Print Email Facebook Twitter Circular economy and real estate Title Circular economy and real estate: the legal (im)possibilities of operational lease Author Ploeger, H.D. (TU Delft OLD Geo-information and Land Development; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Prins, M. (TU Delft Design & Construction Management) Straub, A. (TU Delft Public Commissioning) Van den Brink, Robert (Student TU Delft) Date 2019 Abstract Purpose: A paradigm in circular economy (CE) is that suppliers retain ownership of their products and materials, and that the users “only” pay for services. In many legal systems, however, elements incorporated in a building are considered to be fixtures, and therefore legally part of the building. This means that ensuring multi-cyclic behaviour of individual building elements (e.g. the facade or a window) is not so evident. This paper explores, from the perspective of Dutch law, how to secure the ownership of the supplier or to find alternatives within the existing system of property law. Design/methodology/approach: The authors performed a literature review of both CE and (Dutch) property law. The results of these reviews are discussed and illustrated by legal case studies. Findings: The options principally advocated within CE to retain ownership of building parts leave legal uncertainties and do not offer a solid basis for the development of circular business models, especially considering immovables and fixtures. For these categories, buy-back and take-back contracts, and models for reuse and recycling seem more promising. Research limitations/implications: The research is limited to a literature review. Although the legal principles discussed in this paper are valid for both civil and common law systems, and similar findings might, therefore, be expected internationally, this study focused on the specific Dutch legal context. Comparative legal research and research of best practices in the building industry is needed to test the applicability of the findings in an international context. Practical implications: Following the findings, CE initiatives within real estate and the construction industry should focus on alternative implementations of the operational lease concept, taking into account CE’s ambitions to reduce the extraction of raw materials. Originality/value: At the moment the challenges that property law poses CE, real estate and operational lease are hardly discussed within the literature. This paper explores this gap. Subject Circular business modelsCircular economyOperational leaseProperty lawReal estateService providing To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:7e9fc99f-e117-4f3d-b73b-21fd3c06600d DOI https://doi.org/10.1108/F-01-2018-0006 Embargo date 2019-01-09 ISSN 0263-2772 Source Facilities, 37 (9-10), 653-668 Bibliographical note Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2019 H.D. Ploeger, M. Prins, A. Straub, Robert Van den Brink Files PDF F_01_2018_0006.pdf 520.1 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:7e9fc99f-e117-4f3d-b73b-21fd3c06600d/datastream/OBJ/view