Policy case

Providing residential and non-residential construction services, such as architectural, engineering, planning, real-estate, contracting, and inspection services

Construction and Real Estate Services

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

Construction Materials and Products

Industries

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 One step can lead to a thousand miles, so goes the popular adage. For Kevine Kagirimpundu and her colleague Ysolde Shimwe, their passion for fashion paid off when they started a handcraft shoe company in 2013 after studying creative design at University of Rwanda’s School of Environmental Design and Architecture. Through a friendship that blossomed into a business partnership and what started as an idea, is now producing fruits. Sunday Magazine’s Joan Mbabazi talked to the duo about their handcraft shoe company which now produces 200 pairs of shoes a day. What inspired you to start this company? We had the enthusiasm, brains and capital (through our saving), but fashion is something that cannot be under looked since it is what makes people’s daily lives. We also were and still look forward to show casing quality on the International map through our high quality handmade flip-flops. But most importantly we had a burning desire to employ youth and women. How are you working towards fashion development in the country? We train a number of Rwandans to use products needed on the market and we have been conducting a number of trainings for the last few years. We have a six months training that is starting on Monday that will teach people how to make footwear so that they develop skills that would help them startup companies provided they have capital or get jobs. Skills attained will help youths focus on work and reduce on the rate of drug abuse which is mostly caused by idleness. Tell us more about your company Our company is located in Gahanga where we manufacture the shoes from but we have fashion shops located at Kigali heights and Kigali airport Duty free, we have 35employees. Our footwear prices range from Rwf20,000 to Rwf25,000 a pair but the prices can be reduced depending on the quantity ordered by the client. How do you make these shoes? Well, after cutting materials like plant leather, canvas, fabrics and liners with a machine, our team starts the production process of sewing, designing, weaving and proper finishing, until the final stage where shoes are ready for sale, we work tooth and nail to produce at least 200 pairs per day. Any challenges encountered on the way? No road is smooth; our main problem is lack of skills which we are trying our best solve through our business trainings. For the last five years, is there anything you have achieved? Through hard work, we have been able to reinvest, give employment to youths and women who have been able to cater for their households but we also attracted customers both locally and internationally through trade shows. Who do you look up to? (Kagirimpundu), My father is my role model because he owned a fashion house and influenced me to venture into fashion while Shimwe appreciates her mother who pushed her to work tirelessly even when she thought like giving up. We also appreciate the president that he makes it easy for us to import raw materials from other countries. What is that moment that shaped you in to employers? At first, we only had the theory of making shoes but unfortunately lacked the practical experience but that didn’t ruin our desire and hunger for starting a business, but after a short while, we were trained by a shoe making expert on how to make shoes. If we had given up, the company could not be in existence. What does the future hold for you? We are looking forward to promoting our brand internationally so that Rwanda is recognised for its unique fashion. We will still train Rwandans to make shoes and will be able to improve the quality of shoes continuously. We also yearn to employ more workers in order to reduce unemployment. 

Denmark

Norway

Sweden

Finland

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Metabolic’s overarching mission is to transition the global economy to a fundamentally sustainable state.

A new economic model is necessary: one that ensures the wellbeing of all people and allows organizations to thrive without transgressing the safe boundaries of the earth’s natural systems.  And we don’t have much time. Metabolic advises governments, businesses, and NGOs on how to adapt to a fast-changing global context, while creating disruptive solutions that can dramatically shift how the economy functions. We crunch data, provide strategies and tools, build pilots, and create new ventures that develop scalable solutions to critical problems. Core to achieving our mission is the transition to an economy that is regenerative and ‘circular’ by design.

Metabolic 

OUR MISSION IS TO ACCELERATE THE PRACTICAL AND SCALABLE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

At Circle Economy, we believe in a visionary future for our planet — one in which we do not have to compromise in order to achieve economic, social, and environmental prosperity. As an impact organisation, we connect and empower a global community to create the conditions for systemic transformation. With nature as our mentor, we work alongside businesses, cities and governments to identify opportunities to make the transition to the circular economy, and provide a powerful combination of practical and scalable solutions to turn these opportunities into reality.
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Our mission is to empower a global community of businesses, cities and governments to accelerate the transition to the circular economy through practical and scalable insights and solutions that address humanity’s greatest challenges.

