circular economy

Join the circular economy

In 2020, the cumulative mass produced by human activities reached 1154 gigatons, surpassing the total mass of living organisms. Notably, 98% of this human-made mass is concentrated within the built environment. Annually, global construction activities account for the consumption of approximately 50 gigatons of minerals, 1 gigaton of metals, and 265 million tons of timber. Embracing circular practices is inherently linked to enhancing efficiency, fostering a competitive edge, catalysing innovation, and unlocking fresh avenues for revenue.

Every year on a global scale, the construction and upgrading of the built environment result in staggering amounts of waste: 2.2 billion metric tons from construction and demolition activities, and an additional 100 billion metric tons from mining minerals and metals. In addition to this, we contribute 11.2 billion metric tons of municipal solid waste and 360 billion metric tons of wastewater as inhabitants of the built environment. Our excessive resource consumption and waste generation are key drivers of climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality. Compounding this challenge, the built environment is projected to double in size within a single generation, leading to a 50% increase in total global waste production.

Facing an existential challenge, the built environment requires collective action. Join us in advancing the circular economy—an approach that reimagines resources and waste management for a sustainable future.

Rethink

The current emphasis within the built environment value chain is predominantly on construction. However, the concept of the circular economy seeks to re-evaluate and preserve the value of resources, aiming to minimize negative environmental, social, and economic impacts while maximizing positive ones.

Within the built environment, the circular economy focuses on two primary ‘waste’ streams: those originating from the physical processes involved in creating, maintaining, and demolishing buildings and infrastructure, and those generated by human use of the built environment, such as wastewater, solid waste, and heat. The approach views all waste as potential resources.

Embodied resources

The importance of embodied resources is underscored, recognizing the irreplaceable nature of many natural resources. Attention is required from the moment of extraction, through transportation and processing into construction materials, incorporation into buildings and infrastructure, usage, maintenance, and repair, to eventual removal, and the treatment of resulting 'wastes.'

Circularity entails keeping materials in use through practices like sharing, leasing, adapting, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, reclaiming, remanufacturing, and, ultimately, recycling. When resources undergo remanufacturing and recycling, a crucial objective is to maintain or minimize the loss of performance and value between their first, second, and tertiary uses.

By-products

Utilizing the nutrient and energy-rich by-products of wastewater and organic solid waste is crucial for achieving circularity in our society. These abundant resources have been consistently available throughout human history, presenting an opportunity to recognize, harness, and maximize their value. This involves treating these streams as valuable resources for energy generation, as well as for use in industrial and agricultural production.

The circular economy is essential

Embracing a circular economy is imperative for addressing future socioeconomic needs, restoring biodiversity, and fortifying stressed natural systems. By adopting circular practices, we can simultaneously reduce carbon emissions and enhance overall societal well-being.

The transition to a circular economy also unlocks new business prospects. This approach is inherently aligned with efficiency, allowing early adopters to accomplish more with fewer resources and gain a competitive edge. Furthermore, fostering a circular economy demands innovation and enterprise, empowering organizations throughout the entire built environment value chain, as well as new entrants, to cultivate innovative revenue streams.

Adapt and thrive

The transition to a circular economy necessitates a transformation in the built environment value chain, where materials and assets are treated differently, requiring the development of new skill sets. This shift presents an opportunity to establish innovative businesses, assume roles, and offer services that were previously unimaginable, fostering connections across various economic sectors. In the circular economy, organizations within the value chain will engage in transactions with a new approach. There is a need for commercial models that promote innovation, reward outcomes, and equitably share risks and rewards. Factors such as global demand for materials, resource scarcity, heightened awareness of the true costs and values of materials, and a better understanding of materials embedded in the built environment contribute to this transformative momentum. These factors encourage and facilitate:

01.

The emergence of a sharing economy, where ownership costs and benefits are distributed among a larger population.

02.

The concept of "Materials as a Service," wherein suppliers lease materials to users for the lifespan of assets and reclaim them at the end of their life cycle.

03.

The acquisition of materials currently in use to ensure their proper handling at the end of life.

04.

The capture of resources generated as by-products of the built environment's utilization.

Five steps towards the circular economy

Operate and maintain for circularity

Initiating the circular economy should commence with a focus on Operations and Maintenance (O&M) as the primary step, given that in mature economies, new construction contributes only about 0.5% annually to the value of the built environment. This perspective underscores that 99.5% of our buildings and infrastructure already exist, highlighting the imperative to prioritize the utilization of existing assets to minimize waste and optimize resource efficiency. To achieve this, a strategic approach is recommended:

Be Digital and Data-Led

Utilize real-time data to optimize the operation of mechanical equipment, adapting to changing conditions and loads, thereby minimizing component wear.

