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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

Policy 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 social fabric of the community and well-being of the individuals and families.

Social Impact

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

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)

Societal Services

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


Construction and Infrastructure

Providing electricity and gas services, including traditional and renewable energy generation, natural and manufactured gas and operating gas networks

Energy Utilities and Independent Power Producers

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

Construction Materials and Products

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

Give products and parts another life after their end-of-use

Maximise lifetime of products after use

Activities to clean, decorate, and restore products back to working condition for original or new purposes

Refurbishment, remanufacturing, renovation

'Manage' influences the use and function of physical and material elements within the urban environment. 

Manage

Infrastructure

Develop regenerative infrastructure

Develop infrastructure to support sustainable lifestyles

Site planning for circular material use

Innovation-oriented public procurement

 Public Procurement

Develop circular criteria for public procurement of assets

Asset Management

Circular use of public-owned assets (land, buildings and equipment)

Develop infrastructure to support resource cycling

These countries are home to around a quarter of the global population, yet consume over one-third (34%) of raw materials. Shift countries’ material footprint per capita is 4.6 times that of Build countries (largely due to the overconsumption of consumer goods imported from Grow counties) and 1.6 times that of Grow countries.

These are high-income countries in the Global North, as well as in the Gulf, Australia, and Oceania. Examples include:
- Member States of the EU
- the US
- Japan
- the UK
- Canada
- Argentina, ...

While much of their infrastructure is already built, they still contribute heavily to the overshoot of planetary boundaries: they contribute 42% of climate change, 27% of nitrogen, 18% of phosphorus, 16% of freshwater use and 38% of land use change.

To find out what country profile your country belongs to, explore [this interactive story](https://circularity-gap.world) and search for your country on the final map.  


Shift

Use longer and more often by extending and intensifying use of existing resources, products, spaces and infrastructure

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Reuse

Incorporate extended use in project planning phases; create or update city policies to allow for extended use.

Design and regulate for extended use

The built environment, including housing, commercial buildings, and the necessary infrastructure for mobility, is essential for our livelihoods, but:
- the extraction of minerals used to produce construction materials is responsible for a quarter of global land use change,
- approximately 40% of global GHG emissions can be attributed to buildings’ construction, use and demolition, and
- construction and demolition processes drive nearly one-third of all material consumption. 

Making the built environment more circular must prioritise a heavy reduction in material use—while also closing the loop on materials and bringing secondary and renewable material choices to the fore. Our four key solutions for the built environment are:
- Make the most of what already exists: Make the most of existing materials by reusing, repurposing, upgrading and renovating following circular approaches. Where new builds are needed, use secondary materials and be as efficient as possible with urban planning solutions that follow circular design principles so that buildings can be reused, repurposed, and easily disassembled in the future.
- Be as energy efficient as possible: From the design phase, utilise circular strategies to create material- and energy efficient buildings. Couple these designs with a rollout of clean energy solutions, and prioritise energy-efficient appliances and retrofitting. 
- Utilise secondary materials: Maximise the high-value reuse of buildings and components where possible. Ideally, enable the utilisation of construction and demolition outputs and ensure that as much of it as possible is recycled to avoid the need for virgin materials, such as sand and gravel.
- Prioritise circular materials and approaches: Transition to using renewable wood, timber or cross-laminated timber instead of steel and concrete, or move to other locally available materials. Utilise mainstream modular construction and prioritise lightweight frames and structures to reduce cement and steel use, as well as green roofs where possible.



🏢 Built Environment

Governments

The demolition of old buildings and construction of new buildings require vast quantities of heavy materials, and significant amounts of energy and water. Where possible, it is preferable to renovate and refurbish an existing building in a circular manner rather than demolishing it to build a new one. Additionally, underutilised and vacant buildings and spaces represent an enormous untapped value, which could be leveraged to finance investments in other areas and revitalise neighbourhoods. This could include ‘meanwhile use’ or ‘intermittent use’ of buildings, which involves making temporarily empty spaces, properties and land available for use as work spaces, pop-up cafes, shops, and more. Such projects help to rethink the design of the surrounding urban space, creating attractive, safe and user-friendly areas, thus revitalising neighbourhood economies and encouraging local retail networks. 

