Developing circular building components: Between ideal and feasible

Creating a circular economy within the built environment plays a crucial role in society’s pursuit to become more sustainable. A building consists of building components, such as a kitchen, façade and roof. By replacing building components with more circular ones during new construction, maintenance and renovation, we can gradually make...

Towards implementation of circular building components: A longitudinal study on the stakeholder choices in the development of 8 circular building components

Implementing circular building components can contribute to the transition to a circular economy. There are many possible circular design options for building components. Knowledge on which options are feasible to implement remains limited. Existing feasibility studies do not compare multiple circular design options, building components and...

Cooking Up a Circular Kitchen: A Longitudinal Study of Stakeholder Choices in the Development of a Circular Building Component

The built environment can be made more circular by gradually replacing building components with more circular components during construction, renovation, or maintenance. However, many different design options can be seen as circular. Although there is a growing number of studies about circular design options, research on what makes these options...

Environmental design guidelines for circular building components based on LCA and MFA: Lessons from the circular kitchen and renovation façade

The transition towards a Circular Economy (CE) in the built environment is vital to reduce environmental impacts, resource consumption and waste generation. The built environment can be made circular by replacing building components with more circular ones. There are many circular design options for building components and knowledge about...

The technical or biological loop? Economic and environmental performance of circular building components

The construction sector can become more sustainable by applying the Circular Economy concept, which distinguishes two main pathways: substituting materials for biological materials, or optimizing the use or reuse of technical materials. Practitioners sometimes choose one pathway over the other, but knowledge of which of these pathways yields...

Environmental design guidelines for circular building components: The case of the circular building structure

Transitioning to a circular built environment can reduce the environmental impacts, resource consumption and waste generation emanating from buildings. However, there are many options to design circular building components, and limited knowledge on which options lead to the best environmental performance. Few guidelines exist and they build...

A Circular Economy Life Cycle Assessment (CE-LCA) model for building components

The transition towards a Circular Economy (CE) in the built environment is vital to reduce resource consumption, emissions and waste generation. To support the development of circular building components, assessment metrics are needed. Previous work identified Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as an important method to analyse the environmental...

Towards circular life cycle assessment for the built environment: A comparison of allocation approaches

Introduction. The building sector consumes 40% of resources globally, produces 40% of global waste and 33% of greenhouse gas emissions. The transition towards a Circular Economy (CE) in the built environment is vital to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of climate action and responsible consumption and production. Metrics are...

Development of a life cycle assessment allocation approach for circular economy in the built environment

Transitioning the built environment to a circular economy (CE) is vital to achieve sustainability goals but requires metrics. Life cycle assessment (LCA) can analyse the environmental performance of CE. However, conventional LCA methods assess individual products and single life cycles whereas circular assessment requires a systems...

Design guidelines for circular building components based on LCA and MFA: The case of the circular kitchen

Introduction. The building sector consumes 40% of resources globally, produces 40% of global waste and 33% of all emissions. The transition towards a Circular Economy (CE) in the built environment is vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as responsible consumption and production. The built environment can gradually be...

Cards for circularity: Towards circular design in practice

The transition towards a Circular Economy (CE) in the built environment is crucial to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Theoretical frameworks and methods for circular design have been developed. Yet, there is a lack of knowledge on circular design in practice and how circular design thinking can be supported. This study aims...

A circular economy life cycle costing model (CE-LCC) for building components

The building industry is responsible for the highest resource use, amount of waste and emissions of all industries. The principles of the Circular Economy (CE) could offer an approach to create a more sustainable built environment. For a transition towards a circular built environment, a comprehensive assessment method is needed to support...

Towards a circular built environment: An integral design tool for circular building components

Purpose: The transition to a circular economy in the built environment is key to achieving a resource-effective society. The built environment can be made more circular by applying circular building components. The purpose of this paper is to present a design tool that can support industry in developing circular building components. Design...

Circular Housing Retrofit Strategies and Solutions: Towards Modular, Mass-Customised and 'Cyclable' Retrofit Products

The building sector consumes 40 % of resources globally, produces 40 % of global waste and 33 % of CO₂ emissions. Creating a circular built environment is therefore of paramount importance to a sustainable society. The housing stock can be made more circular through circular retrofitting. However, strategies and solutions...

Rehabilitating China's crumbling high-rises