A new approach to circularity assessment for a sustainable water sector: Accounting for environmental functional flows and losses

Resource recovery solutions can reduce the water sector's resource use intensity. With many such solutions being proposed, an assessment method for effective decision-making is needed. The water sector predominantly deals with biogeochemical resources (e.g., nitrogen) that are different from technical resources (e.g., industrial coagulants)...

Measuring the circularity of modular units in modular construction projects

With the acceleration of global urbanization, most of us will live in cities in the future. As the urban population grows, the shortage of residential buildings has become a more and more severe problem. In response to the rising demand for housing, more and more builders in Europe, East Asia, Australia and other places have begun to adopt a...

Towards circular EV chargers: Assessing and improving the circularity of EVBox’s commercial AC chargers

Over the past years, electric vehicle charging company EVBox has, in collaboration with design agency VanBerlo made the first steps in becoming more circular. Within this project further steps have been explored on both strategic- and product level of EVBox’s commercial AC chargers. First, an analysis on the EV context led to the conclusion that...

Development of a building adaptability indicator to encourage designing adaptable high-rise buildings: A study to the development of a building adaptability measurement tool

Policy makers have set the goal to reach a completelycircular economy by the year 2050 in the Netherlands. This means that theconstruction industry should shift from its current ‘take-make-waste’ approachtowards a circular approach. The number of buildings of more than 100 m inheight are increasing in the Netherlands, due to...

BIM-based framework for circularity and environmental impact assessment during the design stage

The Circular Economy (CE) in the built environment has gained attention due to the current unsustainable linear model. There are several indicators to measure the transition towards the CE in the built environment, but no consensus has been reached. Based on previous literature, the design decisions during the preliminary stage of the design...

Circular Economy Evaluation of Urban Railway Infrastructure

The European construction sector is responsible for the consumption of almost 32% of total raw material for realizing its projects (Benachio, Freitas, & Tavares , 2020). On a national level, this amount results to almost 50% for the Dutch construction industry (Nellssen, et al., 2018). The ever-growing population stresses the need for...

The Circular Redesign Focus Point tool: A novel method to determine focus points for redesigning surgical devices for circularity

For healthcare, an industry that is currently responsible for up to 10% of the global carbon footprint, the transition to carbon neutrality and circularity will be an enormous challenge. As 20-30% of the total hospital waste originates from operating rooms, optimising recovery from these waste streams has the potential to make a significant...

Digital Solutions for a Circular Facade Economy: A conceptual framework for a Facade's Product Passport to Facilitate decision making at its End of Service(EoS)

In the Dutch government attempting to become fully circular 2050, VMRG, a Dutch Metal Façade Association, has initiated several pilot projects. Two of the most prominent ones are Cirlinq, an asset management platform for documenting building facades, and FaSA (Façade Service Applicate), a collective of stakeholders aiming to use drones and image...

A Definition of Essential Characteristics for a Method to Measure Circularity Potential in Architectural Design

Circularity potential in the construction sector, a quality that quantifies the contribution to carbon and resource neutrality, is to be standardised in Europe yet. In order to do so, a harmonised definition and method of calculation that offers transparency is crucial. Simplicity in construction methods, a low-tech approach, and a limited...

Towards Circular Bicycle Development: Introducing a tool for progression towards a circular bicycle development process

Accell Group is the European market leader in e-bikes and the European number two player in bicycle parts and accessories. Well- known bicycle brands in their portfolio include Babboe, Batavus, Ghost, Haibike, Koga, Lapierre, Raleigh, Sparta and Winora. Since Accell has decided to give sustainability a higher priority, there is a need to...

Façade Reverse Logistics: Achieving circularity by application of reverse logistics strategies for curtain walls & window wall façade constructions

If the Netherlands wants to achieve its goal of being completely circular by 2050 (Berkel, Delahaye, & Faasdreef, 2019), radical solutions must take place. Implementing a circular economy is a challenge, but it proves to be significant given the rate at which resources are being consumed. Designing is one of the most important tasks to...

Developing a circularity self-assessment tool: a case study for the Dutch plastics industry

The European Commission published the “EU action plan for the Circular Economy” in 2015, the Dutch government strives for a circular Netherlands before the year 2050 (Rijksoverheid, 2016) and Rotterdam aims for circularity as the norm in 2030 (Rotterdam Circulair, 2018). To reach these goals, set by governmental organisations, change is required...

An integrated approach towards energy performance and circularity in buildings

The built environment consumes 50% of all raw materials, 40% of the total energy and 30% of the total water, in the Netherlands. As climate change looms over and threatens our physical environment, the EU and consequently the Dutch government has proposed multiple stringent regulations to curb our unsustainable resource consumption habits and...

Accelerating circularity in Built-environment through "Active-procurement": An aggregated assessment framework to make sustainable choices while using secondary material at early design phase

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...

A circular approach to energy renovation

Our world and environment is facing a multitude of complex and intertwined environmental problems. Man made climate change, caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and causing an array of negative environmental effects. The raw material input and throughput currently necessary to sustain our human activities which create large...