2. Background and methodology

The research structure was built around the assumption that the research questions mentioned above had been considered on a general level and that there was a need to dig deeper into identified specifics. Consequently, several reports and working documents on circular construction produced within the Nordic Network for Circular Construction and Nordic Sustainable Construction projects became the foundation of the research performed within this project. Based on these, each research question was split into three categories: what has been studied, what could be assumed from combining previous findings, and what is yet to be determined (Table 1). The latter was discussed at a series of workshops organized with a cross-section of Nordic construction sectors. Two rounds of workshops were held. The first was to validate the collected data and harvest missing data from five Nordic countries. The second was to validate the newly harvested data. Finally, the research questions were answered in this report.

TABLE 1 The Research Questions Split into Three Categories

Research Questions	What measures should be taken by the public sector to accelerate circularity in the markets?	What was of Nordic-level interest, and what should be considered at a local level?	How could the Nordics influence EU decision-making processes?	How could contributions from the Nordic Council of Ministers to the development of circular construction at Nordic and local levels be facilitated, and what aspects of it should be prioritized?
What do we know?	Barriers and opportunities related to circular construction. Four roles public authorities have. Four key enablers and fouradditional enablers ofreuse. Some measures related to circularity have been tested in Nordic markets.	What Nordics want to harmonize? Harmonization work is on-going (e.g., on LCA methodology).	Nordics have common interests, goals and cultures which enables cooperation in adovocacy. EU Policy recommendations created by Nordic Sustainable Construction project. Recommendations presented In Nordic Networks for Circular Construction WP2 analysis of barriers and possibilities – Report, 2023 Policies Enabling the Reuse of Construction Products in the Nordics – Report, 2023. .	Lists of actions to be taken by the Nordic Council of Ministers gathered in previous workshops organised within the NNCC project.
What could we assume?	How can public actors advance the four enablers in their four roles?	Is Nordic-collaboration the way to go? Are the metrics applicable in all states?	A combination of the policy recommendations for review.	A brief version of the actions gathered in previous workshops organized within the NNCC project. Nordic Council of Ministers should be facilitating Nordic cooperation.
What don't we know?	Are all actions possible in all markets? How impactful the already-tested measures have been, and are they repeatable?		How the market would react to listed policy recommendations and if there are any additional ideas the market might have. Examples of applicable policy that could be copied to other member states or beyond borders	Which actions should be prioritized and why?

2.1 Research questions

2.1.1 What measures should be taken by the public sector to accelerate circularity in the markets?

Barriers to implementing circularity in construction have been researched and discussed by many. In the Nordic context, they were comprehensively summarized in the WP2 analysis of barriers and possibilities report

Nordic Networks for Circular Construction WP2 analysis of barriers and possibilities – Report, 2023.

. The identified barriers are related to the public and private sectors; however, through its regulations and actions, the public sector plays an imperative role in enhancing the transition to circular construction as it is well-positioned to support and steer it

M. R. Munaro and S. F. Tavares, A review on barriers, drivers, and stakeholders towards the circular economy: The construction sector perspective, Cleaner and Responsible Consumption, 8, 2023.

. This is why the public sector became a primary focus of the research.

The range of functions of the public sector is wide; nevertheless, its four main roles can be distinguished and are as follows

Demos Helsinki, Building a Circular Environment - WCEF2023 Accelerator Session Synthesis – Working document, 2023.

Regulator (e.g., political actors, governments, national/regional planning agencies), which shape the market by legislation and other regulations;
Innovation enabler (e.g., innovation hubs, universities), which foster innovative solutions by, among others, educating stakeholders and supporting pioneering solutions;
Building owner and tenant, as the public sector owns and operates a considerable share of the existing building stock, so using its procurement processes can guide the market in a more circular direction;
Decision-maker (e.g., building permit authorities), as it decides if a new construction/refurbishment project will start or not.

To address several recognized barriers, the Policies Enabling the Reuse of Construction Products report

Policies Enabling the Reuse of Construction Products in the Nordics – Report, 2023.

identified a set of four key policy enablers and additional relevant indicators. Considering the identified barriers and enablers, together with the four roles for the public sector, a series of workshops with Nordic stakeholders was organized in 2023 within the Nordic Circular Construction project to identify the feasible measures addressing the identified barriers.

Eventually, for this research, a matrix of proposed measures to enhance circular construction was prepared to systematize the results of the literature review and previous workshops. The matrix consisted of tasks to be completed by all four roles of the public sector divided into three categories:

requirements for improved building design;
proper documentation of the environmental impact of construction products/materials;
reducing risk and improving the economic feasibility of circular projects.

