Advancing the Circular Economy through Construction and Demolition Waste Management for Disaster Risk-Informed Practice: Comparative Insights from Serbia and the European Union

Construction and demolition waste is a pivotal lever for operationalizing the circular economy in the built environment, yet implementation remains uneven across Europe. This study provides a comparative overview of Serbia and EU countries using harmonized survey data from the European Demolition Association. We analyze company profiles, revenue structures, and activity mixes across demolition, decontamination, and waste-management value chains. Serbia’s firms exhibit limited uptake of the circular economy: 69% report <25% of revenue from demolition activities, whereas 45% of EU firms derive >75% of revenue from demolition. In waste management (sorting/transport/recycling), 80% of Serbian companies earn <10% of revenue, compared with 33% in the EU; decontamination revenues show a similar gap (Serbia: 80% <10% vs. EU: 38% <10%). Although Serbian contractors show signs of maturation (50% medium and 13% significant by 2019 self-classification), activity remains concentrated outside high-value circular economy loops, and subcontracting shares remain skewed toward low-complexity segments. These findings suggest untapped potential for advancing the circular economy through targeted policy instruments (e.g., incentives for on-site sorting and secondary-materials markets), workforce training and certification, and digital traceability of construction and demolition waste flows. Strengthening these enablers could accelerate alignment with EU circular-economy objectives, reduce primary-resource use, and improve environmental and public-health outcomes in Serbia’s construction sector. Limitations include reliance on 2018 activity data and partial market coverage; future work should integrate newer waves and administrative datasets to track policy impacts over time.