Material-related circular strategies can reduce material demand and preserve opportunities for adaptation,
reuse and value retention over a building’s lifecycle. Their integration into investment decisionmaking
remains difficult because present costs are relatively visible, while future lifecycle effects are
uncertain and must be assessed alongside care requirements, functionality, affordability, technical
feasibility and organisational constraints. This study examines what process and assessment conditions
shape the decision relevance of material-related circular strategies in investment decision-making for
new-build care real estate.

The research combined a literature review with an intensive reconstruction of one Dutch new-build
care project and an exploratory what-if analysis within the organisation’s existing financial appraisal.
Project documents and semi-structured interviews were used to trace how material-related circular
strategies developed through the investment process. The what-if analysis examined how selected
lifecycle assumptions and residual value could be represented and assessed under uncertainty. The
findings were subsequently translated into a decision-support framework.

The results show that loss of decision relevance did not occur at one formal decision gate. Instead,
strategies changed position as project choices narrowed. Project routines readily produced specific
evidence for present costs, while future effects were more often represented at building level or
qualitatively and were therefore harder to link to specific material or design choices. The what-if
analysis showed that changing lifecycle assumptions could substantially alter the financial appraisal
without settling the investment decision. A favourable financial result was not sufficient on its own.
Decision-makers also required evidence strong enough to justify changing an appraisal assumption,
while any resulting financial improvement still competed with other project and portfolio priorities.
More detailed evidence could therefore support either changing or retaining an assumption, depending
on what it revealed.

The study concludes that decision relevance is conditional rather than inherent. It depended on whether
a strategy and the reason for considering it remained visible, whether supporting evidence became
available while the choice could still be influenced and whether the expected physical or lifecycle effect
could be clearly linked to the specific material or design choice and considered through existing financial
or governance procedures. Care-related, functional and technical consequences could also influence
the decision without first being converted into monetary value. The resulting framework structures
these relationships into a traceable assessment process. As the study concerns one case and modelled
what-if judgements rather than observed investment decisions under real commitment, it identifies
mechanisms and conditions rather than their prevalence across the sector. ... Read more