The city as circular construction director

Roles for local governments in the circular construction economy

In Europe, the construction sector is responsible for a whopping 50% of total resource usage, 36% of total greenhouse gas emissions, and 30% of waste production. In various Flemish cities and municipalities, there has been a strong growth in ambition in recent years to reduce the environmental impact of construction. Developing and implementing circular construction practices and a circular construction policy will be a key pillar in the transition to a circular economy.

To accelerate this systemic shift, the city of Mechelen explored how local governments can play an active role as circular construction coordinators. This concept doesn't necessarily involve a specific individual, but rather an active process, a mix of policies, and a toolbox of mechanisms that serve as a key for cities and municipalities towards a more sustainable construction practice.

Specifically, we established four pilot cases, spread across different city services that interact directly or indirectly with the construction sector, each involving a focused experiment on circularity. Different tools and themes were addressed in each case, and the city played a different role in each. All of this was monitored and guided by a new staff member specifically dedicated to the theme of circular construction. VUB Architectural Engineering laid out the research structure.

Image: © Caaap

What will the future bring? 

The new staffing capacity enabled by this project is secured until the end of 2025 thanks to new research trajectories. This allows us to continue learning about circular construction and continuously share our findings with other administrations.

A first follow-up project is Demolition Teams, a study on innovative demolition policies as part of the VLAIO Living Labs. Here, as a public client, we will contribute to developing a code of good practice for demolition projects and integrated clientship. Additionally, we are part of various project consortia focusing on urban mining and circular material hubs, such as Bouwmijn and PREUSE.

Furthermore, we focus on implementing the project results across various other city departments, developing an action plan for circular construction, and monitoring circular construction, demolition, and urban development projects.

Finally, in line with previous commitments to reduce our material footprint, we also became the first local government to sign the concrete agreement.