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The built environment sector largely exists to serve our universal need for shelter, and as such is one of the most important consumers of raw materials in the world.

We believe the built environment should be a ‘living’ system in which building materials and products are optimally used and reused— a system that operates within the boundaries of our planet, preserves the (business) value of its resources, and ensures the well-being of its inhabitants.

Tremendous opportunities to reverse the tide and prevent a state of lock-in from happening exist for regions where the built environment sector has yet to mature. There is also still hope for those regions where the fate of the construction sector may seem set in stone.

This is why two key strategies stand out: 

- Preventing lock-in through thoughtful design
- Optimising (material value) through transformative re-design

Built environment

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Starter Kit collection

Business case

Impact on the availability of resources as well as their effect on living organisms, ecosystems, and components of the environment.

Ecological Impact

Impacts on the financial condition of a company, as well as the the economicconditions of its stakeholders and on economic systems at local, national, andglobal levels.

Economic Impact

Direct and indirect reduction in economic costs

Cost Savings

Impact on the ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

Reduced use of virgin materials and/or an increase of the use of secondary and bio-based materials

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

Minimise waste through diversion: Instead of sending waste to landfill, it is redirected into other industrial processes for handling, treatment, recycling, recovery, or reuse in various forms. 

Minimise waste through design: At the outset of a process of project, plan and design such that there is zero waste or minimal waste during production, use, and at end of life. 

Minimise Waste (SDG12)

Producing transporation equipment and providing services for thetransportation of goods and people

Transportation and Logistics

Producing building materials and providing services to create residential and non-residential infrastructure and real estate


Construction and Infrastructure

Providing air, water, rail, and land transportation and related services for the distribution of goods, such as air freight, air courier and logistics services, maritime freight, marine courier and logistics services, rail freight, rail courier and logistics services, land freight, land courier and logistics services, including package and mail delivery and customs agents, as well as storage and warehouse facilities

Logistics Services

Producing building materials and finished and semi-finished building products for construction

Construction Materials and Products

Utilise waste streams as a source of secondary resources and recover waste for reuse and recycling

Use waste as a resource

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within other industries

Valorise waste streams - open loop

Using waste materials that have been processed and recycled to produce new products within other industries

Using open loop recycled materials

Buildings are where we live, work and play, and also where we store machinery and goods for later consumption. Buildings are but one component of the greater built environment which includes urban infrastructure such as roads, bridges and utilities. 
Current construction techniques have buildings consuming the bulk of materials globally. With increasing urbanisation and therefore demand for buildings of every kind, we drastically need to re-imagine how we design, utilise and decommission buildings.

BUILDINGS

Impacts

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Industries

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The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

Urban Opportunities

  SMC debuts Philippine’s first recycled plastics road   MANILA, Philippines — Conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) has taken another major step in the area of sustainability, laying the first recycled plastics road in the Philippines. Asphalt using plastics was laid on a 1,500-square meter pilot test site at a new logistics center in General Trias, Cavite. The test site was chosen as it will be used primarily as a marshaling area for trucks with heavy load, including 18-wheelers, and heavy equipment. SMC president Ramon Ang said: “What we want to achieve is to help address an important environmental issue, and that is plastic wastes. We want to create a sustainable use for waste plastics so that they don’t end up in landfills and our rivers and oceans.” Some 900 kilos of plastic waste, equivalent to some 180,000 sachets and plastic bags, were used for the test site. SMC’s technology partner, global materials science company Dow, said that recycled plastic waste acts as a binder together with bitumen, in the production of asphalt. The company said that using recycled plastics in the production process can help make roads longer lasting and more durable compared to conventional asphalt. Independent lab testing done on SMC’s recycled plastics road asphalt shows that it exceeds the standards of the Department of Public Works and Highways. The company said that pending further testing, it can build recycled plastics roads in its facilities as well as major infrastructure projects. Last week, San Miguel also announced that it is adopting the use of biodegradable plastics for food and non-food products. For this, the company is utilizing the biodegradable plastics developed by Philippine Bioresins Corp. that can be 64.65 percent degraded in 24 months as compared to non-biodegradable plastics (4.5 percent in 24 months). The Department of Science and Technology’s Industrial Technology Development Institute gave this innovation an Environmental Technology Verification certificate. San Miguel has also discontinued its bottled water business a few years ago and embarked on the move to reduce group-wide non-product water use by 50 percent by 2025. 

