1. Summary

Renewal and expansion of the built environment enables us to simultaneously improve our quality of life and the performance of the buildings we inhabit—more efficient, better indoor air quality, improved light, lower sound pollution, and more spacious. However, it also uses non-renewable resources and energy and emits greenhouse gasses. Making better use of the existing building stock and its individual components and designing new buildings to be easier to adapt and reuse can help limit the input of virgin material required and greenhouse gasses emitted now and in the future.

A circular construction sector is one in which every part of the process of deciding, designing, and constructing new buildings is rethought to include exploiting the value of the materials already present in the built environment and ensure that the buildings designed and built today can maintain their value in the future, either as buildings, or in their constituent components.

This report explores the current state of and framework conditions for the development of a circular construction sector in the Nordic countries, and through consultation with the construction value chain, it identifies barriers that limit the transition to and opportunities that could be exploited to support a more circular approach in the circular construction industry.

Until recently, circular economy in the construction sector has been directly equated with the management of construction and demolition (C&D) waste. Most of the C&D waste in the Nordic countries is “recycled", although this definition includes backfilling and the practice of using inert waste materials for landscaping or other civil engineering works. While marginally better than landfilling, this is low-value utilisation of C&D wastes, and there is desire across the Nordic countries to move up the waste hierarchy by minimising the generation of these wastes and using them in higher-value applications when they do occur.

There is growing momentum for circular construction across the Nordic countries: all the Nordic countries promote circular construction as a necessity for a sustainable built environment. Given the massive material footprint of, and waste generation from, the construction industry, it’s no surprise to find that policymakers identify construction as a cornerstone of the transition to a circular economy. At the strategic level, circular construction is addressed within overarching circular economy strategies and sometimes within sector-specific sustainability—such as in, for example, the Danish National Strategy for Sustainable Construction. While this strategic direction has been in place for some years, the integration of these strategic goals and methods into regulatory instruments has only just begun to take force. Examples include the revised Finnish Construction Act (2023), the revised building regulations in Iceland (2022), the adapted Norwegian Planning and building Act and associated regulations (2022), and the Danish Construction Law and Building Regulations (2021, 2023). Similar revision processes are underway in Sweden and Finland. These typically mandate specific actions to promote circular construction: pre-demolition auditing, the promotion of reuse, life cycle analysis of buildings, designing for disassembly and reusability, and the utilisation of wastes.

The knowledge base supporting circular construction is also growing: many multi-annual, large-scale projects are underway across the region that are exploring and supporting the circular economy in the construction industry, while dedicated knowledge centres also provide specific and targeted information to actors along the value chain to help them in the circular transition (for example, the Danish VØCB). Sustainable building certification schemes that are used in the Nordic countries (DGNB in Denmark, BREEAM in Norway, Iceland, and Finland, and BREEAM, LEED and Miljöbyggnad and NollCO2 in Sweden) also help promote sustainability broadly, although they are not aligned specifically with circularity in construction. Further information about the framework conditions and state of circular construction in the Nordic countries can be found in Chapter 5.

Despite these recent advancements in the regulatory framework for circular construction, there are still significant barriers facing actors along the construction value chain. Be they developers and building owners, or architects, engineers and consultants, contractors and builders, product manufacturers and demolition companies and recyclers, they all face a range of different technical, regulatory, cultural, and economic barriers that hinder progress and block transformative actions. These can be found within the strategic planning process, within building regulations themselves, in the culture that pervades the industry and the broader society, economic framework conditions for the sector, the mechanisms by which markets can form and blossom, the logistics associated with reuse and recycling, the knowledge and experience within the industry at all steps in the value chain, the complexity of allocating (legal) responsibility outside of normal industry practice, documenting and data provision for reused products and buildings, and sharing that data beyond traditional silos within the industry. A main takeaway from the analysis of these barriers is that they are heavily interlinked. For example, lack of experience and knowledge within the sector stems from a lack of opportunity to gain that experience and knowledge, while that same lack of experience and knowledge means that it is difficult to commission projects with a circular focus. Lack of experience and knowledge also leads to longer project time frames and therefore higher expenses. A comprehensive catalogue of these barriers, together with potential solutions, can be found in Chapter 7 of this report.

Strategy and planning: The circular approach to construction and the built environment is not currently integrated into the strategy and planning processes by planners and development decision-makers, and the tools to enable circular assessments are currently underdeveloped.
Lack of knowledge and experience: Actors throughout the value chain do not have sufficient knowledge of or experience with the methods, processes, or routines required for circular construction, many of which do not yet exist.
Building Regulations: The implementation of building regulations is geared toward building with new products and materials. The current system is ill-equipped to encompass reused products and does not actively support circular design principles.
Product documentation: Reused products and materials lack the robust documentation demanded by the construction industry (CE marking, EPDs etc.)
Allocation of risk and responsibility: existing allocation of risk and responsibility is ill-suited to the circular use of building products.
Economy: Circular construction is more expensive than construction with new products and materials. This is primarily because of the additional time required to engage in circular processes along the value chain.
Culture: The construction industry is institutionally (and perhaps understandably) risk averse, and circular construction represents an undesired risk.

