Buildings

Without wanting to put numbers on it, the building industry is responsible for considerable environmental impacts due to its consumption of resources and energy, and the production of wastes. So – it is definitely time for the building sector to embrace the circular economy. This is already on the agenda.

In an article to be published in Dec 2021 the authors have made a comprehensive, quantitative analysis of the literature of the Circular Economy in buildings (around 7000 documents within the time span 2005 to 2020). They show that

• the 5 keyword-research clusters are (i) energy and energy efficiency in buildings; (ii) recycling, waste management and alternative construction materials; (iii) sustainable development; (iv) circular economy in urban regions; and (v) green buildings and green supply chain within the construction industry;
• during the past 5 years researchers have paid close attention to “sustainability”, “energy efficiency”, “life cycle assessment”, “renewable energy”, and “recycling”;
• the current research hotspots are (i) the development and use of alternative construction materials; (ii) the development of circular business models; (iii) smart cities, Industry 4.0 and their relations with Circular Economy.

To summarize: The European Circular Cities Declaration defines in its the vision for a Circular City as follows: “Infrastructure and buildings are designed to be multifunctional, adaptable and easy to maintain, repair and repurpose with long lifetimes and high value recovery.” (support document)

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