Eco-construction for sustainable development: Concept of a Material and Component Bank

Abstract

The European Commission has recently promulgated the concept of Circular Economy as a new pathway towards sustainability, in particular through new policy initiatives such as the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP). Since the environmental impact of the construction industry with the depletion of natural resources and the raising CO2 emissions will have to be reduced in the future, the need of recycling and even reusing entire building components supporting the principles of circular economy have been identified. The direct reuse of components extracted from old deconstructed buildings presents an energy-efficient and environmental-friendly solution. However, the reuse of components can be hindered by e.g. the lack of information on the availability of decommissioned structural components and uncertainties on the warranty of structural components. To handle this process an additional independent institution acting as Material and Component (M&C) Bank is needed. This entity assures activities such as e.g. the identification of reusable components in buildings which are proposed for selective dismantling; the condition assessment; the data management and the data transfer from a previously deconstructed building to a new building; and finally, an official certification of the components’ conformity for another service life in a new application. In the current paper, a concept for such a M&C bank is presented. This study investigates the potential of a M&C bank in the framework of circular economy concepts for the planning of sustainable and circular buildings with a reduced eco-footprint by focusing on the reuse of decommissioned structural components. The concept, main businesses and work operation of the bank are discussed. Furthermore, a digital representation of the bank as BIM-based M&C bank needed to publicize the availability of the reusable components to the market and to enable circular business models by showing their circular pathways are described