This thesis examines how Dutch housing associations can integrate circular economy aims while delivering homes quickly and affordably. It identifies a Capacity–Circularity Gap: the distance between what associations want on circular construction and what they can deliver within current rules, tools, and routines. Two imperatives sit side by side in daily practice. There is pressure for speed, cost control, and volume, and there is the ambition to build for long-term value with lower resource use. The analysis shows that throughput usually weighs heavier, which keeps circular options at the margins of mainstream delivery.
The research combines a context study, a literature review, and a qualitative empirical phase with five semi-structured interviews with practitioners in housing associations and municipalities. Transcripts were thematically analyzed and the findings were validated in an interview with the program manager for Onderhoud en Verbetering and interim sustainability lead at Aedes. The expert validation helped to locate where circular options fall out and which steps are most useful in practice.
Three mechanisms explain how the gap is produced. First, an early financial filter, described by the expert as the horizon gap, keeps longer-term and component-level effects outside selection and funding at the moment of choice. Circular options can then drop out before they build a track record. Second, circular know-how is not yet embedded in routine tools and workflows. Lessons stay in pilots, and perceived risk remains high. Third, procurement settings and the way risk and liability are handled pull decisions back to familiar solutions under delivery pressure, especially when evidence for reused and bio-based parts is not standardized.
From these results, the thesis proposes three connected pathways. Developing Circular Expertise focuses on short learning cycles, shared checklists, and peer exchange so lessons move from pilots into routine work. Redesigning Business Model brings longer-term effects into go or no-go and award decisions through a concise circular section with a small, stable set of performance criteria and expected evidence. Building Market Supply aligns criteria and demand across clients and fits risk allocation and documentation to reused and biobased components, which lowers supplier uncertainty and supports reliable delivery at volume. The expert validation confirmed the logic and the order: capability before criteria, criteria before wider market moves.
Sector initiatives can host these steps. Netwerk Conceptueel Bouwen supports learning and specification. De Woonstandaard offers comparable baselines that can carry clear circular criteria. De Bouwstroom aggregates demand and timelines so suppliers can plan and invest. Used together, these initiatives help turn ambition into normal practice without slowing delivery.
The contribution of this work is to translate a broad tension into operational guidance for Dutch housing associations. It names and locates the horizon gap, shows the decision points where circular value is filtered out, and sets out practical steps that fit current mandates. If applied now, these steps can narrow the distance between want and can and help the sector keep a credible path to the national goal of a fully circular economy by 2050, while continuing to build the homes the Netherlands urgently needs.