Circular performance of project equipment: The material circularity and economic value of project equipment on a project, product, and company level

The global awareness of the environmental and economic advantages of the circular economy (CE) concept has grown significantly. In order to implement this concept into company practices, a vital starting point is the adoption of a measurement framework. In the past years, the evolution of CE metrics resulted in maturity and practical...

Potential of BREEAM-C to support building circularity assessment: Insights from case study and expert interview

Lack of knowledge and tools hampers circular transition in the construction industry. This study analyzes the potential of a framework of circular indicators put forward by the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM-C) as an answer to the prevailing need of a metric for building circularity assessment to...

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)...

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...

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...

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...

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...