 “We wanted to target these two kinds of plastic waste because neither has high economic value after use. PET (the kind of plastic that goes into soft drink bottles) is collected and sold so it eventually gets recycled or disposed of properly, but because used sando bags and candy wrappers have not commercial value, they end up landfills or find their way to the ocean through our storm drains or rivers,” says Steve Piczon, SMC’s government affairs and advocacy manager whose job it is to incubate ideas that can be scaled across businesses. Working alongside him for this specific project is the general manager of Dow Philippines, Bobby Batungbacal. “Plastic waste is the sustainability issue of our time. Dow is working with partners around the world to build plastic roads using post-consumer recycled plastic. We’ve had great success in Thailand and Vietnam where we’ve already demonstrated that it is possible to divert plastic waste toward this unique and really useful application.” Both Piczon and Batungbacal were encouraged by the tests run by independent labs and third-party providers. “Initial tests showed that asphalt made with plastic is stronger. All the parameters that we set—bitumen content, air voids, marshal stability, permeability, density—were met,” reports Batungbacal who consulted his colleagues across the Asia-Pacific. “But the proof is in the real-world trial and usage of the plastic roads, so we wanted to be very deliberate about the process and make sure that we got it right,” Piczon adds. The proposed plastic road mix was tested thrice on different dates and in different quantities to make sure that it met DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) standards. Testing was done at Par Geotechnical Testing Center, a DPWH-accredited facility. In the final run, the team focused solely on the use of polyethylene given that the available third-party provider could only heat the plastic at temperatures of 180 degrees centigrade. Polypropylene requires temperatures of 200 degrees centigrade or higher, but subsequent tests will focus on using PET and polypropylene as additives. Another challenge was finding machines that could shred the plastic to pieces smaller than three centimeters. The General Trias test site is a staging and marshaling area for San Miguel Integrated Logistics' growing fleet of 18-wheeler trucks. "We thought we'd put the durability of the road to the ultimate test. We want to see how it will perform when haulers and lorries drive over it," says Steve. The trial site is only 1,500 square meters, but already San Miguel Can Asia (also in General Trias) has expressed interest to pave another 5,000 square meters with plastic roads. For the first 1,500 square meters in San Miguel's logistics center, roughly 900 kilos of post-consumer plastic were used—the equivalent of 180,000 plastic bags. “We’ve seen how plastic roads perform in Thailand. It looks just like an ordinary road surface, but every kilometer of plastic road uses over 2,500 kilos of plastic waste. This is the goal for the next run in the Philippines, to use even more post-consumer waste and many more different types of plastic," says Batungbacal. Studies show that plastic roads last longer and perform better than conventional roads. "Adding plastic increases resistance and the road's anti-slip properties. And because you’re substituting up to 8% of bitumen with plastic that would otherwise just be thrown away or worst end up in our oceans it can be more cost-effective to produce,” he shares. “If you scale it up, you might be looking at additional savings. “But more than that, we’re doing the world a lot of good. We’re demonstrating that it’s possible to divert plastic waste and come up with useful, innovative real-world applications.”  Much of the plastic shredded came from Dow and San Miguel employees themselves. Adds Batungbacal, "Our entire family got into it, setting aside whatever plastic we used at home. And by the end of the month, we laid it all out and saw just how much the average Filipino family consumes in terms of plastic. It's made us so much more conscious about the issue of plastic pollution." If all goes well in subsequent trials, San Miguel and Dow Philippines hope to take the idea further and bring the technology to local government units and other companies to initially use the technology for parking lots, side streets and pavements. Says Piczon, "The hardest hurdle hasn't been the technology, it’s been convincing people to give the idea a go and to encourage them to experiment with the technology. Many of our third-party suppliers were skeptical and selling the idea wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be. On the day of the paving itself, representatives from San Miguel's infrastructure and packaging units were present, eager to document the process and see how they might adopt the technology in their businesses. San Miguel's management led by company president and COO Ramon S. Ang says that pending further testing on the General Trias pilot, SMC plans to build plastic roads in its facilities and use the technology in the group's major infrastructure projects. “We're already looking at the time when we are going to have an entire length of plastic road in the majority of our towns and cities. The goal is to use local plastic waste to produce local roads,” Piczon says. “That day is going to come, and I’m glad San Miguel and Dow helped pave the way.” 

Philippines

Province of Cavite

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San Miguel Corporation

<p>A logistics centre in the Philippines substituted a portion of the bitumen in its roads for waste plastic, achieving a more durable surface with a longer lifespan than conventional roads.</p>