The Circular Economy (CE) gained significant traction in business and academia. While in the building sector issues around energy efficiency are being widely explored, CE is still a relatively new topic. This article reports on three CE pilots in the Dutch building sector and develops a collaboration tool for developing and operating circular buildings and their supply chain collaborations. First, a conceptual framework is developed to study supply chain collaboration in circular buildings, which uses theoretical building blocks for visions, actor learning, network dynamics and business model innovation. Second, a case study is presented where the framework is applied to three cases using semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Third, an empirically-based tool is developed to enhance collaboration for CE in the building sector. The cases include a newly built project, a renovation project and a demolition project. It was found that developing circular buildings requires (i) a new process design where a variety of disciplines in the supply chain is integrated upfront, (ii) the co-creation of an ambitious vision, (iii) extension of responsibilities to actors along the entire building supply chain, and (iv) new business and ownership models.

The FP7 funded GLAMURS (Green Lifestyles, Alternative Models, and Upscaling Regional Sustainability) project focuses on transitions to sustainable lifestyles. A key starting point is that lifestyles of people engaged in bottom-up sustainability initiatives are more sustainable than regular lifestyles and that stimulating and diffusing those more sustainable lifestyles out of their niches will contribute to upscaling regional sustainability. In the GLAMURS project empirical work in is conducted in seven regions across Europe consisting of (i) research at the regional level as part of WP4 and (ii) of in-depth collaborative research with citizen sustainability initiatives in the seven regions in WP5. This report, Deliverable 5.4, summarises the results of the Dutch case study in the urbanised region of Rotterdam-Delft-The Hague. This case study included in-depth research of and collaboration with (i) the energy initiative Vogelwijk Energie(k) in the Hague, and (ii) three Repair Cafes in Delft, Schiedam, and The Hague. The aims of the case study work are threefold: (i) to get an in-depth understanding of the nature of the initiatives under investigation, (ii) to explore opportunities for the initiatives to overcome the challenges that they face, and to feed the initiatives with knowledge that enables them to more effectively deal with their challenges, and (iii) to investigate what role the initiatives can play in sustainability transitions. Chapter 1 introduces the case study and its aims, the region, the three Repair Cafes, and the local energy initiative Vogelwijk Energie(k) in the Hague. Chapter 2 reports on the actor and network analysis for the initiatives. Chapter 3 reports on the results of the in-depth interview with members and non-members of the initiatives. Chapter 4 reports on both regional and initiative focus groups. Chapter 5 reports on some of the survey results. Chapter 6 reports on the backcasting workshops and the developed visions. Finally, in Chapter 7 key insights are presented and policy relevance is discussed.