Specific initiatives that can help alleviate and overcome these barriers are outlined in Chapter 9.

1.1. Recommendations

The following recommendations to actors throughout the construction value chain seek to address key barriers to and build upon key opportunities for the transition to a circular construction sector.

Recommendations for further work under the Nordic Network for Circular Construction:

Nordic Network for Circular Construction

The Nordic Network for Circular Construction can help overcome many of the challenges facing circular construction in the Nordic countries. It can:

Develop sector and sub-sector networks to share experience.
Develop and disseminate knowledge on best practices, case studies, and pilot projects.
Develop educational materials for the sector.
Develop new norms, methods, and practices around CC.
Coordinate guides for CC in the current building regulation framework.
Support the integration of CC into international building environmental certification schemes.

The main actors throughout the construction value chain also have a vital role to play in the transition to circular construction:

Developers & Owners

Developers and owners can help overcome the lack of knowledge and experience as well as any economic and cultural challenges by taking the lead and commissioning CC projects, and by including induced benefits in calculations. They can help overcome risk and responsibility challenges by engaging with the value chain to develop new negotiated responsibilities. To do so, they should plan for a long-term future, embed CC at the start of the process, and support the CC process by synchronising construction and demolition activities.

Architects, engineers and consultants

Architects, designers, and engineers can support developers in the move toward CC by proposing and developing CC solutions, supporting the negotiation of risks and responsibilities, and developing new norms for sourcing more sustainable and/or reused materials. They can also work on integrating CC into existing tools and methods and supporting the integration of CC into existing certification frameworks, all with the clear goal of narrowing, slowing, and closing cycles.

Construction Companies

Construction companies can support the transition to CC and reduce the knowledge and experience gap by engaging with their peers and learning from pilot projects, networks, and knowledge centres, as well as engaging with all stakeholders throughout value chain to increase collaboration, negotiate new allocation of risk and responsibility, and develop new sourcing routines. They can also support manufacturers in the development of circular tools and products while actively engaging in the revision and guidance of building regulations and product recertification initiatives.

Construction product manufacturers

Manufacturers of construction products can support the design of circular buildings by developing solutions that enable flexibility and adaptation, and they can play a key role in providing product information and supporting certification efforts. They can also develop methods for remanufacturing or preparing reclaimed products for reuse, as well as ensuring that construction products are suitable and ready for future cycles.

Demolition companies

Demolition companies will play a key role in implementing and defining the necessary process and data standards for pre-demolition material mapping and help build a robust market for reused construction products. This needs to be done in cooperation with developers, the design team, and construction companies. They can help overcome knowledge and experience gaps by engaging with the industry, the value chain, industry networks, knowledge centres, and they will need to build new competencies.

Public authorities

Public authorities are a vital node that can set the CC agenda, ease economic challenges, provide a favourable framework for CC, and coordinate the growth of knowledge and experience within the sector. They can help overcome regulatory barriers by leading the revision of national building regulations. They can also lead the negotiations related to recertification and the integration of reuse into existing product certification, as well as implement coming EU legislation on construction products and digital product passports. They can help steer the industry culture toward CC by developing national CC strategies and integrating CC-relevant content into national education curricula. They can also define a favourable economic landscape for circular construction by introducing taxes on carbon or other natural resources and reducing or removing VAT on reuse-related activities and reused products. Better enforcement of existing waste regulations would also provide an economic boost to circular construction.

Research Institutions

Research institutions can support the transition to CC by helping bridge the knowledge and experience gap through participation in or hosting knowledge centres and developing educational materials. They could also support sector networks as knowledge partners and support the public authorities in creating methods for recertification as well as the implementation of the digital product passports. They can take a leading role in developing standards for calculating induced benefits of CC while supporting the integration of CC into existing methods and certification schemes.

NGOs

Industry bodies can help overcome knowledge and experience gaps by acting as central nodes for industry networks and facilitating cooperation between value chain actors. They can also form knowledge centres, help develop and disseminate education materials, and run further education courses. They are also an ideal focal point for developing new norms and standards (data and process) around pre-demolition material mapping and reused product information, and they can support the integration of CC into existing industry routines. Similarly, they can help develop and disseminate guidance on CC in the current building regulations and positively influence the revision of building regulations.