CirCon4Climate

Contributing to minimising natural resource consumption and climate change mitigation through strengthening circular construction practices in Czechia, Poland, and Slovenia

Background

In Czechia, Poland, and Slovenia, most of the construction industry’s waste is landfilled instead of recycled. However, within construction up to 70 per cent of demolition waste can be used anew. Therefore, the European Commission’s Waste Framework Directive aims to ensure that this waste is managed in an environmentally reasonable manner. This does not only lessen the unnecessary consumption of natural resources and reduces the production of greenhouse gases but also drives forward the construction sector’s transformation towards a climate and resource-friendly circular economy model, which aims to minimise waste and emissions by reducing the need for new materials and manufacturing processes through tighter material cycles in construction.

Project

The project strengthens circular construction in Czechia, Poland, and Slovenia with the help of best practices from Germany. To achieve this objective, the project increases awareness regarding the circular construction process among regional governments and municipalities as well as key players within the industry: policymakers, architects, contractors, investors, and urban planning authorities. In practice, the project team advises investors on how to increase circular building principles in public procurement. Moreover, it provides architects and urban planning authorities with good examples as well as support in designing buildings with recycled materials. Hence, the construction industry is encouraged to use secondary materials – recycled materials that can be used in manufacturing processes – and to increase the volume of the collection of materials for reuse and recycling. The project uses best practices from Germany as guidance within this process. All in all, this contributes to mitigating climate change as well as securing supply within the construction sector.