The circular business case

Abstract

The construction industry has a significant environmental impact, consumes a large amount of scarce resources, generates a lot of waste, and causes a lot of emissions such as CO2 which contribute to global warming and are all reasons of great concern. A significant portion of these negative environmental impacts are caused by the building sector and attendant linear construction process. Developments with biobased materials as a circular strategy help encounter this. However, this implementation is still lacking in the building industry and the linear to a circular economy transition is still in the early stages. Moreover, real estate developers are struggling to make their business cases for circular projects financially feasible, as costs are a significant barrier. To research and understand how current circular biobased business cases are adapted and if they are future proof or use temporary measures, the following main research question is used: How are business cases adapted in order to create financially feasible and circular biobased housing developments? To answer this question, a literature study, case studies and interviews are done with the aim to gain insights into current complications and possible solutions in the business case of biobased housing developments. As well as gather perspectives from identified stakeholders & experts on these or alternative opportunities to help and speed up the transition to biobased houses. Results show that the business cases were not drastically adapted to fit the circular strategy, but temporary emergency measures were found to help realise the projects. These were: less profit for the parties involved, investors paying extra and for construction stored carbon credits, lower land price or more focus on sustainability and less on price by municipalities, subsidies, and building only partly with biobased materials and partly with e.g. concrete and bricks. It can be concluded that the traditional business case is not fitted for biobased construction as a circular economy strategy, which also contributes to why the wider necessary shift to such strategies stays out. But also that developers and other parties are willing and working on limiting the environmental impact of the building industry.