Demand the Right to Repair

Prioritize repair and refurbishment over demolition and replacement as the default solution, fostering sustainability and resource conservation.

Strengthen Asset Management

Embed circular economy objectives, metrics, and processes into asset management strategies, planning, and delivery. Regular maintenance should be performed to extend the life of existing assets.

Reuse

Extract new value from existing assets and components by rethinking their use, reconfiguring, reconditioning, or remanufacturing.

Adapt, Retrofit, and Refurbish

Extend the life of existing assets to derive value and reduce capital expenditure.

Integrate

Overcome siloed disciplines by integrating capital delivery, asset operation, and maintenance. Ensure seamless connection between people, work processes, culture, objectives, performance metrics, and incentives to enhance overall efficiency.

Commission

Make performance targets an integral part of procurement, ensuring that new assets or interventions meet expectations and are sustained over time. Provide operational staff with the necessary understanding and capabilities for maintaining performance post-handover.

Take Every Opportunity

View all interventions involving adaptation of existing assets as opportunities to recover resources from the built environment, contributing to the replenishment of available resources.

Plan for circularity

New approaches to organisational and spatial planning are both essential. Organisations right across the built environment value chain, from major clients to small suppliers, must specify circularity as a fundamental outcome – for themselves and for those they transact with. And they must arrange themselves so that materials can be traded and exchanged with maximum retained performance and value.

Set the objective

Build circular economy principles and objectives into your organisational strategy, planning and delivery.

Challenge need

Resource consumption can be substantially reduced by challenging and changing user behaviours. Cutting back user demand can sometimes remove the need for construction of new buildings or infrastructure altogether.

Use nature-based solutions

Hard engineering can sometimes be minimised or avoided by using nature-based solutions. Using nature-based solutions where possible will also bring wider environmental and social benefits.

Pursue efficiency

Further reduce the need for new construction by squeezing the maximum performance from existing assets and adapting redundant assets to new uses.

Manage stocks and flows

View the built environment as a bank of materials that can be drawn on for resources as an alternative to first-use materials. Deliver all materials, components, assemblages and assets with digital certificates that record and track their provenance, composition, use and condition.

Conduct lifecycle assessments

Assess the service life of assets, components and materials, and their availability, utility and value, in order to understand when resources can be released for reuse and potential trade-offs between their value in current and future uses.

Develop the circular ecosystem

Enable the flow of resources by, for example, locating assets that produce too much heat close to assets that require heating, such as an underground station and a hospital, or an advanced anaerobic digestion facility and a commercial greenhouse. And build local ‘ecosystems’ of companies to manage stocks and flows through the ‘bank of materials’.

Design for circularity

You’re probably familiar with DfMA – design for manufacture and assembly. The circular economy requires design for a much wider range of stages and activities including manufacture, assembly, adaptation, repurposing, repair and disassembly – design for ‘X’ or DfX.

Incorporate BIM and digital twins

Utilize digital asset models to address requirements at every stage of the asset lifecycle, from construction to decommissioning. Establish a platform for effective asset management.

Foster design for reuse

Strive to maintain existing assets in their current state, without modification. If relocation is necessary, design assets for reuse in new locations with minimal alterations.

Emphasize design for longevity

Acknowledge that ensuring durability, climate resilience, or additional capacity may require an initial investment in more resources. Prioritize designs that facilitate through-life adaptation and refurbishment.

Prioritize design for construction

Address the issue of substantial material wastage on construction sites by creating designs that are easy to build and adhere to standard dimensions and units. Minimize waste caused by over-ordering, transportation and storage of unused materials, weather-related damage, poor supply chain coordination, and human error by adopting modern construction methods.

Advocate for design for adaptation and deconstruction

Plan for the removal and replacement of components, disassembly, and clean separation of materials to prevent the loss of value.

Stress design for efficiency

Optimize resource use to save costs and reduce carbon footprint. Design with a focus on sustaining the value of materials throughout their lifecycle or across multiple lifecycles.

Encourage design for standardization

Simplify the integration and disassembly of assets by utilizing products and modules based on industry standards and common platforms.

Procure, manufacture and construct for circularity

Promoting the circular economy necessitates innovative commercial strategies and collaborative relationships throughout the entire value chain. Tender criteria and bid assessments should align with circular economy principles, incorporating appropriate scoring, contracts, and commercial incentives. Greening procurement requires a clear vision, effective leadership, workforce upskilling, adherence to relevant standards and performance metrics, and robust governance.

