Capturing components and materials at the end of a building’s use phase requires a conscious decision at the design stage, so that the building is seen not only as an aesthetic and functional entity, but also a future material store. In Brummen in the Netherlands, a new town hall was needed, but there was concern that, due to shifting district boundaries, the building could become redundant in the foreseeable future. The municipality therefore decided to commission a building with a fixed service life of 20 years.

The Sustainable Facilities Tool from the U.S. General Services Administration supports facility managers, purchasing agents, designers, tenants, in decision making and action around efficient, healthy buildings and environmentally-responsible purchasing.

Since 2002, the United States Federal Government has outlined its intent to advance sustainable building principles and practices throughout its portfolio established through a number of statutory and executive policies that every Federal agency has integrated and utilized. 

The objective of the research was to assess the roles of municipal building authorities and their potential to act when a rapid change is needed towards energy-efficient and sustainable building and refurbishment. Our premise was that local authorities will have an essential role in improving the awareness and commitment of stakeholders and in supporting them to understand potentials of sustainable building. However, this may require the development of current roles.

Technological progress has had negative effects as well as positive effects if it affects the life industry and the entire ecosystem significantly through the great consumption of natural resources, and here the construction sector in general and the health sector, in particular, have a role in this.

As the need to stem climate change gains in urgency virtually by the day, new environmentally sensitive practices and policies targeted at limiting the global average temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels are essential. This is particularly relevant in the manufacturing of cement – the key ingredient in concrete. The world is in the midst of an infrastructure and building boom as new economies emerge and developed economies expand.

In Germany, according to the "Kreislaufwirfschaft Bau", 14.6 million tonnes of construction site waste were generated in 2014.  In a position paper, Glass for Europe estimate that float glass accounts for less than 1% of construction site waste.  Even this apparently small amount is not negligible as glass is predestined for closed-loop recycling.  The use of glass cullet not only conserves natural raw material resources, but also reduces the melting energy required, and thus, also the CO₂ emissions.

The increased attention paid to resource efficiency, sustainable use of natural resources and sustainable buildings has raised awareness of the potential of the building sector to contribute to Europe’s goals in these areas.

The Resource Efficiency Roadmap identifies the building sector as one of the sectors that is key to addressing the challenges of energy, climate change and resource efficiency. The Roadmap recognises that increased waste recycling, among other measures, will contribute to a competitive construction sector.

The environmental consequences of plastic solid waste are visible in the ever-increasing levels of global plastic pollution both on land and in the oceans. But although there are important economic and environmental incentives for plastics recycling, end-of-life treatment options for plastic solid waste are in practice quite limited.

Presorting of plastics before recycling is costly and time-intensive, recycling requires large amounts of energy and often leads to low-quality polymers, and current technologies cannot be applied to many polymeric materials.

The transition to a carbon neutral EU requires deep energy demand reductions in key sectors of the economy such as buildings and transport, and that the remaining energy consumed is carbon neutral. Such transformations can only be achieved if the conditions are created for all actors and industrial sectors to maximise their multi-faceted contributions to this low-carbon revolution.