Local governments—along with multidisciplinary teams of finance, human resources, technology, and corporate real estate stakeholders—can identify idle or underutilised spaces and determine their value, and then consider this in relation to current and future requirements of their citizens (for example, shortage of affordable housing or cultural spaces). Measures to address the underuse of buildings and spaces could include flexible zoning plans, economic disincentives for new greenfield developments in favour of refurbishing and manufacturing, as well as piloting projects with public vacant buildings.

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🏢  Make the best use of existing buildings and infrastructure

The built environment, including housing, commercial buildings, and the necessary infrastructure for mobility, is essential for our livelihoods, but:
- the extraction of minerals used to produce construction materials is responsible for a quarter of global land use change,
- approximately 40% of global GHG emissions can be attributed to buildings’ construction, use and demolition, and
- construction and demolition processes drive nearly one-third of all material consumption. 

Making the built environment more circular must prioritise a heavy reduction in material use—while also closing the loop on materials and bringing secondary and renewable material choices to the fore. Our four key solutions for the built environment are:
- Make the most of what already exists: Make the most of existing materials by reusing, repurposing, upgrading and renovating following circular approaches. Where new builds are needed, use secondary materials and be as efficient as possible with urban planning solutions that follow circular design principles so that buildings can be reused, repurposed, and easily disassembled in the future.
- Be as energy efficient as possible: From the design phase, utilise circular strategies to create material- and energy efficient buildings. Couple these designs with a rollout of clean energy solutions, and prioritise energy-efficient appliances and retrofitting. 
- Utilise secondary materials: Maximise the high-value reuse of buildings and components where possible. Ideally, enable the utilisation of construction and demolition outputs and ensure that as much of it as possible is recycled to avoid the need for virgin materials, such as sand and gravel.
- Prioritise circular materials and approaches: Transition to using renewable wood, timber or cross-laminated timber instead of steel and concrete, or move to other locally available materials. Utilise mainstream modular construction and prioritise lightweight frames and structures to reduce cement and steel use, as well as green roofs where possible.


🏢 Built environment

Based on extensive interviews and desk research, this Report aims to show governments and industry leaders that if they want to turn theory into action and scale an economy that delivers on needs within the safe limits of the planet, they need to dismantle harmful entrenched processes and align enabling elements - policy, finance, and people 

- Create a level of policy playing field: Set the ‘rules of the game’ through policies and legal frameworks that incentivise sustainable and circular practices while penalising harmful ones, thereby shaping the nature and scale of economic activities across industries and nations. 



Policy

Slow strategies aim to keep materials in use for as long as possible, for example through design for durability and repairability. A more circular economy is also a slower one: materials, components, and products—and even buildings and infrastructure—that we lock in stocks are made to last. This will lower material demand in the long run, in essence also serving to narrow resource flows.

Slow

Impacts

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Industries

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A framework of policy instruments that enabled and encourage the transition to the circular economy

Policies

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A framework of policy instruments that enable and stimulate the transition to the circular economy

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

The Circular City Actions Framework provides urban changemakers with five complementary strategies they can use to start working towards a more circular system. 

The framework is action-based to provide users with concrete strategic directions and showcase the desired outcomes of each strategy. 
The framework consists of five complementary **strategies**, under which **sub-strategies** provide further detail. Finally, each sub-strategy consists of a diversity of tangible **solutions** which are framed in relation to key thematic areas. 

Note: solutions are currently focused on:
- 🍏 **Food systems**
- 🏢  **Built environment**
- 👕📱  **Consumer goods**
- ⚡ **Energy Systems**
- 🚌 **Mobility Systems**
- 💧 **Water Systems**

More thematic areas are coming soon...

'Click through each of the five strategy cards below to explore the framework and circular economy case studies in more depth!'



This framework was developed in collaboration with ICLEI, Metabolic and Ellen MacArthur Foundation with support from the MAVA Foundation. Read more about it [here]( https://circulars.iclei.org/action-framework/). 



Circular City Actions Framework

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An action-based framework for local governments working towards circular cities

