New Circular Economy Business Model for More Sustainable Urban Construction

About

Goal

European construction sector generates about 9% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the European Union and directly employs 18 million people being one of the most important industries of the European economy. At the same time, it is one of Europe's biggest consumers of resources that uses about half of all materials extracted and also generates one third of all EU waste. Construction and demolition waste (CDW) together with waste from industry, municipal services and others, can make excellent secondary raw materials (SRM) for construction works and thus provide an enormous potential for reducing the demand for virgin materials, the production of waste, and maximizing the value of recovered materials.

The CINDERELA project aims to untap this potential by developing and demonstrating a new business model (CinderCEBM) to assist companies in setting up successful circular economy business cases based on waste-to-resource opportunities. The business model will be accompanied by a "one-stop-shop" (CinderOSS) service offering all that companies need to know for manufacturing and application of SRM-based construction materials in buildings and civil engineering works.

project goal
project goal

Context

European urban and peri-urban areas, where most of the construction activities take place, produce large quantities of different waste types generated by municipal services, construction sector and other industries. This waste can be a valuable source for the locally available SRM for urban construction works as substitutes of virgin materials and create a window of circular business opportunities for construction companies. However, building circular approaches in construction sector that involve the recovery and use of SRM from waste streams is a challenging task for companies due to lack of appropriate knowledge, technologies, good practices and incentives in place to stimulate the demand and the supply actors to take action. CINDERELA addresses this challenge by assessing the urban waste to resource opportunities, development and testing of new SRM-based construction materials and their application in large scale demonstration pilots to develop a panEuropean pool of knowledge and showcase good practices essential to help construction companies build circular economy business models.