Reduced ecological footprint, Reduced natural resource depletion: Reduced CO2 emissions from using less virgin materials, creating less waste and using less energy; E.g. in municipal project in Amsterdam, 25% of new homes can be built with used materials [8]. 

Energy security: Less energy use when materials and components are reused, since material production is reduced. 

Promote the materials cycle: The increased transparency on material information ensured by registration and documentation of materials enables their reuse. 

Better waste management: Reduced waste from demolition phase. 

Business/technological innovation, Job creation: Material circulation and manufacturing of new products from waste can create new business models (e.g. loaning components of buildings) and new jobs. 

Improved access to information: Improved transparency of information about building components, e.g., quality, toxicity, environmental impact and residual value, can be useful for property and makes it easier for municipalities and developers to use existing materials from demolished or dismantled buildings [7]. 

Direct connections to technical solutions:

• Construction and Buildings: optimal management of waste at the end of building life cycle
• Construction and Buildings: re-using local building waste (e.g. local waste material bank)
• Construction and Buildings: urban mining model to assess circular construction opportunities and optimize resource use and exchange
• Construction and Buildings: residual Value Calculator for construction parts/material, consumers products etc
• Construction and Buildings: circular Life Cycle Cost (C-LCC) for deep renovation

Direct connection to Instruments:

• Analysis of City/(Building) circularity
• Circular economy design principles to increase the durability, reparability, upgradability or reusability of products, in particular in designing and manufacturing activities
• Urban metabolism mapping-  identifying product streams and material inputs (in addition to waste)
• Circular Life Cycle Assessment/Analysis for material and products (incl. scenarios and prospective versions), also waste
• Building Material Passport, BIM-based
• Supporting municipalities to monitor resource flows in line with impact targets and measurement processes
• Capacity building and engagement with municipalities to identify and co-create circular solutions and roadmaps

Technical aspects/infrastructure: 

• Material banks require data quality and data availability, as well as interfaces from different programs to ensure data flow. 

• The implementation of such solutions needs a holistic understanding. 

Project governance and implementation modalities:  

• It is important to increase the awareness and involvement of property owners, industry stakeholders, and municipalities to enable the material banks and platforms to work.  

• Public-private partnerships are needed to exchange data and to create new models to co-operate and do business together.  

• The use of life cycle analysis (LCA) is important to reveal the impact of materials reuse. 

• Decarbonisation plans in industry: Industry de-carbonisation plans could help increase initiatives for materials recycling. Also, targets for a low carbon economy are supporting material recycling. 

Funding and financing:  

Tax benefits to buildings with reused materials can incentivise property owners and developers to make sustainable choices [7]. For example, the Dutch investment measure, Environmental Investment Deduction (MIA), is a tax scheme for entrepreneurs who make sustainable investments in circular construction, including environmentally friendly business assets, materials, buildings or production processes [4]. 

Policy and regulatory framework: 

Public procurement models could support circularity. Some examples are take-back/lease models in products, reuse of product or reparability of products, design for disassembly, share of recycled materials in tenders [4]. 

Funding and financing:  

Using waste materials might entail additional costs for certification. 

Technical aspects/infrastructure:  

• Lack of availability of used materials on local markets results in long-distance transportation, increasing costs and environmental impact significantly [3]. 

• Increased time needed for deconstruction and careful packing of reusable items can cause additional costs and be a disincentive [3]. 

• Lack of local facilities for material stocks storage would require resorting to long-distance supply of used/recycled materials, increasing transportation costs as well as the environmental footprint, and making the solution less attractive [3]. 

• Health and safety risks of manual deconstruction compared to mechanical demolition techniques [3]. 

• Low or negative incentive in reuse of low value/cheap products and materials [3]. 

 Policy and legal/regulatory framework:  

• Regulation fragmentation at various governance levels, from the EU to municipalities (e.g., urban regulations and building permits), can hinder the implementation of reversible design and material recovery, thus reducing the attractiveness of registers for building materials [5].  

• There can be a time constraint linked to planning permission expiration [3]. 

Project governance and implementation modalities:  

• For a material bank to function properly a critical mass of users is needed; therefore, awareness raising initiatives are important. For instance, reluctance to use products without certification of tested performance (especially in terms of structural capacity) hinders reuse; submitting the materials to testing would entail additional costs, making it disadvantageous [3]. 

• Implementing requirements to use material banks in public procurement can help increase the adoption of such solutions. 

Literature 

[1] Gaochuang Cai, Danièle Waldmann, A material and component bank to facilitate material recycling and component reuse for a sustainable construction: concept and preliminary study, Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, December 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-019-01758-1  

[2] Samuel Copeland, Melissa Bilec, Buildings as material banks using RFID and building information modeling in a circular economy, Procedia CIRP 90 (2020) 143–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2020.02.122  

[3] Gilli Hobbs, Katherine Adams BRE, Watford, United Kingdom, Reuse of building products and materials – barriers and opportunities, International HISER Conference on Advances in Recycling and Management of Construction and Demolition Waste, 21-23 June 2017, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. 

[4] European Commission, Public Procurement for a Circular Economy, 2017. 

[5] BAMB, Key barriers and opportunities for materials passports and reversible building design in the current system, D1 Synthesis of the State-of-the Art, 2016.  

Websites 

[6] Vindsubsidies, MIA Environment Investment allowance  

[7] Metabolic (2020) On the journey to a circular economy, don’t forget your materials passport, 12/08/2020.  

[8] TNO, Circular construction & infrastructure 

Additional useful resources: 

[9] Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction and the United Nations Environment Programme (2021): The Building Passport: A tool for capturing whole life data in construction and real estate – Practical Guidelines.  

[10] Madaster online registry for materials and products  

Online registers support reduction of CO2 emissions by facilitating re-use of materials, reduce the use of virgin material and the use of energy in material production. 

However, currently the solutions are in pilot phase and there is very limited research on impact. 

Trainings 

Awareness campaigns 

Material passports 

LCA/LCC 

Databases 

Certification and labelling 

Decarbonisation plans for industry 

Building renovation passports 

Provision of energy efficient products and services 

Examples  

BAMB Buildings as material banks is creating ways to increase the value of building materials. Dynamically and flexibly designed buildings can be incorporated into a circular economy – where materials in buildings maintain their value. That will lead to waste reduction and the use of fewer virgin resources. The BAMB-project implements the principles of the waste hierarchy: the prevention of waste, its reuse and recycling. Key is to improve the value of materials used in buildings for recovery. This is achieved by developing and integrating two complementary value-adding frameworks, (1) materials passports and (2) reversible building design (Horizon 2020, 2015-2019). 

BOB (Bouwmaterialen in Beeld) is an online database containing information on materials used in the built environment and how they can be reused. Currently the BOB database is developed by TNO and it contains data from the Netherlands. It includes data from the built environment, including the supply and demand of building materials. It also covers material facts such as quality, residual value, environmental impact, and logistical implications – increasing transparency and the chances of reuse. Through the BOB database, it is also possible to compare different scenarios for new development or redevelopment of e.g. industrial areas. The indicators in the BOB model are climate change (CO2 emissions), the Environmental Cost Indicator (ECI) score, inclusive employment, material costs, knowledge development in the region and the value of housing. Based on the indicators, the results provide an overview of the scenario, helping decision-making in the city planning.