City Stakeholders

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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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        During the 1940s, the city of Detroit was a sought-after address. The post-war economy brought a boon to the city’s thriving auto industry. Swanky neighborhoods such as Boston-Edison and Indian Village were filled with executives and celebrities, and by the 1950s, the city’s population had swelled to more than 1.8 million. A decade later, another cultural renaissance emerged, with the Motown sound topping the charts.
Then along with prosperity, crime and corruption moved in. Over the next few decades, the city’s landscape slowly decayed and more than a million people gradually exited the city, leaving Detroit’s 139 square miles dotted with abandoned houses and shuttered businesses.
But the Motor City didn’t quiet its engines for good. Detroit is in the midst of a major comeback with residents rallying around revitalization efforts that have picked up steam since the city emerged from bankruptcy in December 2014.
One of the first things on the agenda: The removal of 78,000 vacant buildings classified as “blight,” which is any damaged or abandoned building considered a public nuisance because it’s unsafe or attracts illegal activity. So far, the city has torn down nearly 4,000 of these structures and plans to remove 3,300 more by the end of 2015.
Raw planks salvaged by Reclaim Detroit are transformed into a breathtaking café floor. Photo courtesy of Reclaim Detroit.
HIDDEN VALUE IN BLIGHT
Just as one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, blight is considered an asset by proponents of deconstruction, a growing movement that recovers reusable materials from structures instead of simply tearing them down.
Helping remove the eyesore properties are deconstruction leaders like Reclaim Detroit, whose mission is to divert as much building material from landfills as possible. And the process benefits more than the environment. Deconstruction creates jobs for residents who are out of work, and provides training and a stepping stone into careers in construction.
Deconstruction also protects architectural heritage. While demolition can be completed in a few hours, a deconstruction team takes three days to methodically remove and preserve materials such as nails, wood, and windows. But it’s worth the effort.
Reclaim Detroit’s Executive Director Craig Varterian says his organization dismantles 10 to 20 homes per month and is struggling to keep up with demand for the materials: “We’ve got artists, architects, designers, people who are environmentally conscious, people who are rehabbing their homes and have an interest in these design elements, and things just started accelerating,” he said in an interview with USA Today. 
Varterian said Detroit’s blight problem is like thousands of acres of forests sitting inside homes, where floorboards and joists were made of prized timbers such as maple, walnut, hickory, fir, and chestnut. Through deconstruction, this reclaimed lumber can make its way into Detroit restaurants and businesses, where it can be appreciated once again. In fact, most of the wood is stamped with the original address to honor its sense of history.
Now, take a peek at several community businesses that have incorporated deconstruction into their structures.Reclaimed wood brings a warm, homey touch to Great Lakes Coffee Roasting Company. Photo courtesy of Great Lakes Coffee Roasting Company.
GREAT LAKES COFFEE ROASTING COMPANY
When James Cadariu launched Great Lakes Coffee Roasting Company on Woodward Avenue in 2011, he was intrigued by the idea of using old lumber. “This material, this wood they’re saving, it all has a story to tell,” he told USA Today. “It’s so much a part of the city. That’s what I really liked about it.”
Cadariu used the wood to cover floors and walls, and to construct a bar in his coffeehouse. He was pleasantly surprised to learn some of the available wood had been rescued from a home two doors down from his uncle’s house, where he visited as a child. 
STANDARD BARBER COMPANY
Two miles away at Standard Barber Company on Cadillac Square, co-founders Steve Economy and Matt Temkin found it fitting to outfit their old-fashioned business—where you can still get a shoeshine and a razor shave—with old-but-fashionable materials.
Counters were made from marble that had been removed from Newberry Hall, a former residence hall for nurses. And reclaimed lumber was used to build cabinets and floors.
Two James Spirits enhances its old-timey feel with authentic reclaimed wood throughout its interior. Photo courtesy of Two James Spirits.
TWO JAMES SPIRITS
In Corktown, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, Two James Spirits is yet another local business using reclaimed wood in its interiors. David Landrum and Peter Bailey, owners of Detroit’s first licensed distillery since Prohibition, felt the materials fit with the company’s environmentally conscious mission, which includes utilizing a water reclamation system, locally sourcing rye for its whiskey, and donating spent grain to local farmers for compost or animal feed.
The Westin Book Cadillac Detroit Hotel—the tallest hotel in the world at its 1924 completion—stands tall (and glamorous) in its renewed glory. Photo courtesy of Westin Book Cadillac Detroit.
A BRIGHT FUTURE, RISING FROM THE ASHES
These success stories are just the beginning of Detroit’s comeback. (Just look at revamped spots like the Fort Shelby Hotel and the Westin Book Cadillac Detroit for a glamorous reminder.) A renewed energy is attracting entrepreneurs and residents to Motor City once again.
Fittingly, Detroit’s motto is “Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus,” which means “We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes.” Established in 1805 after a fire nearly destroyed the city, these words ring true today. Especially to the 700,000 people who call “The D” home.
If you like this, check out the rest of our series: Changing City Landscapes. We’re chronicling elegant examples of urban adaptive reuse, where cities like New York and Pittsburgh transform dated structures and materials into valuable community spaces. 