The list of these measures can be found in Appendix A-C. The validity of this task matrix was later tested in the Nordic workshops organized within this project.

2.1.2 What was of Nordic-level interest, and what should be considered at a local/national level?

Following the Nordic Vision 2030 on Nordic integrity and sustainability

Our Vision 2030 – Declaration, 2019.

, the Nordic Ministers responsible for housing and construction declared in 2018 that Nordics should be the most integrated market for construction

Declaration from the Nordic Ministerial meeting concerning buildings and construction on the 29th of May 2018, Stockholm, 2018.

, and, in 2019, they declared a shared commitment to fighting climate change

Nordic Declaration on Low Carbon Construction and Circular Principles in the Construction Sector, 2019.

. Consequently, the Nordic authorities started cooperating more closely within, among others, the Nordic Sustainable Construction project and published the Roadmap on Harmonising Nordic Building Regulations Concerning Climate Emissions

Roadmap: Harmonising Nordic Building Regulations concerning Climate Emissions, 2023.

. The roadmap contains three strategic aims:

Harmonization and Implementation of Climate Declarations by, among others, joining forces in developing the LCA methodology and the limit values of carbon emissions;
European Collaboration, which aims at preparing the Nordics to contribute to the EU's climate-related policies by advocating for solutions at the European level;
Strengthened Authority Cooperation, which concerns sharing knowledge and coordinating future works to enhance synergy between various public stakeholders (e.g., housing and construction-related authorities, universities).

The harmonization of the LCA methodology is supported by a broad range of stakeholders in the construction industry, mainly because:

such harmonization increases the feasibility of expanding the business across borders, which stimulates the market by increasing the competition and thereby enhances innovation and cost-effectiveness;
collaboration between various stakeholders broadens the knowledge base and, consequently, accelerates the transition to a more sustainable sector;
collaboration between authorities responsible for legislation and regulations increases their decision-making and problem-solving capacities (for instance, by learning from others' "mistakes");
harmonization and close cooperation between both national and regional authorities provide a solid base for future work; in this way, the market is assured that the strategies will be realized and authorities will follow up on requirements related to sustainability;
being front runners among other European countries can benefit the Nordic construction industry towards the European market.

The roadmap is aligned with Nordic Vision 2030, so its horizon is 2030. For this reason, the work on harmonization is still in progress; however, its effects are already visible. For instance, Iceland recently published the regulation on LCA for buildings

REGLUGERÐ um breytingu á byggingarreglugerð, nr. 112/2012 (Regulation on the implementation of provisions on the life cycle analysis of structures in building regulations), 2024. (in Icelandic)

based on the methodologies and experiences of other Nordic countries. There is also an extensive collaboration between Nordic housing and construction authorities related to circularity metrics, summarized in the upcoming report from work package 3 in the Nordic Networks for Circular Construction project

Nordic Networks for Circular Construction WP3: METRICS FOR CIRCULARITY – Report, 2024. (under publication)

Based on previous work done on that matter, it is evident that not all Nordic countries are the same regarding circularity. Some have completed several ambitious pilot projects, while others are still building capacity. Additionally, several key differences exist in the governance and permitting of circular products and projects. The suitability of listed actions for the specific market was validated using the matrix of actions (Appendix A-C) at the Nordic workshops organized within the project.

2.1.3 How could the Nordics influence EU decision-making processes?

The Nordics have a history of successful cooperation in international advocacy. Working together to advocate for shared interests is typically more efficient, which is why working on a decarbonized circular construction sector in the EU should be a common goal. The topic has been discussed in the WP2 analysis of barriers and possibilities

Nordic Networks for Circular Construction WP2 analysis of barriers and possibilities – Report, 2023.

and the Policies Enabling the Reuse of Construction Products

Policies Enabling the Reuse of Construction Products in the Nordics – Report, 2023.

reports. The latter found that there were not one but several policies and cultural barriers hindering circularity in the construction space. The challenge comprises complex systems created by conflicting interests combined with cultural, market-based, and technical obstacles. The report further indicates that a window of opportunity is opened by legislative progress under the EU Green Deal that the Nordics would best benefit from through joint advocacy. Furthermore, the report emphasizes the importance of Nordic harmonization as a key method for expanding Nordic influence in the single market

Policies Enabling the Reuse of Construction Products in the Nordics – Report, 2023.

One of the main EU policies on the topic, the Construction Product Regulation (CPR), has been further developed since this report's publication, and it is currently not as simple to impact. However, the recommendations laid out in the report for the CPR provide a solid basis for creating future recommendations.

