A circular built environment promotes the (multiple) use of secondary products, components and materials. However, there is a perceived risk that the quality and condition of secondary materials is insufficient compared to new products, particularly among contractors and investors. The lack of warranties and assurance of secondary materials – often not covered by conventional insurance products – deters the use of these secondary materials. To realise the potential of replacing 10% of the demand for virgin materials with recovered materials from the existing building stock3, it is crucial to enable secondary building materials to compete with virgin materials through quality assurance.

Therefore, to support their adoption, the CBC is looking to support initiatives that can provide increased assurance on the quality and performance of secondary materials, and to help to dispel the perceived risks associated with these secondary materials and products.

Blueprint projects could include, but are not limited to, initiatives that:

● Provide standardised and scalable systems for validating and certifying the quality
and performance of secondary materials
● Demonstrate scalable insurance models for secondary materials and components within an environment of limited historical data.
● Build market confidence in secondary materials through transparent, data-backed performance assurance.
● Business models that integrate performance-based incentives and secondary material assurance into their operational model.

Within a circular economy, products are at their highest value for as long as possible and presents an opportunity to unlock new value across the construction and real estate sectors. However, in North-Western Europe, only 1% of this value is reclaimed,4 with recovery practices in the sector commonly favouring low-vary recycling over higher value material reuse and recovery. To date, there are limited demonstrations of methods and approaches to integrate circular principes into existing accounting and business model practices, which can perpetuate a greater perception of risk.

The CBC is looking to support initiatives that can demonstrate the potential to capture the additional value of circular practices in the sector, such as through the residual value of secondary materials, and through business models (such as Product-as-a-Service). The development of novel valuation and financing models and establishing an evidence-base of successful circular business models can help to enable the direction of increased amounts of funding to circular practices in the sector.

Blueprint projects could include, but are not limited to, initiatives that:

● Unlock CapEx investments through common finance models and instruments that mitigate higher initial costs of circularity throughout the transition period.
● Redistribute costs, risks, and profit of stakeholders in the value chain through finance models and contracts.
● Demonstrate standardised approaches for variation to the discounted cashflow model and articulate the financial benefits of the circular business case in practice.
● Quantify environmental and social benefits of secondary materials to positively influence investment decisions.
● Promote the demand for higher value secondary materials by unlocking barriers related to processes, logistics, infrastructure and collaboration of the value chain.

Implementing a circular economy at scale across Europe’s built environment requires information on the material assets, such as on the types, quantities and qualities of materials that are present. Increasingly, data is increasingly being generated and used across the sector, such as by designers, insurance providers, developers and real estate companies. Yet, this is still often in silos, and the right data and information does not get shared with the right stakeholder at the right time to support reuse and recirculation of materials across throughout the supply chain.

Although there is increasing practices to capture information the nature of the building stock through for example, pre-demolition audits, inconsistent adoption and approaches to understand both the quantity and quality of materials and components limit proactive identification and re-use of materials. What’s more, a lack of efficiency in the matching of the availability of secondary materials and components with a reuse opportunity can lead to increased needs for storage and logistics. Therefore, unlocking the flows of information and data throughout the supply chain can help to unlock the flows of recirculated materials and capture value.

The CBC is looking to support initiatives that facilitate the consistent and transparent collation of data and facilitate new forms of collaboration throughout the supply chain to facilitate the circulation of resources and components.

Blueprint projects could include, but are not limited to, initiatives that:
● Employ digital technology and data to efficiently matchmake the supply and demand for secondary materials to allow for high-value reuse and reduce logistics and storage costs.
● Enhance transparency of the availability of secondary materials through efficient and feasible tracking and monitoring of building materials.
● Scale and expedite cataloguing of materials of existing real estate assets to improve transparency of future secondary materials stock.
● Demonstrate how data and information flows enable flexible workflows and processes across the value chain to support adaptable design with variable secondary material supply.