Accelerating circularity in Built-environment through "Active-procurement"

Abstract

In Europe, 1/3rd of all the products reaching recycling facilities can be sold as secondary materials, and this can be a high-quality replacement for low-quality new products. Circular Material Use rate shows how much material demand was catered by reused or recycled content. The Netherlands was estimated at 29% in 2016 is the highest among all other member states and more than twice of Europe’s average. The Netherlands has now set up the goal to become 100% circular by 2050. Principles of circularity aim at lowering the environmental impacts and halve the emissions by 2030 and carbon neutral by 2050, according to the Paris Agreement. However, even though high circularity rates in the Netherlands, 12.2 tonnes per capita of greenhouse gases were released in 2016, which is 3.5 tonnes higher than the EU average. In transitioning to a circular built environment, the most crucial challenge is to keep all materials in a closed loop in a way that proves lower environmental impact compared to extracting a virgin equivalent. In current practice, building materials are procured at the end of a design phase, which results in minimum use of secondary stock and maximum extraction of virgin material to fit “circular” designs. Since buildings are designed for longer lifespans, this virgin material returns as secondary much later and do not reflect in the indicator defined by the EU. The main question is what information is needed by a designer or engineer in procuring secondary materials and when & how it can be best provided to them. This research gives an Assessment Framework to assess parameters such as the circular flow of materials,embodied CO2, cost and technical performance while designing.It is composed of five significant interfaces - material database, material explorer, assessment dashboard, digital design and a visual script toassess various parameters such as MCI, embodied CO2, distance from the project site, cost, U-value, Thermal conductivity, Density and other labels in 3D.The framework provides a Preliminary and Advanced assessment of different parameters. The only difference is that Advanced assessment takes into account is the disassembly potential of various components at a system level and determines whether they can be reused or have to be demolished at EOL. Demolition would mean a product reach EOL sooner, which result in higher embodied CO2. Hence, allowing design/engineering optimization. Other instance, where a component reaches EOL before its surrounding product, replacement of that component should not result in the demolition of others.