World Green Building Council’s flagship ‘Circular Built Environment Playbook’ report, delivered by our #CircularityAccelerator global programme, calls for a circular economy and resource efficiency in the built environment. Through the publication of The Circular Built Environment Playbook, the WorldGBC network aspires to increase awareness and accessibility of circular economy solutions, by guiding all stakeholders within the built environment value chain towards sustainable, circular decision-making.

Download the playbook here

The EU-funded project BUS-GoCircular has developed two tools to stimulate demand for skills in circular construction. These are a policy guidance brief and a slide deck of training material. Both documents are aimed at public authorities in local and regional governments and seek to boost demand for skilled energy efficiency professionals in the construction sector.

The policy guidance brief, written by project partner ICLEI Europe, highlights good practices and replicable examples across Europe to raise awareness among practitioners and policymakers about their ability to promote a more circular construction sector and upskill professionals. It also highlights the various levers at their disposal to support this transition.

The training material aims to help public procurers and policymakers better understand how they can stimulate demand for circular construction skills through public procurement. This slide deck can be used as a self-learning tool, with links to other resources to learn more about the topic. It can also be used and adapted as needed to help to raise awareness among colleagues and partners on how they can promote circular construction skills.

Download the policy guidance brief here and the training material here!

Um Klimaneutralität 2045 in Deutschland zu erreichen ist es nötig, nicht nur die Betriebsphase von Gebäuden in den Blick zu nehmen. Es müssen darüber hinaus auch die Emissionen gesenkt werden, die über die Herstellung der Baustoffe, den Bau, Reparatur, Sanierung und dem Abriss oder Rückbau anfallen. Der Lebenszyklus-Fahrplan identifiziert zentrale politische Stellenschrauben sowie Schritte und Meilensteine für die verschiedenen im Bausektor relevanten Akteursgruppen.

Die Publikation sowie weitere Informationen finden Sie hier.

The new UN Climate Technology Centre & Network (CTCN) knowledge brief showcases how Africa is harnessing technology in designing, developing, and sustaining a circular economy, devising solutions which are both low-tech – such as composting and using local building materials – and high-tech, such as anaerobic digestion, material science and digital material marketplaces.

The circular economy is perceived as an alternative to achieve the sustainability of cities through housing of social interest, the unity in which regulations have a greater power of influence. After the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the social housing industry plays an important role in economic reactivation, so it is urgent to incorporate sustainability into the current discussion. In the case of Chile, this model faces considerable barriers to its implementation, while having different levels of impact, applicability and scalability; however, it also entails countless economic, social and urban benefits, becoming a valuable contribution to the carbon neutrality proposed by 2050.

This study provides a diagnosis of the implementation of the circular economy in the social housing industry in Chile. The costs, technical and social benefits, risks and opportunities of different circularity models currently in application are analyzed, which could - with appropriate incentives and promotion policies - generate new business models, green jobs and a decrease in the environmental impact of construction.

Download the report here.

The Net Zero Whole Life Carbon Roadmap, published in 2021, demonstrates that the UK built environment can be net zero carbon by 2050. The modelling found that for this to happen, both embodied and operational carbon must be reduced to almost zero, and that the use of circular economy principles are an important part of the solution. Five such principles and how to apply them were set out by UKGBC in Circular economy guidance for construction clients, published in 2019.

This UKGBC report seeks to increase understanding within the real estate sector of how circular economy principles can support whole life carbon reductions, and where there may be potential trade-offs; and provide greater clarity on how circular economy may be valued in relation to the whole life carbon impacts of buildings by translating these outcomes into financial and other value metrics.