International Industrial Ecology Day 2021
A circular economy engagement tool for the assessment of new and existing buildings
Up to 40% of a building’s whole-life carbon is emitted before its occupation (RICS, 2019), whilst 11% of global CO2 emissions result from the manufacture and use of construction materials (UN, 2018). At the end of a building’s life, construction and demolition activities contribute over 800Mt of waste per year in Europe, representing more than ⅓ of total waste generated (Eurostat, 2021).
Reducing both material consumption and waste generation are key aspects of a circular economy; driving the necessity for a transition towards this within the built environment. Despite a growing desire for this amongst construction sector practitioners, awareness of circular philosophies and contributing design actions remains limited, with the inability to easily assess building designs meaning that false claims of circularity (e.g. where a small amount of recycled material has been used) are often made.
‘Regenerate’ is a freely-available, self-certification, web tool used to assess the circularity of buildings and encourage a multi-stakeholder approach to embedding circular economy principles within construction projects. Through consultation with industry professionals and a review of academic and industrial literature regenerate identifies 86 circularity criteria, distributed between four key circular economy principles (Design for Adaptability, Design for Deconstruction, Circular Material Selection, Resource Efficiency) and across building ‘shearing layers’ (Brand, 1994). The tool considers project stage and building characteristics to outline the most appropriate objectives and circular economy principles for a given project, and also provides relevant information and resources to support circular design decisions.
Current uptake (>500 downloads), case study analyses, and feedback from industry exemplify the ability of this tool in promoting the adoption of circular economic thinking in construction projects. Further uptake and development of regenerate are also anticipated in the future, with the data it collects being harnessed in the benchmarking of circularity principles and contained criteria.
Reducing both material consumption and waste generation are key aspects of a circular economy; driving the necessity for a transition towards this within the built environment. Despite a growing desire for this amongst construction sector practitioners, awareness of circular philosophies and contributing design actions remains limited, with the inability to easily assess building designs meaning that false claims of circularity (e.g. where a small amount of recycled material has been used) are often made.
‘Regenerate’ is a freely-available, self-certification, web tool used to assess the circularity of buildings and encourage a multi-stakeholder approach to embedding circular economy principles within construction projects. Through consultation with industry professionals and a review of academic and industrial literature regenerate identifies 86 circularity criteria, distributed between four key circular economy principles (Design for Adaptability, Design for Deconstruction, Circular Material Selection, Resource Efficiency) and across building ‘shearing layers’ (Brand, 1994). The tool considers project stage and building characteristics to outline the most appropriate objectives and circular economy principles for a given project, and also provides relevant information and resources to support circular design decisions.
Current uptake (>500 downloads), case study analyses, and feedback from industry exemplify the ability of this tool in promoting the adoption of circular economic thinking in construction projects. Further uptake and development of regenerate are also anticipated in the future, with the data it collects being harnessed in the benchmarking of circularity principles and contained criteria.
Author(s)
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Charles Gillott | The University of Sheffield |
| Will Mihkelson | University of Sheffield |