A blockchain non-fungible token-enabled ‘passport’ for construction waste material cross-jurisdictional trading

Abstract

<p>The waste material passport (WMP) has been proposed for construction waste material (CWM) cross-border trading to reduce information asymmetry between parties. However, a major concern is that such WMPs are not issued by authorities that can guarantee authentication. This research aims to develop a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/blockchain" title="Learn more about blockchain from ScienceDirect's AI-generated Topic Pages">blockchain</a> non-fungible token (NFT)-enabled WMP. By using <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/design-science-research" title="Learn more about design science research from ScienceDirect's AI-generated Topic Pages">design science research</a>, we develop a framework to (1) digitize CWM into NFT-enabled passports via tokenization; (2) prevent duplicated issuance of passports with unique NFT identifiers; (3) enhance information transparency via blockchain distributed ledgers; (4) improve trading efficiency via its decentralized consensus; and (5) secure transaction records via its cryptographic algorithms. The framework is prototyped and simulated in a case study. The prototype is found feasible with satisfactory performance. It can serve as a reference for future endeavors in harnessing the power of blockchain NFTs, particularly for mobilizing blockchain NFT-enabled passports for various value-added applications in the circular economy.</p><ul></ul>