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Circle Economy

The Dutch Green Building Council (DGBC) Foundation is the national social organization that is committed to making the built environment future-proof at a rapid pace. This is necessary, because climate change is moving faster than expected. We can make a difference with our broad supporters from the construction and real estate sector.

DGBC - Dutch Green Building Council

Redevco is an independent, pan-European real estate investment management company specialising in retail property. Our
Foundation aims to support amongst others initiatives that accelerate transformation across the retail real estate industry and
specifically contribute to a carbon neutral sector.

Redevco Foundation

SGS Search inspects, analyses and advises the built environment. By researching the facts and providing practical, feasible advice
and project management for the implementation. We help organisations think and act sustainably. And we share our knowledge
through training. We focus on the specialist areas of asbestos, sustainability, environment, safety, construction quality and energy.

SGS Search

The purpose of this project is to identify and discuss potential policy instruments that can accelerate a transition toward a circular economy in the Nordic construction sector. Sixteen interviews were carried out with actors representing stakeholders from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The objective of a transition toward a circular economy in the construction sector is to maintain, reuse, refurbish and/or recycle resources and materials used in all parts of the value chain. Most of the new policy instruments that the interviewees have suggested have focus on rules and regulation. Only a few of the interviewees focus on economic incentives, agreements or providing supplementary information. The suggested rules and regulations focus on product design and in particular design and demolition of buildings.&nbsp;

Circular Economy in the Nordic Construction Sector - Identification and assessment of potential policy instruments that can accelerate a transition toward a circular economy

Article / Report

This report provides a general framework for circular buildings and proposes concrete strategies and indicators for possible inclusion in BREEAM New Construction and Refurbishment &amp; Fit-Out (NC &amp; RFO). The aim of the report is twofold: to provide stakeholders from government, business and academia with a basic framework to approach circularity in buildings, and to accelerate the transition to a circular built environment by suggesting strategies and indicators for integrations into leading global standards for sustainable buildings like BREEAM. The definitions used in the framework are aligned with the Transition Agenda for circular construction in The Netherlands. The proposed strategies further build on the strategies presented in the recently published Roadmap for Circular Land Tendering as well as on a range of existing frameworks and tools. The suggested indicators are either adaptations of existing indicators in BREEAM RFO and NC, or entirely new indicators. The final list of suggested indicators was created with input from external experts.

A Framework for Circular Buildings - indicators for possible inclusion in BREEAM

Netherlands

This report explores the relevance of the concept of the ‘circular economy’ for the Netherlands’ construction sector, and also the reverse, what the construction sector could contribute to the circular economy in general. In various ‘Green Deals’ and other societal initiatives, the circular economy is the main theme, or at least an important side issue. The Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment (IenM), the commissioning party for this survey, wants to know in particular what the role of the Dutch government should be in the efforts to make the economy in the construction sector circular. As the basis for this report, the frontrunners and sector organisations in the area of circular economy as related to the construction sector were asked to help the government to answer this question.&nbsp;

Circular economy in the Dutch construction sector - A perspective for the market and government

The Circular Construction Economy Transition Agenda describes the strategy for achieving a circular construction economy by 2050 and contains the Agenda for the 2018-2021 period. This Agenda has been drawn up by a transition team made up of experts from the fields of science, the government, and market participants. The Raw Materials Agreement (‘Grondstoffenakkoord’), of January 2017, is the guiding principle for the Circular Construction Economy Transition Agenda. The team continues the work of the Social and Economic Council (SER) focused on a circular economy and the ‘A Circular Economy in the Netherlands in 2050’ (‘Nederland Circulair in 2050’) programme. The Transition Agenda follows ‘De Bouwagenda’ that describes a strategy and approach for reinforcing the construction industry and for making the Netherlands future-proof.