 Adaptive reuse can mean a lot of different things, from reinventing an old school building to repurposing shipping containers as homes. At its core, the concept is about repurposing an old building into something new. 
But adaptive reuse differs from renovation in one important way: Not only are buildings transformed, but this second life is drastically different in purpose from the first. Factories are converted into offices, warehouses into shopping markets. And in famous examples like the High Line, old, dilapidated railroads became linear parks that spark a newly revitalized neighborhood. 
Adaptive reuse allows cities to take a second look at old spaces, especially those that are abandoned or located along struggling, industrial waterfronts. It can also be a key way to preserve historic spaces and reduce urban sprawl; why build a new office space or hotel in the suburbs when you could breathe new life into an old structure? 
To see how different spaces are being repurposed in cities across the U.S., we’ve rounded up nine creative adaptive reuse projects. While in no way comprehensive, this list shows the diversity and architectural possibilities that come from repurposing things like old factories, wharfs, and power plants in new ways. 
While we’ve focused on existing projects, we know there are a lot in development (Chicago Main Post Office, we’re looking at you). Have suggestions we should consider? Let us know in the comments. 

Foundation Hotel in Detroit           Built in 1929, this steel-frame, five-story neoclassical building served as the long-time home of Michigan’s oldest fire department. After the fire department moved out in 2013, Aparium Hotel Group redeveloped the structure into a boutique, 100-room hotel. 
The transformation maintained much of the fire department aesthetic while adding salvaged wood and lighting from Detroit businesses. View a photo tour of the transformation over here. 

Seaholm District in Austin, Texas           This multi-use complex boasts residential, office, retail, restaurants, a library, and a hotel, all anchored by Austin’s former electrical power plant. The redevelopment began in 2013 after the Art Deco-styled power plant was dormant for decades, and it’s been a key element in revitalizing a dead spot in Austin’s downtown. 
Transforming the former brownfield site has been a work in progress, but just recently the city’s former Green Water Treatment Plant opened as a much-anticipated Central Library designed by by Lake/Flato and Shepley Bulfinch. Curbed Austin calls it a “a well-executed reinvention and a careful exercise in sustainability.” 

The Steel Yard in Providence, Rhode Island For 100 years, the Providence Iron and Steel Company operated on this section of the Woonasquatucket River in Providence’s “Industrial Valley.” But when the plant closed in 2001, redevelopers transformed the 3.5-acre site’s cranes, rough brick, and metal buildings into an ad hoc community and gathering space for the arts. 
The result is an “urban wild” building that hosts art classes and is used as a fabrication space for area artists. The Steel Yard also works with local artists to design and produce custom-made street furniture—think bike racks, fences, and trashcans—for downtown Providence. 

Concrete Plant Park in New York City           This seven-acre South Bronx spot is located on the Bronx River, “one of the most blighted, abused waterways in the country,” according to the Times. From the late 1940s through 1987, the Transit-Mix Corporation operated a concrete plant on the site, but it wasn’t until 2009 that the abandoned plant—and all its debris and pollution—was rehabilitated into a public park. 
As at Seattle’s Gas Works Park, visitors can see the former concrete equipment alongside a waterfront promenade, chess tables, and bike paths. See more photos of the park, right this way. 
Wonder Bread Factory in Washington, D.C.            From the early 1900s until the 1980s, this building in D.C.’s Shaw neighborhood served as a factory for the iconic Wonder Bread brand. Then the structure sat vacant for almost 20 years before Douglas Development converted the historic building into a four-story, loft-style office development in 2013. 
Much of the building’s style was preserved, including the white crosses seen throughout the building’s facade. The crosses look similar to the American Red Cross logo, and were added to the building to help relieve fears that factory-produced bread might be unsafe after Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle sparked worry that factory food was unsanitary. For a map of Washington, D.C.’s other converted industrial buildings, head over here. 

The Goat Farm Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia            Now functioning as a performance and event venue, the 10-acre Goat Farm Arts Center was created out of 19th-century industrial buildings in Atlanta’s West Midtown area. The facility was originally used to make cotton before being revamped in the World War II to produce ammunition and mortars. 
Today, the space contains exhibition halls, a cafe, an organic farm, an education center, creative studios for artists, and is one of Atlanta’s most notable adaptive reuse renovations in recent years. 

