Systemic insights

Lessons learned of value beyond the H2020 project

Some important insights have already been made on a systemic level in the early stages of the H2020 project. Have a look at:

The state-of-the-art review

Blueprint

The additional systemic insights below have been gathered during the course and at the end of the Project.

Lack of life cycle and circularity data

Assessment of transformation capacity, reuse potential, financial costs and environmental impacts over the life span of buildings and building components, as well as its social value, requires a lot of data over the entire life span of the building and its components. Currently these data are in different stakeholders’ possession and scattered throughout the value network of the building. Furthermore, in the design stage a big part of these data is still unknown, because it relates to the future of the building. Because a lot of life cycle and circularity data are not in the hands of the assessor, often generic data – not exactly matching the specific conditions of the building – are used and broad assumptions about the future are made, leading to uncertain assessment results. A similar observation is made on the (ex-ante or post) impact assessment of (to be) adopted policy measures improving circular economy in the built environment. These policy measures usually affect an entire geographic region (from municipality to the EU), which makes it even more difficult to find (quantitative and/or quality) data to measure economic and societal impacts and benefits of policy measures, compared to the building level. However, from a policy perspective this data is crucial; not only to assess the impact of policy measures, but also to create awareness.

Within the circular building assessment of some pilot projects within the BAMB project, data obstacles were overcome by carrying out many scenario and sensitivity analyses (in a non-automated way). Also, life cycle data were inventoried through data templates and the use of building information models (BIM), facilitating the transfer of useful specific and/or generic information and reducing time considerably. Regarding the circularity data, materials passports were used, when available. Although all these actions are already a step in the right direction, we urge the entire building industry (from manufacturers, building designers to facility/asset managers and reverse logistics actors) to structure and exchange life cycle and circularity (non-confidential) data in such a way to support more context related decision-making. The further development and implementation of BIM and materials passports can accelerate this.

Harmonizing circularity datasets within materials passport

During the BAMB project several initiatives regarding the development of materials passports were set up, among which:

BAMB Materials Passport Platform (R&D initiative – prototype)

http://www.madaster.com/ (commercial initiative – operational)

BAM-IBM Circular Building Passports (commercial initiative – prototype)

Although there is nothing wrong about the rise of different MP initiatives – it shows that there is a clear market demand – there is a risk of potentially competing data platforms over-questioning manufacturers and other data providers, and providing different sorts of – maybe contradicting – circularity information. Suddenly, the idea of a “one-stop-shop” for circularity information on building product data could easily be ruined.

In response to this, a need to harmonise the format and data input/output of materials passports was expressed and shared between the initiators. This harmonisation process could be started through the standardisation of a (light set of) open data, either directly taken up by the industry or through the development of European and international standards. By doing so, different materials passport initiatives can co-exist, supported by the industry and answering user requirements.

Lack of financial leverages

Realising buildings embracing circularity – and more precisely: circular product service systems (PSS) – involve some financial risks:

  • It is not always clear at the start of the project who the actual owner(s) will be: the building user(s), the building manager, manufacturer(s), …or a combination of all; hence, it is not easy to determine who needs to bear which set of responsibilities and complicates contractual agreements between all stakeholders.
  • To make PSS profitable for service providers who remain (partly) owner of their products, the operational scale needs to be bigger than a single building. Exchanging building products, transforming (a part of) buildings, take-back and remanufacturing, storage, etc. involves a lot of capital, which in most cases needs to be by pre-financed, as the user remunerates only a part of the total cost of ownership – and not necessarily when the building (product) is commissioned.
  • Because the service period of buildings and their products is long compared to other industry sectors it is difficult to determine the residual value of buildings and their components over time. Within this use period – sometimes longer than a human generation – a lot of macro-economic events bigger than the influence zone of financiers (and service providers) – can happen, such as economic crises, scarcity of resources and governmental reforms. This makes it all impossible to assure a (desired) residual value at the end of the service period. Hence, it will always remain uncertain if the building (product) will be repurposed.
  • Because of these risks, the (traditional) financial sector is still reluctant to (pre-)finance circular PSS within the built environment. It will take close collaboration between financial organisations, legal offices, (niche) market players and R&D organisations, as well as the provision of room for experimentation in order to take some big steps in the direction of circularity.
  • Because the service period of buildings and their products is long compared to other industry sectors it is difficult to determine the residual value of buildings and their components over time. Within this use period – sometimes longer than a human generation – a lot of macro-economic events bigger than the influence zone of financiers (and service providers) – can happen, such as economic crises, scarcity of resources and governmental reforms. This makes it all impossible to assure a (desired) residual value at the end of the service period. Hence, it will always remain uncertain if the building (product) will be repurposed.

Because of these risks, the (traditional) financial sector is still reluctant to (pre-)finance circular PSS within the built environment. It will take close collaboration between financial organisations, legal offices, (niche) market players and R&D organisations, as well as the provision of room for experimentation in order to take some big steps in the direction of circularity.

Experimentation to support transition and innovation

Real-time building experiments have played an important role within the BAMB project. The 6 building pilots and some parallel experiments have made it possible to test technical solutions related to reversible building design, improve decision-making and data transfer through the circular building assessment, better define user requirements for materials passports and evaluate the feasibility of some circular business strategies. Furthermore, real-time experiments have been used to showcase good (and sometimes bad) practices. No question about it: the carried out building experiments resulted in more tangible and user-fit project results!

However, preparing innovative solutions to experiment with takes time – often bumping into barriers, such as:

  • legal restrictions within building permits, not aligned with circularity objectives (e.g. each structural transformation requires a new building permit)
  • lack of construction partners due to high(er) risks and uncertainty about return-of-investment
  • unforeseen extra time and additional logistics to develop customised products and install them on the building site
  • difficulty of exchanging information, because of a lack of circularity and life cycle data, and limited use of BIM and materials passports by current building professionals.

With the restricted timespan of this H2020 project, it was therefore impossible to test every conceived techno-economic solution on every pilot project, from conception to commissioning of the building. In the BAMB project, this time issue was partly absorbed by focussing on different aspects and building stages within the pilot projects, and sharing insights with all.

We recommend to further invest in real experimentation, beyond the timeline and scope of the BAMB project:

  • from innovation towards transition: to (further) support the transition towards a circular built environment, transition experiments focussing on systemic changes regarding design culture, value definition and collaboration along the value network should be clearly defined and implemented. The development of the ‘buildings as materials bank’ pages on reburg.world and the lessons learned workshop in October 2018 made it clear that already some important niche activities are happening today!
  • from single building cases towards large-scale pilots involving multiple buildings: as already mentioned, economic feasibility of certain circular business strategies within the built environment requires a bigger scale than single building cases. To manage most of the risks for financiers and market players to invest in circularity, real large-scale experiments (within a relatively protected environment) need to be implemented. Lessons learned from these pilots need to be shared to further induce (market) uptake.