Dutch Circular Construction Economy Transition Agenda

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In this report, the Business and Value Case working group that was part of the Open Learning Environment Circular Bridges and Viaducts in the Netherlands details its findings on four possible circular business models for infrastructure. The four circular business models include:1. Coordination of modular infrastructure by a government agency,2. Buy-back guarantees by infrastructure companies,3. Viaduct As a Service and4. Infrastructure companies and its clients jointly operating in consortia (‘All-in Consortium’).&nbsp;

Circular Infrastructure Business Models

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


Construction and Infrastructure

Ensure renewable, reusable, non-toxic resources are utilised as materials and energy in an efficient way

Prioritise regenerative resources

While resources are in-use, maintain, repair and upgrade them to maximise their lifetime and give them a second life through take back strategies when applicable

Stretch the lifetime

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

Use waste as a resource

Regenerate strategies phase out hazardous or toxic materials and processes and substitute them with regenerative biomass resources. A circular economy aims to mimic natural cycles—by shifting to more regenerative farming practices, for example—while also maximising the share of circular biomass that enters the economy. Regeneration can happen both at the systems level (by designing regenerative processes) as well as at the product level (by switching synthetic to organic fertilisers, for example).

Regenerate

Cycle strategies aim to cycle and reuse materials at their highest value: they maximise the volume of secondary materials re-entering the economy, ultimately minimising the need for virgin material inputs and therefore also narrowing flows. Of course, virgin materials will always be needed to a degree: all materials degrade and can’t be cycled infinitely, use energy, and require blending with virgin materials to maintain strength and functionality.

Cycle

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

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Based on the work of [Bocken et al. (2016)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309699661_Product_design_and_business_model_strategies_for_a_circular_economy), the Four Flows Framework serves as a simple framework for managing resource flows in a circular economy by using less (Narrow), using for longer (Slow), using again (Cycle), and using clean, regenerative materials and energy (Regenerate).

These different principles of circular economy can be applied to our socioeconomic metabolism: we can design stocks like buildings, infrastructure, machinery, and vehicles to be rich resource mines for the future, and design manufactured goods and consumables to be cycled and made regenerative. Furthermore, the focus must also centre on getting more value out of fewer materials. Achieving the aims of a circular economy—minimising material use, regenerating the Earth, and preventing material losses—can be done through these four key strategies mentioned above.

Source: Circle Economy. (2023). *[The circularity gap report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023)* (p.22). Amsterdam: Circle Economy. 

Four Flows Framework

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 Flagship Product Locust beans is an African local food product, a cheap source of proteins, fat, fibre, vitamins and many more. Thinking Nutrients? Think Hiru! 

The Economic Institute for Construction (EIB) is a research agency for applied economic analysis. The EIB carries out research for market parties and the government, both on behalf of and on its own initiative. The EIB provides independent and scientific answers to economic and social questions about the construction and built environment.

The EIB clarifies complex issues. With research and analyzes that substantiate and reinforce (policy) decisions.

Construction companies, employee and industry organizations, supply companies, construction service providers, project developers, housing corporations, financial institutions, knowledge centers for vocational education and municipal, provincial and national governments rely on the numerical insights of the EIB.

EIB - Dutch Economic Institute for Construction

The report (1) identifies materials flows, environmental impact, and energy consumption for the building sector + layout a roadmap for 2030 to make the sector more circular and sustainable, and (2) aims to paint a first picture of the starting situation for residential and commercial construction. The focus is on three pillars: optimal material use at all stages of the construction cycle, as much use as possible of inexhaustible sources with more high-quality reuse, and the efficient use of finite sources.

Material flows, environmental impact and energy consumption in residential and non-residential construction

The report explores the employment impacts of resource efficiency and circular economy policies. Besides the environmental benefits expected from these policies, potential employment benefits are often emphasised, which would follow the anticipated structural changes in the economy from material-intensive to more labour-intensive activities. However, the size of the employment effect is still unclear and difficult to quantify. To date, the quantitative literature on the employment impacts of the circular economy is still scarce.

Labour market consequences of a transition to a circular economy: A review paper

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This collection comes from the <a href="https://www.circle-economy.com/circular-jobs-initiative/" target="_blank">Circular Jobs Initiative</a>, an initiative of Circle Economy.