1. Adopt a product-as-a-service model: Lease materials, products, and components, allowing suppliers to optimize their performance during use and retrieve them when no longer needed or at the end of their life cycle.

2. Prioritize asset reuse: Embrace and anticipate the reuse of assets, combining recovered and reconditioned materials, components, and assemblies with new ones.

3. Demand sustainable and healthy materials: Specify materials and products that are recycled, reclaimed, reconditioned, or regenerative, and ensure they have no harmful health or environmental impacts.

4. Foster innovation: Pilot, scale, and commercialize new products, technical solutions, and operational methods.

5. Foster collaboration: Share risks, benefit from shared knowledge and experience, achieve scale efficiencies, and optimize value through joint procurement with others in your sector.

6. Embrace modern construction methods: Utilize offsite manufacturing, just-in-time delivery, and onsite assembly to enhance resource efficiency and reduce waste.

7. Standardize construction technologies: Establish common design approaches and interfaces to transform construction into a more streamlined and integrated industry, supporting reconfiguration, disassembly, and reuse.

8. Adapt with standardized components: Employ standardized components, modules, and assemblies with universal connections, allowing for adaptation and disassembly, reducing the need for bespoke solutions.

9. Encourage collaboration and consolidation: Large clients should consolidate projects into programs, clients with similar asset requirements should seek common solutions, and suppliers should develop compatible solutions and systems for mass production.

10. Embrace waste recovery: Treat all manufacturing and construction wastes as feedstock, aiming to minimize new resource inputs and retain their value.

11. Promote responsible buying: Avoid single-use tools and packaging and implement practices to store and manage materials effectively, minimizing wastage due to damage.

Sustain and recover value

As the circular economy continues to expand and advance, involving an increasing number of organizations engaged in resource trading, the associated economic, social, and environmental benefits will grow exponentially in both quantity and significance.

1. Harvest Energy: Transform waste streams to generate electricity, heat, or fuel, such as employing anaerobic digestion to produce biomethane.

2. Produce Biofertilizer: Utilize treated biosolids as soil nutrients or growing mediums, and compost organic waste for agricultural, landscaping, or restoration purposes.

3. Embrace Second-Use Materials: Engage in the trade and utilization of recovered, reconditioned, and recycled components and materials.

4. Adopt Material-as-a-Service Model: Lease products and materials, returning them when no longer needed.

5. Implement Reverse Logistics: Establish supply chains that adapt, disassemble, recondition, recycle, and resupply materials and products.

6. Employ Deconstruction and Disassembly: Develop specialized skills and techniques that preserve the value of materials and products.

7. Promote Recycling: Process materials to maximize retained value, minimize energy and resource inputs, and avoid negative externalities.

A bank of materials

As the paradigm shift takes root, our perspective on the built environment will expand beyond mere structures, assets, networks, and services, encompassing a holistic view of resources. It becomes imperative to monitor the materials embedded in the built environment, aiming to salvage and repurpose them in future projects. The integration of digital twins becomes indispensable, empowering organizations throughout the supply chain to evaluate resource availability and align them with specific needs. This involves:

01.

Logging, quantifying, and categorizing materials, meticulously tracking their lifecycle within the built environment, creating material passports, and maintaining inventories for each asset.

02.

Monitoring the performance and condition of assets, facilitating proactive maintenance and repair for optimized efficiency and longevity.

03.

Identifying the appropriate timing for asset replacements.

04.

Tracing resources from their 'in-use' phase to being 'in-stock,' including processes like reconditioning, remanufacturing, or recycling.

05.

Aligning supply with demand to maximize resource efficiency.

06.

Measuring and reporting inputs of new 'virgin' resources, like energy and water required for asset operation, thus constructing a comprehensive understanding of resource intensity over time.

Enhancing transparency across the built environment supply chain by providing digital records of provenance for both reused and new materials, components, and assemblies. Digitalization stands as a cornerstone in developing and scaling practical tools for the circular economy, encompassing technologies such as 3D printing, offsite construction, on-site production lines, modular design, and Design for X (DfX).

People all the way

Individuals play a pivotal role as catalysts for change. Their decisions, actions, aspirations, and dedication significantly influence outcomes and goals. The shift towards a circular economy necessitates the acquisition of new skill sets, offering professionals the prospect to cultivate and enhance their abilities, fostering opportunities for career advancement or even a complete career transformation.

This journey towards a circular economy demands a commitment to training, education, and reskilling. Both individuals and organizations must invest in these initiatives to facilitate the transformation of the built environment—its development and administration—for the collective benefit of all stakeholders.