The WP2 analysis of barriers and possibilities

Nordic Networks for Circular Construction WP2 analysis of barriers and possibilities – Report, 2023.

identified dozens of recommendations for removing barriers and strengthening possibilities in local markets and on an EU level. Recommendations were discovered on an economic, cultural, regulatory, and technical level. A main takeaway of the report was that many of the issues were deeply interlinked, meaning fixing one would aid in fixing others. In the report, the recommendations have been split into categories according to the actor responsible for the change, such as contractor, city planner or regulator.

By combining these recommendations, a list of nine possibilities for increasing Nordic influence to increase circularity in the EU was created (Appendix D). However, some of the recommendations were beyond the scope of influence of the EU, so these had to be discarded at this stage. The recommendations naturally overlap, but as the points of view of the reports differ slightly, their combined recommendations provide a holistic point of view, which can be separated into three categories: regulation, information, and incentives.

In the following workshops, the participants were asked to rank the recommendations to find the most suitable ones, differentiate between the markets, and discover any missing points of view.

2.1.4 How could contributions from the Nordic Council of Ministers to the development of circular construction at Nordic and local levels be facilitated, and what aspects of it should be prioritized?

The last research question turns back to the Nordics and considers how the Nordic Council of Ministers could aid local and national administrations in facilitating a more circular construction market. The question has been discussed in workshops hosted by the Nordic Network for Circular Construction in 2023, which provided the research project with plenty of material to work with.

The material collected at previous workshops was gathered and prioritized to create nine possible recommendations (Appendix D). Many of them are often discussed in the markets, and some have even been implemented. However, little data is available on this work's real impact or the recommendations' transferability.

In the following workshops, the participants were asked to rank the recommendations to find the most suitable ones, differentiate between the markets, and discover any missing points of view.

2.2 The Nordic workshops

To enrich, enhance, and validate the findings of the literary review, a series of workshops were hosted in five Nordic countries (Table 2). A common template and reporting method were used to ensure data consistency and facilitate further data integration, but each workshop was conducted independently by a local partner.

Table 2 The summary of the Nordic workshops

	Finland	Iceland	Norway	Sweden	Denmark
Local partner	Green Building Council Finland	Green Building Council Iceland	Green Building Council Norway and Sirkulær Ressurssentral	CCBuild, IVL Sustainable Building AB	Danish Technological Institute, Videncenter for Cirkulær Økonomi (VCØB)
Date and location of the workshop	05/03/2024	28/02/2024	07/03/2024	05/03/2024	15/03/2024
Number of participants	37	28	35	30	17

The workshops were open to anybody to access. However, as the project targeted a professional audience, the workshops were conducted in the middle of the working day. The advertising of the workshops was designed to attract a variety of industry experts from academia, private practice, and the public sector who are well-versed in circular construction and willing to go deeper than usual into the topic. As seen in Table 3, this goal was reached, and the quality of participants was deemed as “highly competent” and having “a lot to contribute” by the workshop hosts.

Table 3 The profile of the Nordic workshop participants

Country	Participants profile
Finland	Industry NGOs, industry representatives, public authorities representatives (city/municipality and national level), researchers, trade associations
Iceland	Industry representatives (architects, consultants, material producers and sellers, real estate companies), public authorities representatives (city/municipality and national level),
Norway	Industry representatives (architects, consultants, contractors, interior designers, real estate companies), insurance companies, public authorities representatives (city/municipality and national level), researchers
Sweden	Industry NGOs, industry representatives (architects, consultants, contractors, material suppliers), public authorities representatives (city/municipality and national level), researchers, trade associations
Denmark	Engineers, public authorities representatives (city/municipality and national level), students, trade associations

The hosts could conduct workshops in person, online (using Miro), or in a hybrid format. The hosts were provided with the material (canvas – Appendix A-D) to facilitate and narrow the discussions, further described in section 2.2.1. Canvas were originally created in English and later translated into each local language by the workshop hosts. Then, the gathered data was translated into English by the workshop hosts for further analysis. Additionally, the workshop hosts were to answer a set of reflectional questions to aid in analyzing the workshop results, such as, for instance, “Were the questions challenging to the participants?”.

The workshop results are presented in section 3.

2.2.1 Workshop design

The workshop format was designed to validate the research team's assumptions and harvest additional data on all four research questions presented previously in Table 1.

The workshop format consisted of two parts (Figure 2). The first part focused on the first two research questions on the role of local authorities in pushing for circularity and Nordic cooperation. Three aspects of circularity were analysed separately:

requirements for improved building design;
proper documentation of the environmental impact of construction products/materials;
reducing risk and improving the economic feasibility of circular projects.

