CBC Webinar #2 Recap: De-Risking Circularity: Unlocking the Market Potential of Circularity in the Built Environment

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who attended and contributed to making this event a resounding success. The session delved into innovative and groundbreaking ideas, highlighting how the building sector can be a pivotal force in combating climate change through circular practices

Missed the webinar? Don't worry! You can catch the full recording of the event, and we strongly encourage you to watch it if you're passionate about the future of sustainable building. Find the slides here.

Key Takeaways from the Webinar:

There is no risk-management silver bullet for circular solutions. That’s the sad news.

But there are plenty of smaller bullets that in each different way allow us to handle real and assumed risks related to re-use and re-cycling of materials. That’s the good news.

As we start to unpack the different elements of “risk”, we learn how different risk-profiles can be handled by different measures, for instance:

• Circular materials have different levels of risk. While most materials have a long track-record and are rather easy to certify and document and thus are insurable, progress in covering high-risk items, like fire-resistant components, can be enabled by business innovation like Product as a Service (PaaS).
• Reclaimed materials often present lower risk compared to new ones, offering cost advantages for insurers and aligning with EU targets for 50% circularity by 2030. However, lack of transparency about the quality, value, and demand for some materials hinders reuse. Here future trading models for materials reduce this risk, creating economic incentives for circularity.
• Differences in insurance systems across countries pose challenges to scaling circular solutions globally. However, success from for instance Germany inspires other nations to adapt and represent a market response, that to some degree can compensate for a less progressive regulatory scheme in some countries.

We were honoured to have a distinguished panel of speakers who brought diverse perspectives to the conversation:

• Tina Paillet, CEO & Founder, Circotrade
• Sofie Rapsaet, Co-Founder, Circular Value Institute
• Dominik Campanella, Co-Founder & CEO, Concular
• Max Russell, Senior Consultant - Climate and Sustainability Service, Arup

Links shared in the chat:

• An example of a reclaimed material exchange platform, where pre-demolition audits  are done before projects are demolished  and a white paper on a pilot project on the subject
• Open-access research paper regarding stakeholders perceptions and willingness to pay
• Societat Organica as an interesting company

What’s Next?

W‍e continue Thursday 23th January with a webinar discussing Making material- and data-flows right, And other practical aspects of reuse and recycling of high-volume materials with high decarbonization potential, like concrete. With this webinar we address materials and functionalities that are found in abundance in our existing building stock and is not easily substituted by low-impact materials for future building (for instance biobased materials).

Register here

Watch the Webinar Recording

‍If you missed out or want to revisit some of the valuable insights shared, the full recording of the webinar is available