Leveraging building lifecycle information of existing corporate real estate for Circularity Potential assessment

The Architecture, Engineering, Construction & Owner operator (AECOO) sector is one that is stuck in a take
make-waste economy. This results in the conclusion that circularity ambitions and milestones will not be met,
while new regulations are developed continuously. These facilitate the overall ambition to reduce the impact of
climate change by limiting the global temperature increase to a maximum of 2 Degrees Celsius to pre-industrial
level. The AECOO sector, and its Construction & Demolition Waste (CDW), is a major actor in this ambition with
50% of EU’s resource consumption, 40% of EU’s energy consumption and 35% of EU’s waste generation.
Despite various research strategies that have aimed at coping with the circularity barriers and leveraging the
drivers, research has very limitedly focused on the most impactful existing building stock and its existing Building
Lifecycle Information (BLI). Additionally, recent regulations, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting
Directive (CSRD), is introduced that may substantiate the need for Circularity Metrics (CM). Particularly, the
embodied carbon emissions have been underrepresented in the broader topic of CO2 emissions that lead to global
temperature increase. Aside from this, the operational carbon emissions have received attention and led to the
Renovation Wave strategy that is explicitly named a momentum-creator for embodied carbon emission reductions.
Therefore, this study hypothesized that existing Building Lifecycle Information on existing buildings in corporate
real estate can refine circularity metrics. This is for the sake of Existing Building Sustainable End-of-Lifecycle
management and regulatory compliance on the EU and national level. This hypothesis was tested by exploring the
circularity stakeholders and their prioritized drivers and barriers for circularity. This was done through Expert
Interviews that, additionally, derive the circularity domains that influence the circularity level of buildings.
Consecutively, the datapoints for those domains were listed and assessed on their availability in a Data Availability
Audit across 3 Common Data Environments (CDE). A conceptual framework was created of a spreadsheet-based
tool in which the datapoints and calculation methods were embedded. These have been presented to a 7-expert
Focus Group in which 6 statements regard the domains, calculation methods and interrelations were discussed.
This was the input to create the final Existing Building Circularity Potential (EBCP) tool that has been tested
against the objectives and requirements matrix (ORM) derived from the literature and the Expert Interviews.
The outcomes of this study offer benefits to the corporates owning or renting real estate. It provides them with a
tool that identifies the building elements, their condition and circularity potential. In doing so, it utilizes the already
conducted NEN 2767-1:2019 Condition audits to capture the building characteristics in identifying and valuing
existing building elements. The tool ultimately enables corporates to set follow-up actions as the building lifecycle
milestones like dismantling or renovation approach, after which its circularity potential can be unleashed. These
ultimately facilities sustainable End-of-Lifecycle management and can be reported for regulatory compliance and
social image & recognition.
Also, the study provides value to academics by offering an existing building circularity metric – that is non-existent
so far – that leverages the opportunity of existing lifecycle information availability. Future research can build on
this by estimating existing building element environmental impacts and by empirically testing the Technical
Quality and R-strategy interrelation.