Participants were split into three groups to work on three aspects in the first part of the workshops. If workshops had a large number of participants, several smaller groups were created to work on the same aspect simultaneously. For each aspect, the participants were presented with a collection of actions that local or national public authorities could take to improve circularity (Appendix A-C). These actions were sorted into categories according to the role the public authority would have to take to complete said action. The participants were given the possibility of adding any missing actions. The participants were then asked to provide information on whether the actions had been piloted or implemented in their markets previously and also reflect on their effectiveness. After this, the participants were asked to rank all actions according to the potential or experienced impactfulness and required effort. Lastly, participants were asked to select which actions should be prioritized and de-prioritized and to explain their choices.

The second part focused on the Nordic’s role in the EU decision-making process and the Nordic Council of Ministers' role in facilitating Nordic collaboration. In the second part of the workshop, all participants performed the same exercises in smaller groups. The participants were given two lists of actions to be performed by the Nordic Council of Ministers (Appendix D) and asked to select the three most impactful actions from their perspectives. The first list consisted of actions towards the different Nordic markets, and the second consisted of actions the Nordics could jointly pursue in the EU space.

Figure 2 The Nordic workshops format

2.3 Synthesis workshop

A synthesis workshop was hosted after the five Nordic workshops to refine their findings. It was hosted online on the 4^th of April to facilitate pan-nordic cooperation. Invitees included the local partners responsible for arranging the Nordic Workshops and the Steering Group members of the Nordic Network for Circular Construction. The ten participants of the synthesis workshop were spread out around the Nordics rather evenly (Figure 3).

Figure 3 The profile of synthesis workshop participants

In the workshop, participants were presented with three types of assignments: to prioritize among the top actions selected by the Nordic workshops, to reflect on the actions that split the participants of the Nordic workshops, and to comment on direct quotes from participants of the Nordic workshops.

The first assignment was based on the sets of top actions selected at the Nordic workshops. These were synthesized based on the lists of prioritized actions prepared by the Nordic participants and their analysis of the actions’ impact and required effort. The selected methodology of data harmonization allowed for the selection of actions; however, these actions were characterized by the same relative frequency, so prioritizing them was not possible. Therefore, the prioritization was done at the synthesis workshop. It was conducted by providing participants of the synthesis workshop with five to seven actions and asking them to split one hundred points between them. To avoid bias, the participants were not informed about any other findings from the Nordic workshops’ except the list of actions given (in a random order).

After each question, the participants had the opportunity to reflect on it. This allowed for comparing between the workshops, eliminating less popular alternatives, and discovering inconsistencies. Reflection was conducted with open-ended questions. These aided in evaluating if the initial analysis of Nordic workshop data was accurate by providing qualitative data to add to the quantitative data collected in the Nordic workshops.

2.4 Data Harmonization

As mentioned before, a series of workshops was organized in five Nordic countries. Each workshop was organized separately by different organizations; therefore, a reporting template was used as a data collection base to ensure data consistency and facilitate further data integration. The report templates were divided into two parts, following the workshop organization. While filing the report templates, the workshop organizers and facilitators processed the raw data obtained from the workshop participants by 1) synthesizing the obtained information and 2) integrating answers from smaller groups working on the same aspect in the first part of the workshop. This constituted the initial data integration and processing; its outcome is discussed individually for each country in Chapter 3.

The following (final) data integration, aiming at identifying the common points between all five Nordic countries, was performed individually for each discussed aspect within the first part and collectively for the second part. No data point was removed, and no data was filled in during the integration.

In the first part of the workshop, participants were asked to list 1–3 actions that should be prioritized to enhance circular construction on the local/national scale and an additional 1–3 actions that have the lowest impact on that matter. These lists of actions were the foundation for the final data integration. Furthermore, the supplementary data from the graphs correlating actions' impact with the effort necessary to realize them was included in the first part. The relevant frequency distribution was analyzed to identify the actions reoccurring in the dataset. This method was chosen due to its simplicity, as it reduces the risk of data misinterpretation due to over-assumptions.

In the second part of the workshop, all groups of participants answered the same two questions (focusing on Nordic cooperation and Nordic advocacy in the EU), which resulted in several datasets for each country. For that reason, a two-step data integration was necessary. Firstly, the datasets from each country were merged into one considered further in the analysis. Secondly, the merged sets for each country were analyzed to identify the common points between countries. The relevant frequency distribution analysis was applied in both steps.

Eventually, the outcome of the data integration was validated at the synthesis workshop (section 2.3) with a group of experts from the steering group of the NNCC project and facilitators of the workshops.

2. Background and methodo­logy