Construction and demolition waste (CDW) constitutes the largest single waste stream in the European Union by weight, yet the EU’s circular material use rate remains low, at around 12%, indicating substantial distance from policy ambitions for circular resource use. This paper presents a systematic narrative review of the literature on circular economy integration in CDW management, with a focus on the EU context. The review pursues three objectives: (i) to critically assess the gap between reported CDW recovery performance and genuine material circularity; (ii) to systematically identify and analyse persistent barrier domains to circular economy adoption in CDW management; and (iii) to evaluate the potential of digital and governance-oriented innovations to address these barriers. The review scope is explicitly delimited to the EU regulatory and institutional context, drawing on a corpus of 42 sources identified through systematic Scopus searches. The review identifies five persistent barrier domains—legal, technical, social, behavioural, and economic—with regulatory fragmentation and secondary material devaluation as the most structurally entrenched. Apparent compliance with the 70% recovery target under Directive 2008/98/EC conceals widespread downcycling and inconsistent reporting. A decisive paradigm shift is observed in recent research, from material characterisation towards systemic circularity, digital demolition frameworks, and governance. Emerging technologies—including AI-enabled sorting, Building Information Modelling, Digital Twins, and Digital Product Passports—offer significant potential to enhance material traceability, recovery quality, and decision-making across the CDW value chain. However, technological innovation alone is insufficient, Design for Deconstruction remains an underutilised upstream strategy, and lasting progress depends on coherent regulatory frameworks, institutional coordination, and market conditions that support circular practices. Future research should therefore focus on governance mechanisms, longitudinal performance assessment, and the scalability of digitally enabled circular solutions.
Pacheco‐Torgal et al. (Tue,) studied this question.