Integrated solutions for circularity in buildings and the construction sector

The 2020 circular economy action plan (CEAP) states that “the built environment has a significant impact on many sectors of the economy, on local jobs and quality of life. It requires vast amounts of resources and accounts for about 50% of all extracted material. The construction sector is responsible for over 35% of the EU’s total waste generation. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from material extraction, manufacturing of construction products, construction and renovation of buildings are estimated at 5-12% of total national GHG emissions. Greater material efficiency could save 80% of those emissions.” Measures should strive for the use of more climate-neutral circular materials with low environmental footprint and tackle material recovery, upcycling, recycled content in products, durability and adaptability of buildings, and they should have a strong life cycle and digitalisation focus. They should also focus on circular design that facilitates reuse and recycling beforehand.

This activity should demonstrate at large scale and deploy innovative climate-neutral circular solutions that prevent waste, expand the lifetime and improve the life cycle performance of buildings and their components, but also improve the quality of and the confidence in reused and recycled material. This targets materials, products, equipment and systems, their sourcing, design, upgradability, durability, material efficiency, dismantling, recyclability, etc. Dismantling and deconstruction should be embedded already in the design phase, with the adoption of circular economy principles, and thus reduce construction and demolition waste (CDW). As part of an overall digitalisation of the construction ecosystem, projects should use digital tools such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) or Digital Twin, which are key to traceability and circularity, and can be further used during deconstruction. Appropriate material recycling within construction operations, waste material identification, sorting and decontamination solutions should be considered to improve material logistics, processing and upgrading. Projects should aim to support the strengthening of preferably local or regional secondary material markets. All solutions should be based on life-cycle approaches and proposals should integrate life cycle assessment using the European Commission’s Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method and relevant costing methods. The projects should also propose, test and demonstrate new business models. Projects should also develop training material to endow workers in this occupational group with the right skillset in order to deploy the new technologies developed. All achieved outcomes should be demonstrated using quantitative indicators and targets wherever possible.

With regard to the territorial aspects of all proposed solutions, proposals seek to contribute to the goals and cooperate with the services of the European Commission’s Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI). Joint activities with CCRI projects are encouraged.

Proposals should seek to build synergies with projects funded under Cluster 4 Destination ‘Climate neutral, circular and digitised production’, section “A new way to build, accelerating disruptive change in construction”. Projects are therefore strongly encouraged to organise joint activities, ensure synergies and undertake clustering activities with projects under Cluster 4.

Projects should seek to contribute to the New European Bauhaus initiative by supporting the green and digital transitions in communities’ living environments through merging sustainability, inclusiveness and quality of experience.

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.