Governing Construction Material Reuse as a Digital Commons: Bridging Ostrom’s Design Principles and EU Digital Product Passports Through Blockchain

Abstract: Scotland’s construction industry operates at a circularity rate of just 1.3%, despite construction accounting for approximately 50% of all material consumption. The European Union’s Construction Products Regulation and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation mandate Digital Product Passports (DPPs) for construction materials, assuming linear supply chains, with no governance model for reclaimed materials re-entering circulation. This paper addresses this gap by applying Ostrom’s principles for commons governance to a blockchain-based digital marketplace for construction material reuse. We employ hybrid methods to propose a prototype architecture of seven smart contracts designed for EU DPP compliance