Circular construction brings many committed parties together

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Around a third of Sweden’s waste comes from construction and demolition. However, thousands of tonnes of this is of such high quality that it could continue to be used. The Centre for Circular Construction, often known as CCBuild, is working to increase recycling and the circular approach in the construction and real estate sector.

IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute has led the Centre for Circular Construction since 2015, when the work was launched as a collaborative project supported by Vinnova’s Challenge-driven innovation programme. The project is now in its third phase, which will run until autumn 2022. The plan is to run the operation in a different way after that.

CCBuild has gained considerable backing from the construction and real estate industry, particularly during 2021. In just one year, the number of business and associated parties has increased from 30 to over 80.

“It’s only through collaboration that we can transition to circular material flows, and it feels hopeful for the future that we have so many committed partners from various parts of the construction and real estate sector with us in this work,” says Carina Loh Lindholm, project manager at IVL and coordinator for the Centre for Circular Construction.

WORKING FOR REUSE ON AN INDUSTRIAL SCALE Within the Centre for Circular Construction, the players in the sector work together and share experiences regarding reuse and circular material flows in construction, demolition and management. This is a neutral arena that is building up a range of services for those operators that want to be involved in the transition towards circular material flows.

The vision is to create the conditions for the reuse of constructionproducts on an industrial scale and to contribute to a system-level change to circular material flows. This facilitates more resource and climate-efficient social development, where waste becomes a resource and the extraction of virgin assets is delayed.

DIGITAL TOOLS FACILITATE REUSE CCBuild offers wide-ranging support for circular construction. This relates to collaboration, both nationally and within local clusters, as well as a knowledge bank comprising training courses, reports, reference projects and guides.

There is also a digital platform with a number of integrated services for organisations: • A product bank in which it is possible to enter construction products and furniture and get an overview of their values and the climate savings that reuse offers. • An app for conducting inventories and labelling products – for example during refurbishment, demolition or when digitalising stock – so that you can enter them in the product bank. • A marketplace where you can present materials and products, either to invited users or publicly so that others can purchase them. Here you can also search for products and find services within circular construction.