On 23 November CityLoops organised its second Circular Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) Expert Workshop. The workshop addressed the challenges in the value chain for construction and demolition waste and the circular economy, with a special focus on the available instruments and incentives to promote the circular transition.

The participants identified several types of policy interventions which could create incentives for the circular economy, including Green Public Procurement, regulatory instruments (e.g. building regulations or city planning requirements), taxes and subsidies and eco-design and product standards.

There was further discussion on  logistic challenges and the practical implementation of the circular economy in building and demolition. In this context, the CityLoops guidelines for selective demolition were presented. These guidelines build upon the Finnish Pre-Demolition Audit guide (which was in turn inspired by the EU guidelines from 2018) and involve four steps: soft stripping (furniture, installations), cleaning decontamination (removal of hazardous materials), stripping dismantling (direct reuse preparation, removal of recoverable components), and structure demolition.

The workshop, organised by Pernille Kernel of Capital Region Denmark included experts from Miksei Mikkeli Development, the University of Twente, Reusefully and the Belgian Construction Federation. A full list of the City Loops CDW Expert Advisory Board can be found here.

The aim of these workshops is to support the cross-EU collaboration and best practices of the CDW demonstration actions undertaken by CityLoops partners. They take place biannually and engage a group of experts to address key challenges and solutions related to closing the material loop for construction materials and demolitions waste.