The workforce is an essential lever for transforming our economy from linear to circular. The Circular Jobs Initiative aims to maximise the employment opportunities offered by the circular economy. It provides practical support and insights to businesses and governments that want to adopt circular strategies that have a positive social impact.The Circular Jobs Initiative works through three focus areas: 

- Upskilling the workforce

- Quality of work

- Inclusive job opportunities 

CJI has defined circular jobs as any occupation that directly involves or indirectly supports one of the strategies of the circular economy. It distinguishes between three types of circular jobs: core, enabling and indirectly circular jobs.

**Core circular jobs** are all jobs that ensure the closure of raw material cycles, including jobs in repair, renewable energy, waste and resource management. 

**‍Enabling circular jobs** are jobs that remove barriers for and enable the acceleration and upscaling of core circular activities, including jobs that arise in leasing, education, design and digital technology. 

**Indirectly circular jobs** are jobs that occur in other sectors that do not play a direct role in furthering the transition to the circular economy but can still adopt circular strategies. They include jobs that provide services to core circular strategies, including jobs in information services, logistics and the public sector.

The Knowledge Hub Collection includes examples of circular jobs, publications, reports, case studies and policies different organisations, governments and businesses are already using to advocate for a person-centred circular economy. 

Visit the <a href="https://www.circle-economy.com/circular-jobs-initiative/" target="_blank">Circular Jobs Initiative</a>

Visit the <a href="http://jobsmonitor.circle-economy.com/" target="_blank">Circular Jobs Monitor</a>

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Circular Jobs Initiative

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The socio-economic structural conditions for the transition towards a circular economy (CE) are little explored, as most of the research is concerned with technical and organizational aspects. The few studies addressing the matter focus on the estimation of GDP growth and job creation potential of certain "circular activities” (CA). These CA are assumed to be labour-intensive, so job losses resulting from the paradigm shift should be offset by the overall gains. However, significant structural differences in the economic characteristics of these activities suggest that their development may have dissimilar socio-economic implications, while their promotion would require diverse policy instruments. This paper aims to study the current sectoral structure, main economic features and recent evolution of the CA in the European Union. The focus is on the 24 activities that, according to the NACE Rev. 2, compose the repair, reuse and recycling sectors, as a limited yet representative subset of all the CA currently bound and constrained within the predominant linear economy. Results show that significant differences in labour intensity exist between repair and reuse, on the one hand, and recycling, on the other. Besides, employment concentrates in low-wage labour-intensive CA, suggesting that more attention should be paid to improving competitiveness and working conditions in activities such as repair and reuse which are by definition both ecological and inclusive. Also, the structural heterogeneity of the activities under analysis imply the need for targeted policy instruments tailored to the specificities of each of the various CE sub-sectors.

How labour-intensive is the circular economy? A policy-orientated structural analysis of the repair, reuse and recycling activities in the European Union

The study explores the job-creation potential of zero waste (a comprehensive approach to waste management that prioritizes waste prevention, re-use, composting, and recycling). Activities focus on waste management, prioritising waste prevention, re-use, composting, and recycling. The scope of the study spans16 countries, representing a wide range of economic and geographic conditions, and shows how zero waste solutions present a path for just recovery that is viable financially, socially, and environmentally.

Zero Waste and Economic Recovery - The Job Creation Potential of Zero Waste Solutions

Over the course of the past few years, circularity has risen markedly on the agenda of the construction sector. An increasing number of companies in different fields, ranging from architecture to building services, are experimenting with circular practices such as reusing discarded building materials, optimizing the adaptive potential of their designs or shifting operations to a service-based economy. At the same time, the urgent need for housing in an increasingly urbanized society is threatening the ambitions of the Dutch government to minimize the use of (critical) resources. To resolve the tension between these opposing objectives requires innovative solutions and sufficient capacity to carry them out. The Circular Skills program, run by the cooperative Leren voor Morgen, aims to contribute to the circular transition of the construction sector by skilling the future workforce through circular vocational training programs.&nbsp; In order to achieve this goal, we must first identify (potential) skill gaps in the circular economy. This report is the first in a series of publications in which we work towards a clear set of skills required to successfully perform circular practices in different occupations in the construction sector. In this report, we identify 7 trends in circular design, construction, development and building services. Based on these outcomes, we will conduct a thorough consultation with leading actors in the Dutch circular construction sector to distill the required skills and capacities from the most important trends.&nbsp;