost targets.