Crescent Park in New Orleans, Louisiana           This 1.4-mile linear park in New Orleans now functions as a picturesque 20 acres of landscaping, paths, and picnic areas, but it wasn’t always that way. 
The city reclaimed the space from two industrial wharves: the Piety Wharf and Mandeville Shed. In addition to the new green space, both wharf structures can now accommodate events and festivals. 

The Green Building in Louisville, Kentucky            Completed in 2008 by the architecture firm (fer) studio, Louisville’s Green Building was a 115-year-old former dry goods store. It now serves as a 10,175-square-foot mixed-use commercial building with a gallery, an event space, offices, and a conference room. 
The building was also the first LEED-certified adaptive reuse project in the state of Kentucky, and has helped to revitalize a newly hip neighborhood now called NuLu, or “New Louisville.”

Seattle Gas Works Park in Seattle, Washington           Sitting on the north shore of Lake Union, Seattle’s Gas Works Park originally operated as a gasification plant from 1906 to 1956. The City of Seattle bought the plant in 1962, hired Seattle landscape architect Richard Haag for the design, and eventually converted the land into a public park in 1975. 
Much of the old plant remains, including structures that now serve as hulking sculptures visible for miles. But the park also repurposed some of the ruins, like a children’s play barn built inside the plant’s former exhauster-compressor building.  

Added: Nov 27, 2020Last edited: Oct 14, 2021The city of Palo Alto has recently created an ordinance that would require large buildings to be deconstructed—rather than demolished—in an effort to curb construction and demolition waste. When buildings are demolished, most components are lost to landfill, significantly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. The new ordinance aims to tackle these emissions by prioritising the reuse, recycling and composting of building components. While the project is in early stages and will not ramp up its requirements until 2023, it has already seen some success, with approximately 25% of buildings currently deconstructed rather than demolished. Further success is likely, based on data from Portland, Oregon, which implemented a similar law in 2016 and has seen marked improvements in air pollution, job creation and waste diversion.The two largest components of landfill waste are food waste and construction and demolition waste—the latter making up more than 40% of landfilled debris in Palo Alto. On a global scale, construction and demolition debris comprises about 19 000 tons of landfill waste each year. Traditional demolition is often the go-to, as it takes on average just a few days, requires only two or three workers, and costs approximately six to ten euros per square foot. Disassembling buildings in a methodical manner, so that the components can be recycled and reused, is a longer, more expensive process: a crew of four to eight workers is needed for up to two weeks, and costs range from 18 to 28 euros per square foot.In response to the massive amount of waste stemming from demolition, the city of Palo Alto will entirely ban construction workers from demolishing buildings, instead requiring them to disassemble structures in the reverse order of construction. Contractors will then complete a ‘salvage survey’, where all materials that can be recycled and reused are clearly listed; components will then be sorted accordingly in blue and green containers, and taken to city-approved recovery stations. This deconstruction will allow for a hierarchy of uses to fall into place, which would prioritise reuse, followed by recycling and composting. A range of materials can almost always be reused: appliances, cabinets, lumber, windows, doors, electric and plumbing fixtures and hardwood flooring. If recovered in good condition, tiles, bricks and wood can often be reused. If blocks or bricks are recovered misshapen, they can still be turned into ‘base rock’ and used as underlayment for roads; similarly, damaged wood can be shredded and composted. Before the new policy was set into motion, the city conducted a pilot, deconstructing a 2 500 square foot city-owned building. The process generated about 184 tons of material. 4% was able to be directly reused, 93% recycled, and only 3% disposed of in landfill. Since 2016, success has grown: a quarter of houses in Palo Alto were deconstructed rather than demolished—the new policy aims to expand this success, eventually diverting 95% of construction waste from landfills by 2030. The city is still in its initial phases of implementation; the policy will have a broader reach in 2022, when it will be applicable to all projects valued over 85 000 euros, and 2023, when that number will decrease by 50%. The programme is projected to help divert 7 930 tonnes of waste annually, reducing the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 22 300 metric tonnes per year. While there have been concerns from stakeholders regarding the market for salvaged building components, the policy has also seen support from construction companies as well as non-profit organisations. 

Seattle

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Municipality of Seattle

<p>Turning abandoned commercial or industrial buildings into public spaces can contribute to reduce the environmental impact of construction and demolition activities, while bringing valuable social benefits.</p>